House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Jul 1993

Mr. Skinner : We do not like it.

Sir Edward Heath : I know that the hon. Gentleman does not like it, but, thank God, his view is not characteristic of the British people. Once Maastricht is settled, we can devote ourselves, as busily and as energetically as we can, to dealing not only with Maastricht but with all the activities of the Community. That is badly needed by everyone in the country.

I come now to my major point. I have not dealt in any detail with those two points because they are not the matter at issue in the debate or in the Divisions that are to come. It has been said today that last night showed that there was a complete majority for the social chapter. That was not the case at all. The vote on the social chapter was either decided on a tie or lost by one vote. As is well known, Conservative Members who are completely opposed to it voted in favour of the motion.

Mr. Skinner : What difference does that make to the vote?

Sir Edward Heath : There is a difference, to which I am coming. We must not mislead ourselves or Europe by saying that, because of the vote, there is a complete majority in the House for the social chapter. People in Europe know perfectly well what the situation was. Today, we face one issue, and one issue only--the survival of the Conservative Government. That is what the vote will be about. I hope that all my right hon. and hon. Friends will recognise that that is the issue. It is no longer a question of the social chapter or the treaty itself. The treaty is enacted and will come into force as soon as the House takes the decision about the social chapter. My right hon. and hon. Friends who have fought this battle all the way through hold their position. They are against the social chapter, and that is what the vote will be about today. How, then, can they possibly cross the Floor and vote in favour of it, thereby helping to defeat their Government? I do not believe that that can happen. We hear talk about democracy, but it is not democracy if a small group defies and brings to nothing the major

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decisions taken by the House on Second Reading and again on Third Reading. Those were democratic decisions. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends recognise that.

We hear talk of principles. How can it be in accordance with one's principles to vote with the Opposition in favour of something to which one is, on principle, absolutely opposed? How can that possibly be right? It cannot be sustained for one moment.

The vote today concerns the future of the Conservative Government and of our party, and my right hon. and hon. Friends must support the Prime Minister and the Government. I have been a member of the Conservative party for almost 60 years, through good times and bad times, in government and out of government. I believe profoundly and passionately in it. I do not want it or our Government to be brought to an end by a small minority in our parliamentary party. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) that he sets an example. When we negotiated entry to Europe, he was a member of my Government. When we decided to enter, he resigned. That was honourable. When the legislaiton had passed through both Houses and the treaty was signed, I invited him to come back to my Government, and he did so. That, too, was honourable. He had lost the battle and he accepted it. I have always respected him for that. I suggest to him and others of my hon. Friends who have fought the battle that the same course should be pursued on this occasion. They have lost the battle and they should now show that they accept the decision, vote with the Government, support the Prime Minister and support the party. I ask and urge them to do so. 3.11 pm

Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Leeds, South : I shall be brief as I want to make only one major point, which I shall illustrate from experience. I have no confidence in the Government and I believe that the mess from which they are trying to extract themselves is a mess of their own creation because of the way that they have chosen to handle the social protocol.

The Government originally chose to treat the social chapter in a way that would gain the support of the nationalists in their party and bring them on stream. That backfired. Now, people are confused about the social chapter and many falsely believe that it will cost jobs. Had the Prime Minister listened to the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) and the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) when they spoke of the social chapter, he would have realised that an alternative position was available. He could have accepted and supported the social chapter and persuaded the country to recognise that it could be used to benefit employment in Britain. I shall illustrate that assertion from my experience of 12 years as the chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside Development Association, an organisation financially supported by Government. Throughout those 12 years I spent a great deal of time working with Conservative Members at the Department of Trade and Industry in an attempt to win Japanese inward investment. Over those years I made many visits to Japan and I dealt with many Japanese companies. I was rewarded by a number of those companies coming to Yorkshire and Humberside, notably Citizen, Pioneer and Koyo Sieko--companies that have

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created substantial employment. Despite meeting representatives from many Japanese companies over the years, no one has ever asked me about a social contract, the details of the social chapter or the way in which it would affect the way that those companies worked in this country. Time and again, I was asked about Britain's membership of the Community and, knowing that I was a Labour Member of Parliament, about the certainty of our continued membership and therefore the security of those companies' investment in this country. Community membership matters to those companies, not the precise terms of the social chapter.

