House of Commons Hansard Debates for 20 May 1993

Mr. Giles Radice (Durham, North) : The positive and decisive result of the Danish referendum--which I welcome--has without doubt radically improved the prospects for ratification of the Maastricht treaty. The truth is that the Danish no last June threw the whole EC into turmoil ; another Danish no on Tuesday would

Column 424

certainly have derailed Maastricht and the Bill, even if 10 or possibly even 11 of the 12 member states had joined forces to cobble together a replacement treaty. Thanks to Danish second thoughts, however, Maastricht has survived.

I remain convinced that the Maastricht treaty provides a valuable, indeed essential, framework for the economic, social and political co-operation and integration of the 12 EC countries. Like the Labour party conference, I support the treaty and believe that it should be ratified as soon as possible.

I strongly agree with my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench that the Conservative Government have grossly mishandled the passage of the Bill. It was the Prime Minister himself who specifically linked British progress on the Bill with events in Denmark--first by delaying the Committee stage, and then by saying that Third Reading would not take place until after the Danish referendum. More fundamentally, it was the Government who stifled the emergence of the natural pro-Maastricht majority in the House--thus slowing the Bill's passage--by insisting on the retention of the social chapter opt-out which was negotiated at Maastricht, mainly for internal party-political reasons.

In fact--as was made clear when the Foreign Secretary read out parts of the social chapter--it is a very mild document, which should have caused no alarm to Conservative Members. Everyone knows that, if the Government had been prepared to accept the social chapter, we would have been able to ratify the treaty long ago.

As my hon. Friends have said, the Bill is still incomplete, because it does not contain the social chapter. Even so, I shall be obliged to resist the advice of my right hon. and hon. Friends to abstain in the vote tonight-- although that advice was couched in the gentle and attractive guise of a one-line Whip. As you probably know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am not a natural rebel. Iandoning my European principles. On those occasions, however, I had good reasons. At the time of Second Reading, the Bill did not contain the social chapter ; and, in my view, the vote on the paving debate constituted a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister and his Government. On this occasion, however, I shall vote in favour of Third Reading.

Of course, I understand the position of those on the Front Bench. Abstention maximises Labour party unity and helps to exploit divisions in the Tory party. It also underlines the fact that the Bill still does not contain the social chapter. However, unusually for politicians, my Front- Bench colleagues are underestimating and underselling their own achievements in Committee and on Report. I am not referring to the fact that five out of eight clauses in the Bill are actually Labour amendments, or to the fact that some useful gains have been made with regard to the composition of the Committee of the Regions and economic and institutional accountability. Their most crucial achievement was on the social chapter. The opt-out has always had an uncertain legal and political basis, as any Minister will admit in private. It has always been inherently improbable that two social regimes should

Column 425

continue to exist side by side, one for 11 members and the other for the 12th member. The acceptance of amendment No. 2 on Report made it even more unlikely.

When, after ratification, British trade unionists or French, German or Danish business men challenge the social chapter opt-out in the European Court, as they will, the British Government will not now be able to argue that the social protocol, or rather, the British opt-out from it, is part of British law.

What is more, the Government have accepted that the Act will come into force only after a vote on the social opt-out. That was a victory for the Labour party, which I believe it has not made enough of. But we shall have a vote on the social protocol and the British opt-out only if the Bill is given a Third Reading. If the Bill falls there will be no social protocol vote, and, indeed, no social chapter for anyone, because the Maastricht treaty will not be ratified. I shall vote for Third Reading for all those reasons, and for another, personal reason. I have campaigned in two referendums for a yes vote over the past year--in the French referendum, at the invitation of the French socialists, and in the Danish referendum, at the invitation of the Danish social democrats. Both referendums were won, incidentally.

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Well done, Giles.

Mr. Radice : Fortunately my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) did not go over to Denmark ; otherwise the majority would have been even bigger.

Even with an incomplete Maastricht Bill, it would be inconsistent if, when it came to my turn, I were to abstain. So I shall vote for Third Reading.

7.1 pm

Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : Like my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, I welcome the likelihood that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading despite the bizarre and faintly ridiculous position of the Labour Front-Bench spokesmen, to which the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) is an honourable exception. I do not know how many more exceptions there will be.