Those Japanese companies have created for their employees conditions that are vastly superior to those that would be determined by the social chapter. When it comes to health and safety at work, employee information and productivity--which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim)--Japanese industrialists make clear to their work forces in this country what are their productivity targets and achievements. The three major Japanese companies in Yorkshire and on Humberside all provide proper working conditions and employee information, and they consider health and safety a priority.

To believe that the social chapter would turn away Japanese inward investment is to misunderstand the relationship between a Japanese company and its work force. We may regard that relationship as somewhat paternalistic, but the Japanese insist on effective trade union representation. They demand to deal with only one trade union, but they want conditions spelt out and believe in rewarding their work force. Japanese employers do not make the distinction between management and employees that is to be found in many British companies, and Japanese companies will continue to be successful for that reason.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) : What does the hon. Gentleman have to say to the companies that say that they could not afford the costs of implementing the social chapter?

Mr. Gunnell : If the Prime Minister took the view that the social chapter was a positive innovation in ensuring proper health and safety and working conditions, and equality of employment for men and women, and was something for which he should strive for the good of the economy, the fear of the social chapter that exists among industrialists would be dispelled. The comments made by Conservative Members sitting below the Gangway and by other right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House should encourage the public to recognise the chapter's positive advantages.

My experience of inward investment goes beyond Japanese companies. The social chapter is not a barrier of any kind to inward investment. The Conservatives went wrong in the way that the Prime Minister chose to use the social chapter issue to unite those on the right of his party. That backfired, and the right hon. Gentleman is left with the difficulties that confront him today.

Courage is needed to accept the social chapter and to ensure that Britain moves forward, to enjoy increased and full employment, and is a country in which there are optimum working and health and safety conditions and equality of employment. The opportunity lost to the

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Government is represented by the lack of confidence in the way in which they are led and in which they lead the country.

3.19 pm

Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton) : Initially, I felt slightly uncomfortable about speaking in this debate in this immensely important position, but I have been able to diagnose the problem : it is, I think, the first time in 10 years that I have spoken in daylight, and that is probably only because my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has laryngitis.

As many right hon. and hon. Members of all parties have said, this has been a unique debate. The circumstances that have led up to it and the circumstances that provoked it yesterday have all been unique, certainly in my parliamentary lifetime. In many ways, the two debates have lived up to the character and importance of the subject matter.

The debate still arises out of section 7 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 and the House's decision that a final vote would be taken on whether this country would opt in to the part of the Maastricht treaty from which the Government had opted us out. It is to be the only opportunity for the House to make that decision. The debate then became about the rights of Parliament and whether the view of the House, as it would have been expressed if the amendment had been carried last night, was, in terms of its strict instructions to the Government and ratification of the treaty on European union, to be carried out and whether the will of the House was to be obeyed or defied by the Government. That was and remains a most important, serious and even fundamental issue.

The Government's implied threat--they got as close to it as they possibly could--that they would have defied the will of the elected House of Commons can now unfortunately be tested only if right hon. and hon. Members vote for the Opposition's amendment this afternoon. It is still the same amendment ; it still offers exactly the same opportunities. Some of those who believe in parliamentary sovereignty and campaigned against the Maastricht treaty have done so only on the basis of a belief in, and what they call a cherishing of, parliamentary sovereignty. They should perhaps take this opportunity to see whether the leadership of their party believes in parliamentary sovereignty as much as they and the British people do. The debate has gone beyond all that and is now an issue of confidence in the Government. If the Government lose this afternoon, the Prime Minister says that the Queen will be asked to dissolve Parliament and call an election. Let me tell the Prime Minister, or his surrogates as he is absent, that I can say with some force that millions and millions of people who are listening to and watching our debate will be of one mind and will have one message for the Conservative party : let us have an election ; vote for an election. Of course, the Government's claim is only a ploy, a dangerous, over-the-top, desperate ploy to push through a policy when the Prime Minister has lost the argument, lost the case, lost his majority, lost authority and now, visibly, lost his nerve too. One of the elements of this

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unique set of debates has been the sight of scrambling contenders for a throne that is already seen to be grotesquely unsafe. The serious question with which the Prime Minister must deal, because he did not do so in his two speeches, is what precisely he is telling his party and the country. What are these confused signals supposed to mean?