I welcome the likelihood of the Bill's securing a Third Reading, not because I regard the Maastricht treaty as perfect in all aspects--it has many faults and problems--but because ratification will clear the way and enable us to get on with our ideas and proposals for developing a Europe to meet the real priorities of the 1990s and of the next millennium, rather than the backward-looking hopes of a previous era. It will enable us to focus on 1996 and to develop the ideas on which the Foreign Secretary has already touched for designing a decentralised Europe resting on the authority and legitimacy of the nation states--a modern design, not an old- fashioned, over-centralised structure.

Ratification will also enable us to get on with the single market, which is far from complete. It may work well for British beer drinkers who visit Calais--in fact, it is working too well in that respect--but in general there are many hurdles yet to be overcome before we can make the great single market yield its full benefit to this country.

I also dare to hope that ratification will provide us with an opportunity to unite the Conservative party. I do not

Column 426

believe that the Euro-rebels should be hated for ever. I regard that as a ridiculous statement, and I see the validity of many of their concerns. Nevertheless, I believe that in putting the Maastricht Bill and the principle--although not the process--of ratification behind us, we have an opportunity for what Enoch Powell once described as the elaboration of a mental map, a map that we can honestly all share about the way in which Europe should develop and the way in which we should operate within it. In approaching that work, we now have the opportunity of a completely new context within which to operate.

Almost every Government have been in severe difficulties within the European Community ; indeed, almost all the democracies have been in difficulties. That is because the context in which they were operating and in which the treaty was drawn up has changed totally. We can now see clearly that we have not a one-speed Europe, nor even a two-speed Europe, but a three or four-speed Europe, with some countries right outside the exchange rate mechanism--including this country, which is coming through the recession--some countries with so-called hard currencies, such as Germany, Belgium and Holland, with Switzerland and Austria outside the Community, and with France hanging on by its eyebrows--those countries are being dragged into the depths of the recession--and other countries that have already had to retreat somewhat within the ERM, such as Spain and Portugal, with Italy now right outside it.

We have a three-speed Europe, within no convergence of any kind taking place. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) said, far from seeing convergence, we are seeing divergence. Not a single country's deficit, or debt as a proportion of GDP, conforms in any way with the Maastricht criteria, and those factors conform less as time goes by. That brings home the fact that the Maastricht architects' high hopes for European monetary union have proved totally impracticable. I do not know of any responsible banker with real insight and wisdom in the whole of Europe who now believes that the proposals and timetable for monetary union in the text of the Maastricht treaty are realistic or will be fulfilled. Worse than that, the existence of the dream of a single currency--a single currency is not at all necessary for a common market, and those who say otherwise are wrong--has turned the ERM and monetary co-operation in Europe into what has seemed like a stepping-stone or glide path to monetary union and the single currency, and that undermines sensible, practical monetary co-operation in Europe. We shall have to return to that sensible, practical co-operation when we have got rid of the fantasy of moving towards a single money and a single monetary policy for the whole of Europe from Lisbon to Berlin, and from Palermo to Glasgow. That is all nonsense, and it is undermining both the single market and the hopes of monetary co-operation in an extremely volatile world.

The context has changed totally in that sense, and it has also changed, as my hon. Friends have reminded the House this afternoon, in the sense that we now have a very high-cost Europe. Even Jacques Delors appears to be in something of a panic as he orders special inquiries to be made into why Europe is pricing itself out of jobs and ruining its competitive structure. Those developments are moving rapidly.

Can we compete, or can Germany compete, with Taiwan and Asia? Not only are labour unit costs in Hong

Column 427

Kong one third of ours, but up the Pearl river from Guangdong province, people are producing not shoddy but high- quality goods at one tenth the labour costs of Hong Kong. To come nearer to home, to eastern Europe, some people say that Poland needs help. However, Polish exports need less and less help. They are extremely high-quality goods and very competitive. Those are the places with which we shall have to compete.

As the more perceptive Opposition Members know, that underlines the absurdity of arguing that we should hold on to the social chapter doctrine at a time when the main need of the European powers, led by the Germans, is somehow to get out from under the whole idea of massive social overheads and uncompetitive labour costs that is undermining the prospect of European growth and employment. That has all changed, and I am glad that my party is on the right wavelength, although the Labour party is on the wrong wavelength.

The priorities with regard to eastern Europe have changed, too. We have completely new, desperately important tasks. We must bring the Visegrad countries into democracy, which they will not achieve otherwise, and we must make some sense of the chaos and disaster that we have made of the Bosnian situation. Europe did the most irresponsible thing that a human being can do ; it brought a child--a new state--into the world and then refused to accept responsibility for it or to do anything to prevent it from being torn into little bits, as is now happening.

Finally, enlargement will take place. There seems to be an illusion that that will not totally change the structure of the Community. The four new countries will make the total 16, with 11 small states and five big ones. There will be 21 Commissioners and a vast new range of Members of the European Parliament. Sixteen people will be sitting round a table designed for six, and there will be 72 language combinations. That will totally change the way in which the Community works. The Maastricht treaty is only a stopping point, an interim measure before we have to move towards totally new procedures and structures, for which a new treaty will be required.

We should now focus on the design for a decentralised Community, and for that we need more accountability. I dislike phraseology about decisions being brought closer to the people. It contains the patronising implication that power somehow comes from above, when it does not. Power goes upwards.

We must make subsidiarity a political procedure. Everyone recognises that it is not a legal but a political procedure. This House will have a vital role to play in ensuring that it is made a political procedure, with our having a say early on in the pre-legislative process. We do heroic work scrutinising the legislation as it comes down from Brussels. But we must get in earlier in the process and ensure that we have an opportunity, pre the legislation, to test whether they are matters about which the Community should be legislating. That is the only way to make subsidiarity work.

An enormous amount of work remains to do done. The Third Reading of the Bill will enable us to put immediate matters behind us--we do not know what is to come--and ensure that we begin focusing on the task of the 1990s to create the kind of Europe we want. Let us be realistic and accept that on the last occasion over Maastricht, Britain was on the defensive from the start. We lost the initiative

Column 428

over the intergovernmental conference and even when we got to Maastricht, although we achieved some heroic exemptions.

If we have confidence, the opportunity exists--if we are not in the mood to cop out and opt out--to seize the initiative in the shaping of the Europe for which there will be another treaty in 1996 and about which the review must begin now. On the last occasion we were on the defensive. If we show initiative now, we can win the race. 7.11pm

Mr. Denzil Davies (Llanelli) : The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) made an important observation when he said that the official Labour party and the trade union movement have at last accepted Europe and the European Community. That is clear and he was right to make the point. Indeed, it is one of the clear impressions to be gained from the debates in Committee and on Report.

There is today at the heart of British economic policy a grand coalition. The occupants of the Labour Front Bench as well as the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties are junior members of that coalition. But members they are, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friends hope that, after the next election, they will be senior members of that coalition. Either way, the coalition will remain, and for the first time since the last war--perhaps in the pre-war era we had a kind of coalition for a short time over the gold standard--we have a fundamental and grand coalition on economic policy.

I also get the impression from the debates in Committee that Ministers have been operating under a delusion, and I say that with particular respect to the Foreign Secretary, who was rather more defensive today. Otherwise, he and other members of the Government have been operating under the delusion that they gained a great victory at Maastricht. They seem to think that they saved the nation state--that they rolled back the frontiers of federalism, challenged centralising tendencies and so enabled the nation state to live again.

I do not see Maastricht as a federal treaty, whether or not the word "federal" appears in it. Federalism implies democracy and I see little concern for democracy in the Maastricht treaty. Indeed, the European political class and the bureaucracy that follows it around is not that interested in democracy.

If one compares the European political class with the American political class, for instance, one detects a totally different attitude towards a fundamental belief in democracy. The European political class wants European integration without democracy. It wants to play with and enjoy the flummeries of the nation state and still transfer the power of the nation state to the central institutions with which it feels it can deal and to which it can have almost sole and unrestricted access.

So what we have from the Maastricht treaty is a Europe of institutions--a directoire of institutions--and of three in particular. They are the court, the Commission and a new institution, which will be the European central bank. The court gets more power. There are more words, there is another treaty and the court becomes more powerful. Should there ever be an ambiguity, absurdity or lack of clarity in the treaty, the court will interpret the relevant words and phrases in accordance with an ever closer

Column 429

union. That has been the case in the past and it is bound to happen again, in the same way as the federal court in the United States has performed precisely that task.