"I am the greatest Euro-sceptic of all"

said the Prime Minister to the Tory party conference, yet he is the man who is

"at the heart of Europe".

Those who are still sceptical and harbour doubts--I know that they are in the Chamber this afternoon--should read carefully the words of the Prime Minister yesterday in praise of Europe, of a deepening of Europe and of being a part of Europe, and then wonder what they will be voting for and what the Prime Minister's victory will be deployed as when he achieves the result that, specuation has it, he will achieve.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the only Minister who said, "We will never sign the social chapter." He was dismissed. Who knows whether he was dismissed for saying that? The Foreign Secretary has not said it. We invited him to say exactly that in numerous debates, but at no stage would he put his authority behind such a statement. There is one lesson that those who are experts on the railways will give to the Prime Minister, a lesson that would have come well from the former Member of Parliament for Christchurch, Mr. Robert Adley : if we give mixed signals, the train can come off the track. That is precisely the danger and the problem that faced the Prime Minister. Some of us wondered why the Foreign Secretary did not speak in last night's debate. There was a mystery there. The Foreign Secretary is a man who writes mystery books as a reserve second profession, guarding against the prospect of retirement or dismissal from the Cabinet. We thought that because the names "Hurd" and "Hunt" are similar, a word processor error had led to the Secretary of State for Employment winding up last night's debate.

Then we thought--this was extremely generous of my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland--that the reason might be that the Foreign Secretary was a man of honour. In the debate on 22 April he said : "We have no difficulty in accepting the challenge with which the proposers of new clause 74 present us. It is reasonable that the House should want the opportunity to vote on the principle of the social protocol. New clause 74, which we are debating today, offers such an opportunity."--[ Official Report, 22 April 1993 ; Vol. 223, c. 548-49.]

We had some expectation that honour would triumph and that, as the only Minister who had been willing to say that he would obey the will of Parliament, he had perhaps disqualified himself, but I fear that now we know the truth. The senior fireman has been deployed because the Government knew all along that they would lose yesterday, so he had to be kept in reserve.

In the course of the Foreign Secretary's other occupation, he occasionally allows his inner feelings to be revealed. [Hon. Members :-- "Come on!"] Those inner feelings are of considerable importance. In his last book-- [Interruption.] I ask the House to listen carefully--the Foreign Secretary-- [Interruption.] We can tell a lot about

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the Conservatives and how uncomfortable they are because of the situation in which they find themselves. [Interruption.] They should listen. In his last novel "The Palace of Enchantment" the Foreign Secretary described the career of a disillusioned Foreign Office Minister who had fallen out with his Prime Minister, his wife and his constituents. The Minister went to Africa. "Edward abstracted himself", the book says. It adds :

"He had a speech typed fair in front of him, produced by Sally in a neat folder from the depths of her despatch case He put nothing of himself into it."

[Interruption.] They do not want to listen. The author went on : "A hopeless little fraud of a speech, but all that was possible on the present policy. Sir Reginald Anson had been right in saying it was not an occasion for a minister."

We now know why the Government deployed the Foreign Secretary--the chief salesman of the unacceptable--to try to tidy up the mess that was created behind him.

This debate is still about the social chapter. The Prime Minister devoted a substantial chunk of his speech to the issue of the social chapter, little daring to trespass on the other record of the Government that might be on trial in the debate. The social chapter, to many hon. Members and to many outside the House, is the defining difference between the political parties represented in the House--an attitude that says, "We shall compete at the cheapest, lowest quality end of any market and not at the high-quality, high-price end, on which all of our competitors in western Europe have built their prosperity." The vote is not just about confidence in the Government ; it is about confidence in the attitude of a Government.