The Commission gains power. The Financial Secretary said during the passage of the Bill that the Commission had always had a general oversight over the the economic policies of member states. But under the Maastricht treaty it gets more than an oversight. Its gets power over the economic policies of member states. The Commission is the institution in the driving seat on the journey towards economic union. The bank is in the driving seat on the journey towards monetary union, which is what the bank is all about.

As I say, we have a directoire of institutions which are ultimately responsible only to themselves, to the treaty and to the words. The three institutions are custodians of the word and, at the end of the day, the word is supreme in the whole set-up. We have been told that in 1996 there will be another intergovernmental conference. According to the treaty, that conference is supposed to make more efficient the institutions of the Community. The result will be more powers for the court, the Commission and the bank.

The British Government believe that somehow, if we bring in five more countries, the centralising progress and power of the Community will be lessened. In fact, the opposite will be the case. Five more countries joining the Council of Ministers will result in an even greater dilution of that democratic arm. Imagine the result with five more countries in the European Parliament. The right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) referred to 78 varieties of language. There will be an assemblage of Babel in the European Parliament. The imperial civil service--the directoire, the three main institutions to which I referred--will become even more powerful. Politicians will come and go and they will not be able to understand each other without the necessary translating equipment. The translations will be terrible and they will have to return to their member states to clarify matters.

With all that going on, the imperial civil service will be in place. It will be there, just as it was in place when it governed India under British rule, as it governed the Austro-Hungarian empire and as the Soviet Communist party governed the Soviet empire. Those developments will strengthen, not weaken, the centralising tendencies of those concerned and of the institutions, all totally undemocratic, of the European union.

I fear that that will lead rapidly towards a common defence and foreign policy. The events in Bosnia and the rift with the United States reveal that the French and those who have argued against NATO have already won the intellectual argument and will move quickly towards a common European defence and common policy, with all its implications for the control of nuclear weapons and so on. There will then be a drive towards economic and monetary union and a single currency.

I do not accept the claim that all that cannot and will not happen. There will be such a drive because the single market is failing. About 17.5 million people are unemployed. Only 60 per cent. of the people of western Europe who are capable of working are at work. About 40 per cent. are economically inactive. In the United States, the figure is 30 per cent. and in Japan it is 25 per cent.

Column 430

As I say, the single market is not working. It is said that it would work if we had a single currency. It is claimed that that is the catalyst we need to make it all come together. I do not believe that it can work. The over-centralised, undemocratic, institutional nature of the Community after Maastricht cannot make Europe competitive with the United States or Japan or make it competitive with what is happening elsewhere in the world, including some of the Asian countries. We are creating a structure that militates against growth and technological development ; it merely creates unemployment.

Labour Front-Bench spokesmen are somewhat confused about a single or common currency. I believe that they agree with it. They also believe that monetary union is possible without monetary convergence. Apparently, with real convergence everything will work--but to have monetary union there must first be monetary convergence. Perhaps they believe that convergence will not be painful, but it will be extremely painful. The only way in which we can arrive at the sort of monetary union required in the treaty is by means of a sharp monetary convergence, as foreseen by those who drafted the treaty. Those of us who have argued against the treaty have been portrayed as sceptics, as fuddy-duddies and as old-fashioned thinkers, by contrast with the modernists, who are in favour of centralising, undemocratic and inflexible institutions. I am not quite sure now who are the modernists and who are the ancien regime. I am beginning to think that those in favour of the treaty are arguing for an ancien regime that will not work. Perhaps we are the modernists and perhaps history will prove us right.

7.20 pm

Mr. Peter Butler (Milton Keynes, North-East) : I am enormously grateful finally to have caught someone's eye to make my maiden speech. I know that the House will afford me the usual courtesies for such an occasion. If I appear to be reading the speech, that is simply because I am. I should like to pay tribute to the taxi driver--anonymous--in whose taxi I left the speech this afternoon and who took the trouble to return it to the House.

It has long been my intention to speak on Third Reading of this Bill, but, optimistically, I had expected that to be some months ago. As the very last of the 1992 intake to speak, I congratulate all my colleagues on their speeches. The pride with which they were delivered was matched by a universal determination to make a better world for the generations that will follow us. The friendship and informed debate exhibited on both sides of the House make it possible to believe that that is achievable.

I intend to follow the traditional form of maiden speech before returning to the importance of the Bill to my constituency. That constituency is the only new and additional seat in this Parliament. Originally it was part of Buckingham and represented by that great socialist, Robert Maxwell--thought then to be the epitome of the modern British Labour party. His name still appears on the boarded-up factories in my constituency, which he bought and then closed down. Inexplicably, he lost in 1970, and for 22 years Bill Benyon represented what became the Milton Keynes constituency. He did so with a courtesy, charm and effectiveness which endeared him to his constituents and a clear sense of duty and principle which endeared him at

Column 431

times to the leadership of his party. He never lost his belief in the future of the new city of Milton Keynes and its success is due in large part to his unstinting efforts, to which I now pay tribute. That tribute was echoed by the Boundary Commission, which found it necessary to create two seats so that two Conservative Members could succeed him.

In Milton Keynes, we boast by far the best built environment in the kingdom. We have more footpaths and bridleways than any other city, 7 million trees and almost as many roundabouts. We also have some concrete cows. But above all we boast of our people. We are a young and purposeful community which cares for its environment, which looks after its elderly and disadvantaged and which demonstrates best practice in many fields of endeavour. We build and plan better, we look after the environment better, we recycle what we can, and we work hard and live well.

Milton Keynes is an harmonious multicultural city with a "can-do" approach to life and business. We prove day after day that new can be good, that enterprise can succeed and that commerce and a caring society can be mutually compatible. Our city motto, by which we live, reads, "By knowledge, design and understanding".

My constituency includes a large part of rural North

Buckinghamshire, with towns and villages which previous generations would still recognise. The Romans started a massive road improvement scheme in the early fourth century to encourage commercial activity in Britain. In my constituency, I am pleased to say, that programme is now nearing completion, with the widening of the M1 motorway. Perhaps the most astonishing continuity arises from the placing of the modern borough council offices--I believe by chance--just 100 yards from the old Saxon mound where the village moots, the earliest form of local government, were held. One thousand years of local people being involved in governing themselves is a proud record. In those days a moot was what we would term an enabling authority. It employed no one at all. Meetings were undoubtedly shorter, but I feel certain that moots must even then have been under Conservative control--as the county of Buckinghamshire remains, uniquely, today. In 1992, Her Majesty the Queen attended the opening of a new ecumenical city church in the constituency and heard, for the first time since the reformation, both Archbishop and Cardinal preach. That was a powerful statement of belief and a welcome to a future of which we in Milton Keynes are not afraid.

To return to today's debate : it will decide whether the country joins Milton Keynes in welcoming the future. I shall try to maintain the tradition of non-contentious maiden speeches. From the vigorous and confident base that I have described, we look outwards to a hostile and dangerous world. Europe is a geographical area and a political conceit, but it is not a monastic retreat cutting us off from uncomfortable truths. As a trading nation we must know that we do not live or compete in Europe : we compete in the world. I have chosen to make my speech today because I believe that we should pause and consider before we vote on the Third Reading of the Maastricht Bill.

Those of us who have listened quietly to the views on each side and who have voted to accept rather than to welcome the treaty have surely earned the right to issue a caution. The sovereignty of our people comes down from

Column 432

history. This country was not invented a century or two ago to settle some long-forgotten imperial argument. Our constitution was not thought up by any invader, or imposed by international tribunal, or by the force of recent insurrection--nor are we accustomed to seeing it torn up and redrawn. My constituents have entrusted me with their sovereignty ; in return, I have supported my Government. If history judges us to have been wrong on this issue, and if the statement that we are citizens only of Europe should turn out to have some legal meaning after all, we shall have destroyed what was not ours to destroy, and given away what we did not own but held only in trust.

We live in a time of historic change. Socialism has collapsed, in Russia and elsewhere, and it does not look too healthy on the Labour Benches. That collapse has spawned desperate conditions for millions, now visible to us for the first time. War and starvation are widespread and not just where the television cameras go. Europeans are killing each other even as we speak.

Through this wasteland of dead beliefs and decaying institutions, it is our duty to force a passage for our country. We can adapt geography to politics and call ourselves Europeans temporarily, but Britain predates and will outlive the idea of a politically united Europe. So what touchstones can we employ? Surely our history and special personality answer that. Wherever we have looked to our own national interest, tolerant of other ideas but ultimately confident in our own identity, we have been successful, based on that tolerance and on the energetic Christian morality of our people.