Mr. Alan Howarth (Stratford-on-Avon) : The hon. Gentleman should understand that Conservative Members care every bit as much as he does about investing in the quality and future of our labour force, which is why we have made such a priority of the expansion of further and higher education. Will he explain why the Labour party wants to transfer responsibility for social and employment policy from the Government to Brussels ? Is it because, whatever veneer of reform may be applied to the Labour party, he and his hon. Friends despair of its ever being returned to Government ?

Mr. Robertson : The hon. Gentleman must answer this : why do the Germans, who have a right-wing Government, and the French, who now have a right-wing Government, still believe that it is important to have a level playing field not only for business but for people ? Perhaps if the Government had invested in people, education, training and higher education in the past 14 years, we would not be sitting here looking at others' record of success compared with our miserable record of failure.

I remind the House that the vote on the social chapter was not offered willingly. The debate was not offered to the House by a democrat Prime Minister who wants to ensure that the House endorses the centre point of the triumph of diplomacy for which he was responsible. No, the vote was squeezed out of a reluctant Government who, throughout the ratification process, have dodged any vote on the social chapter and any opportunity that would allow the House to make a decision on that in which the Prime Minister, and perhaps occasionally the Foreign Secretary, believes.

The debate was conceded under duress, but the Government, who did not want a vote, and who would have avoided a vote, still tell us that this is an

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inconvenience to Parliament. They had the effrontery to tell the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) yesterday that by voting against a motion that endorsed the Government's policy on the opt out he was, and we all were, voting against ratification of the Maastricht treaty. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Foreign Secretary told us that he welcomed the challenge and the opportunity of the vote, and he must bear the burden of responsibility for the fact that he was able to get a majority for his policy only by a squalid deal with some political parties on the Opposition side of the House that chose to support him yesterday evening. Eventually, history will tell us what the deal was that persuaded the Ulster Unionist party to move across the House, and history will judge those who participated in it on both sides, because I am sure that there are still many chickens to come home to roost.

That procedure was only the culmination of a long process of dithering during the ratification of the Maastricht treaty. There was the opt out, way back in December 1991, when even the Prime Minister's political friends among the Christian Democratic Heads of Government were critical. In the few days after the Maastricht treaty was signed, Mr. Wilfried Martens, the head of the Christian Democratic Heads of Government, said that he specifically criticised Mr. John Major for having

"taken a negative position at Maastricht concerning EUROPEAN political union, and more particularly concerning the social charter".

The chairman of the Conservative party wrote to the husband of one of my hon. Friends to canvass for funds for the Conservative party. The letter stated :

"Britain's place in the world is now safeguarded. The key negotiations in Europe and beyond are being carried out by a proven and admired team."

The punchline, presumably designed to deliver the cheque, stated : "British interests are in safe hands."

We then had the paving debate. I have a certain sense of de ja vu now--the paving debate involved a completely unnecessary motion which was originally to be a motion of confidence, then it was not, then it was, then it was not, and ultimately it was deemed to be a motion of confidence. In Committee, the Bill was under the custodianship of a Minister who had resigned before discussions on it began in the House, presumably to stop us demanding his resignation every time he blundered--there were plenty of occasions when we could and should have done so. The process has involved defeats, surrenders and retreats--all followed by today's debate and last night's debacle. We now have an Act of Parliament on the statute book, two thirds of which is written by the Labour party, and all the better for it as it strengthens it.

The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said that the public have not understood the procedures that we have deployed. The Labour party set out with two objectives : to ensure that an important treaty was given appropriate coverage and detailed scrutiny in the House of Commons and secondly, to obtain the social chapter for the people of Britain. The Conservative party cannot continue to wriggle away from its responsibilities. They are alone in Europe as the only political party, other than the French National Front and the neo-nazi Republican party in Germany, to oppose the social chapter.

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Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson : No, I shall not give way.