Milton Keynes attracts investment from overseas, with 271 foreign-based companies choosing it because of the quality of our people, our communications and our lifestyle. We have welcomed 47 Japanese, 98 north American and 125 European companies. This inward investment is recognition that Milton Keynes is a quality place to do business, but it would not attract a single investor without the background of this Government's policies and our place in Europe. I am not prepared to vote today to tell the employers in my constituency that the United Kingdom is closing its doors on international business and on the challenges and opportunities of the future.

I have heard too much about why we need Europe and perhaps too little about why Europe needs us. I believe that it does. Indeed, every true European visionary thinker has started from the basis that Europe cannot succeed without the United Kingdom. Without us, Europe would be incomplete and could never begin to fulfil its true potential.

We have a duty to use our particular genius to act as the dynamo for the development of a free trade, tolerant society of independent nation states co-operating to take our people into the next century. I have no doubt that our national interests and the interests of my constituents are best served by extending our influence in Europe while maintaining our separate role in the world.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently asked for principled support for the Bill. I hope that I have indicated that. Others today will no doubt supply abstentions, principled or otherwise.

I thank the House for its courtesy. If it wishes to extend a similar courtesy to me on another occasion I shall accept. I sit down with a relief which I am confident will be matched by all those who have been kind enough to listen to me today.

Column 433

7.30 pm

Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon) : That was a vintage maiden speech, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. Butler) on it. They say good wine is better for waiting to taste it, and that was certainly true in his case. We look forward to other occasions when we will have a similar opportunity.

We support the Bill ; we supported it on Second Reading and for most of the time during its passage through the House. We have had a couple of reservations about it, but we want it on the statute book and we will be voting for it tonight.

Plaid Cymru Members have been the most consistent of all parties in the House of Commons in our pro-Europe stand. We welcome the implementation of the Maastricht treaty, but we regret that the social chapter will not apply initially to the United Kingdom. I say "initially" because I am convinced that in the fullness of time, and perhaps sooner than many hon. Members believe, it will be necessary for the United Kingdom to accept the social chapter.

I do not believe that it is possible to apply a single market on a fair basis if 11 countries have regard to minimal rights for workers and one tries to gain a competitive advantage by avoiding such responsibilities. I believe that we are in a transient position and that the sooner we accept the social chapter the better it will be for the working people of these islands.

As hon. Members have mentioned, the Third Reading will facilitate a further debate on the social chapter under the provisions of clause 7. Therefore, I find it difficult to understand the attitude of some Opposition Members who are not prepared to support the Bill and will be abstaining on Third Reading. If we do not get the Bill through, the social chapter will not be available for anyone, either here ornderstand the mainstream within the Labour party who have said that they support Europe, have often voted with the most reactionary part of the Conservative party and are now making a principled stand of abstention on Third Reading.

I support the Bill because of the importance of the European dimension for the future of my country. Wales is a European nation. We are a Celtic people. Our language, culture, religion and traditions are all rooted in Europe. Our civilisation is a European one. Wales is an historic nation and a European region, and the new Europe is the positive context within which we believe our identity can flourish in the 21st century.

The treaty is also important in economic terms. To a large extent, the regeneration of the Welsh economy has been built on inward investment. Companies such as Sony, Bosch in Glamorgan and Euro-DPC in my constituency come to Wales because we are part of a European market and the European Community. If we were not, those companies would not be coming to Wales now. Companies considering investing there are holding back because of the uncertainty of our position. The well-being of Wales requires us to be a full, integral and enthusiastic part of the European Community, so, for economic reasons, it is necessary for us to be there.

In terms of the development of Government institutions, it is important for Wales that the treaty makes

Column 434

progress. The political structures of the United Kingdom are obsolete and more decisions are being taken on an European level. The agriculture policy that affects my constituents is being determined in Europe, as are decisions influencing industry and commerce. Decisions on the nature of the unitary markets that are taking over are being taken by the EC, and environmental policies, where one country's industry causes another country's pollution, must be co-ordinated on a European level.

European Standing Committee B on which I serve demonstrates the significance of the growing European dimension for the workload of the House. We need structures that recognise that some decisions can, must and shall be taken on a European level. At the same time, some decisions that are taken here could be taken by the people they affect.

Wales needs direct, strong links to the European Community. There is one tentative step in that direction in the Bill--the creation of the Committee of the Regions. That is a small step in the right direction. I hope that the Committee of the Regions will grow into the second chamber of the European Parliament, a decentralist chamber providing a counterbalance to the centralising tendency that is inevitably part of any first chamber. That would be analogous to the model in Germany today.

It is important that Wales gets three or four seats out of the United Kingdom representation on the Committee of the Regions. We need democratic representatives. There has to be respect for pluralist nature of Welsh politics and it is essential that there is a reporting-back mechanism, that we do not send local councillors to that committee, sitting next to the ex- Prime Minister of Bavaria, without a strong regional base to give those representatives the credibility they need to argue the case.

The Government must let us know quickly about the provisions for setting up the representation on the Committee of the Regions. When the treaty is ratified, nothing will happen on a European level without the Committee of the Regions, because its opinion will be needed even if it does not have a veto.

For Wales to have a real link with European institutions we need more than a couple of councillors on the Committee of the Regions and occasional influence on the Council of Ministers through the Welsh Office. We need links from our own Parliament and representatives on European institutions in our own right. We need to ensure we have the same strength of voice and the same clout as other small nations such as Denmark and Ireland, and Catalonia, or regions such as Bavaria. The Council of Ministers must change, and there has been talk tonight of another treaty. As Europe develops and other nations come in, inevitably the mechanism of the Council of Ministers must change. I realise that Wales is only a small country and that the mechanism by which small countries get an entr ee into the decision-taking process must be different from the way it has developed over the past 20 or 30 years. We will miss out if we have no links whatsoever. The discussions over recent months about subsidiarity have been important, but we must recall that subsidiarity is not just an argument about the relationships between London and Brussels, Paris and Brussels and Rome and Brussels. If it means anything, subsidiarity is about authority, about sovereignty growing from the bottom up, and that can be aggregated on a Welsh level, a Scottish level and an English regional level, as well as a European

Column 435

level. In other words, subsidiarity must be about taking decisions at the appropriate level and as close as possible to the people that they affect.

The treaty is important in terms of creating a united continent. The basis of the original EEC was to avoid France and Germany ever again going to war in the way they have twice this century, at a cost to all of us in Europe. People say that could never happen again, but we need only to look at Bosnia and Yugoslavia to see that it could happen again. As a basis for peace, we need to safeguard a united Europe, built around the structures that we have developed over recent years.

If we want other nations to join--the Scandinavian countries, Austria and eventually the eastern European countries--that structure must be based on maintaining the peace that is so essential. The Father of the House spoke of the need for us to make friends, and that must be a central consideration. The treaty is a step on that road. It is a step towards getting the sort of structure that can give the small, historic nations and small regions of Europe a direct voice within the decision-taking mechanisms. For that reason, we shall support Third Reading.

7.40 pm

Mr. Michael Carttiss (Great Yarmouth) : I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. Butler) on a superb maiden speech and one with which I am happy to express general agreement, although I may be going a bit further when I walk into the no Lobby against the Government, with no fear of the Prime Minister, this time, having any reason to ask me to change sides at the last second.

Watching the television version of Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" at the weekend, I was reminded of a comment that is true under all political regimes, and not just that in the reign of King Henry VIII--that to be different from everyone else is not easy. Sir Thomas More, a former Speaker and then Lord Chancellor, was talking to his son-in-law, Roper, who replied, "To be different is not necessarily to be right." Who is different and who is right about the Maastricht treaty is a good question.

As one of the so-called Euro-sceptics who will be voting against Third Reading, I am in the Sir Thomas More tendency of being different from the majority in the Chamber. That does not necessarily mean that I am right, but then the Government are different from the majority of the citizens of the United Kingdom in wanting the treaty ratified. The fact that the Government and their supporters are a minority on the issue does not make them necessarily right, either. The fact that the United Kingdom Government, alone in the European Community, promote the Maastricht treaty as a decentralisation agreement--a significant check on federalism--does not make them necessarily right in that interpretation, either.