I was responsible for coining the expression, ticking bomb. When I did so nobody could have contemplated that the bomb would go off and leave egg all over the faces of Her Majesty's Government. The Government may well win today because of the threats that have been made. No greater threat can be made than that of collective mass suicide and the withdrawal of the Whip from individual Conservative Members. But those Conservative Members who still have their doubts will still have to live with their consciences when the vote is interpreted tomorrow as a vote for the Prime Minister's European policy. Those hon. Members sitting below the Gangway and slumbering away at the end of our great debate who have been in favour of the social chapter all along, will also have to live with their consciences if they vote against the Labour amendment which presents the only opportunity in the near future for the people of this country to obtain the social chapter.

I hope that there are still those who have sufficient qualms about what they are being asked to do, sufficient spirit and principle and sufficient of the bravery shown by so many hon. Members last night, to stand up for what they believe.

We care deeply for our country and that is why we feel such despair and such disappointment when we see how the Government and the Prime Minister do their business in Europe. The Prime Minister acknowledged that yesterday among his many contradictory signals. It is remarkable that, as the winding -up speeches take place in a confidence debate, the Prime Minister is still not in his place. One wonders whether he is still trying to stitch together yet another deal to save his skin at the end of this afternoon. It is not only wrong, but a discourtesy to the House that he is not here at this point.

In Europe where we live, where we work, where we trade, where we bargain, where we buy and where we sell, we must have a Government who represent the British people. Whether one likes Europe or hates it--there are many on both sides of the argument here--it is where we shall thrive or perish as an economy and as a proud nation. To render us powerless and marginalised has been the hallmark of this Conservative Government, who are always suspected and who are only grudgingly accepted as a partner. Government policy satisfies neither those who hate the Community nor those who love the European neighbourhood in which we are forced to live.

We have ambitions for our country and for its people. We want them to walk tall again in our country in a prosperous Europe. We are confident about Britain's place and Britain's case. We do not share the Tories' miserable lack of confidence. They predicate every negotiation with failure, and every initiative with no chance of amendment, and they see every measure as a threat to the British way of life.

We want our country to lead in Europe and not constantly to lag in the rear. We want to see our country initiating, not preventing, building, not wrecking, and setting the agenda in Europe, not kicking over the tables. We want this country to set the pace for co-operation in Europe. We want our country to get the best of Europe. We are ambitious for Britain and for Britain in Europe.

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We invite all Conservative Members, wherever they are, who share that vision and that ambition to join us in the Division Lobby this afternoon.

3.41 pm

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd) : Before he started on his rather lengthy peroration, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) made some remarks about the winding-up speech last night. It is not entirely bizarre that a debate on employment law and practice should be wound up by the Secretary of State for Employment.

This is the last speech--[ Hon. Members :-- "Hear, hear."] This is the last speech in the last debate on the ratification of the Maastricht treaty. [ Hon. Members :-- "Hear, hear."] I was fairly sure of applause for that proposition at least. After months of negotiation and months of debate, the discussion is coming to a close.

I was a little surprised, after this long exercise in parliamentary democracy, to hear the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) talk about the death of democracy. At the end of the day, it is not the Queen, not the Government, not the House of Lords, not Mr. Delors and not the electorate in France or in Denmark who have decided this matter on behalf of this country. It is the House of Commons. We have done the job that we have been sent here by our constituents to do, and I do not think that we should be ashamed of that fact. At last, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup said, the treaty has been passed. It has been signed by the Queen and is part of the law, subject to section 7, which it contained. Last night, the House did not manage to conclude that matter. Once again, by a majority--although only a majority of one--the House refused to endorse the social chapter. The minority included many who disapprove of the social chapter. The Prime Minister and the Government decided that we should not let this matter drift through the summer recess. We decided that we needed to ask the House to resolve it today and that not only the authority of the Government but the reputation of Parliament depended on our doing that. The basic political difficulty has remained the same throughout. It was evident on Second Reading and it was evident yesterday. Yesterday's debate showed a strong majority in favour of the treaty, as has every major vote, and reflected the Labour party's consistent efforts to force through the social chapter. The Opposition want a socialist Europe and, when push comes to shove, the socialism is more important than the Europe. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have disliked the treaty so much that they have been prepared to back the social chapter in the hope that, by doing so, they could defeat the treaty. That hope has gradually faded. It shrivelled yesterday and it is dead today. I shall return to that just before I conclude.