One searches in vain, except perhaps in Denmark, for anyone, other than my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench, who really thinks that Maastricht is anything other than a move towards closer integration for the European Community. The Belgian Prime Minister, to whom my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has referred, dismissed that view, and he is the man who will be presiding over the Council of Ministers for the next six months from June. He made clear his commitment to using the Maastricht treaty as a stepping stone to a more

Column 436

federal Europe. That approach was endorsed by the Luxembourg Foreign Minister and by Ruud Lubbers, the former Dutch Foreign Minister, who recently landed himself the well-paid job of European Commissioner for External Affairs.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is a veritable Sir Thomas More in being in a minority among the European Heads of Governments in imagining that he has achieved a decentralising, anti-federalist Europe agreement. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) has never been under any illusions about that ; nor has he ever sought to obscure his objectives for the European Community and our country's position within it. He made that crystal clear in a fine speech today.

While I disagree profoundly with my right hon. Friend's view, I respect the sincerity and honesty with which he has always expressed it and I do not call into question his patriotism or that of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench and elsewhere who want to submerge the United Kingdom within a closely integrated European Community, eventually having all the trappings of a unified state such as a common currency--a subject on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup dilated again-- and centralised control of financial and taxation policies throughout the member states.

It is to my right hon. Friend's shame that he appears unable to extend the same respect to those who disagree with him. At the weekend, he was heard to utter an extraordinary judgment on those of us who have a genuine concern about the Bill and the treaty that it is intended to implement. I heard him say on the radio, and it was repeated the next day in the Daily Mail,

"These people--

meaning those of us opposed to Maastricht--

are going to be hated for all time. Think what they have done to our party."

No hon. Member knows more about being hated than my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup. He also said, as many Conservative Members have so often said, that we fought the general election on a manifesto that included the Maastricht treaty as central to our policies, and we have no business voting against it now. He even said that we had not stated our objections at the general election.

Long before the general election, and during the campaign, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Ryder) who represents the constituency neighbouring mine, will know--I am delighted to see him here in the guise of Chief Whip, and I am moderating some of the nasty things that I have said because I need his friendship--I made it clear that I could not vote for the Maastricht treaty until the British people had been consulted in a referendum.

In 1987, in common with my right hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Norfolk, for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) and for Old Bexley and Sidcup, I had in my election manifesto a commitment to replace the household rating system, a property-based tax, with a flat-rate community charge. That pledge was carried when we passed the Local Government (Finance) Act 1988. That did not stop the Conservative Government going back on the manifesto pledge and bringing in, through the council tax, a

Column 437

property-based tax to help finance local government. That was the complete opposite of the pledge on which they fought the 1987 general election.

How dare those people say to me--I have been consistent on the issue--that I am not fulfilling my obligations to my electorate when I continue to warn them that the Maastricht treaty is not all it is cracked up to be? Everybody else in Europe can see that, but not those on the two Front Benches.

Those on the Opposition Front Bench have failed to fulfil their constitutional responsibility to oppose the Government. What a fiddle- faddle--I cannot think of the right word--what a load of nonsense--a rude word has come into my mind, one that we use in Norfolk, but that would not be appropriate in the House.

The Leader of the Opposition said yesterday that we should have a referendum on the system of voting for Members of Parliament, but he does not believe that we should have a referendum on a fundamental change in our constitutional position, as a Parliament, vis-a-vis the European Parliament. It will not matter two hoots in five years' time how we elect Members to this Parliament, because we shall give away most of the powers that they have had in Milton Keynes and Great Yarmouth for centuries. One might just as well ask the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup to appoint all of us, as he used to do when he was leader of the Conservative party so as to ensure that only those who took his view ever got selected in the first place. Watching the clock, and being conscious of the fact that I must finish by the end of my 10 minutes, I want to draw attention to a small example of how we have been misled, when the people of other European countries have not been misled. An article in The House Magazine quoted Karel De Gucht--I am not very good at pronouncing his name, but nobody pronounces mine properly so it does not matter. He was reported as pointing out :

"after the Maastricht Treaty has been ratified the parliament" that is, the European Parliament--

"will be a genuine legislative body."

He commented :

"Maybe it is helpful for this government to get the treaty through if they don't tell this to the people."

The Government have refused to tell the people. We should have a referendum and I urge the House of Lords to give us that opportunity. The other place will not be taking a constitutional decision, but it could give us the opportunity to think again. The function of the House of Lords is to let this great place come to a second decision, to reconsider the need for a referendum that will let the people of Britain decide on their future.

7.50 pm

Next Section

Home Page