Mr. Dalyell : Will the Foriegn Secretary give way?

Mr. Hurd : No, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman overran his time and did not give way. [ Hon. Members :-- "He did."] I am sorry ; in that case, I give way to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell).

Mr. Dalyell : What serious answer does the Foreign Secretary give to the question posed first by the Leader of

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the Opposition and then by a number of the rest of us? Why, if we need to be "in the same room"--to use my right hon. and learned Friend's phrase--on the rest of European policy, should we suffer by being out of that room and not on the inside track in relation to the social chapter?

Mr. Hurd : That was precisely the point to which I was about to come. The comments of the Leader of the Opposition were echoed, as so often, by thlieve that we should be at the heart of the argument in Europe on those matters that the Community needs to discuss and to decide. The Leader of the Opposition implied that that doctrine should be extended and that every domestic matter should be discussed and decided by the Community. [ Hon. Members :-- "No."] Yes, indeed. We believe--and this is the difference between us--that conditions of work, firm by firm and industry by industry, are best decided in this country, and by employers and employees according to their circumstances, and not laid down, perhaps by qualified majority voting, in Brussels, as would happen under the social chapter. That is the difference between us, which was analysed in an exceptional speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim), who gave a very perceptive account of how modern management views these matters. I need not repeat what my hon. Friend said.

Many Opposition Members seem to think that all that counts is to have the same degree of social protection throughout Europe. It does not seem that the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) has heard of Asia or Japan or the United States. He does not seem to be aware of the growing concern in Europe about the lack of competitiveness in Europe. It is perfectly true that the debate was slow to start, that employers in Europe were slow to latch on to it and that it has been slow to spread--it has not reached the Labour party yet. An intense debate is going on throughout business circles about how to bring to an end the decrease in the competitiveness of Europe. It has certainly reached the European Community and it has certainly reached Mr. Delors.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I listened to a fascinating analysis by Mr. Delors at the last European summit on precisely this matter. We did not agree with his prescriptions. However, the Opposition would benefit greatly from a little session with him on his analysis to learn how, measurement by measurement and statistic by statistic, Europe has been falling behind in competitiveness over recent years.

The Leader of the Opposition needs a little more information about a boomerang. He accused my right hon. Friend of choosing one. A boomerang, properly employed, stuns its target and then returns shrewdly into the hands of its thrower. It is quite a handy weapon, as we see, indeed, today.

The leader of the Liberal Democratic party chided my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for giving two different messages on the same subject. The theme of that, and who said it, simply lead me to say, "Wow." That from a man who, in almost the same speech, advocates both the reinforcement and the withdrawal of our forces in Bosnia. When it is a matter of deciding which naval base should

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refit Trident, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has a very simple choice : Liberals in Scotland back Rosyth and Liberals in the south-west back Devonport.

When it comes to VAT on fuel, if the leader of the Liberal Democrats is talking to an environmental audience, it is a grotesque anomaly that fuel should not be taxed in this country. Of course, when he is talking to an audience of pensioners, it is a gross wickedness that it should be so taxed.

The leader of the Liberal Democratic party really started the debate in this country on the social chapter by the sheer ferocity of his attacks on the social chapter which, in this Session and in respect of this Bill, he has consistently defended. The leader of the Liberal Democrats has the gifts of a master tailor : he is skilled at measuring and fitting his opinions to his audience. His opinions vary as widely as his audiences and, as his audiences vary a great deal, one can never be absolutely sure of his opinions.

Many excellent speeches have been made in the debate. The position has been summed up very well, particularly by my right hon. Friends the Members for Bridgwater (Mr. King), for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) and for Southend, West (Mr. Channon). They made the point that the treaty of Maastricht is not at stake in this debate. The question, as it was yesterday, is whether the treaty is ratified with or without a social chapter.

I should like for a moment to return to what has undoubtedly been a fierce tussle within our own party. I follow quite closely the very restrained, self-disciplined remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup. The opposition to the treaty, and therefore to the legislation, has been strenuously argued through these months--it seems years--by a stalwart group, basing themselves on their convinced interpretation of Conservative tradition. I have heartily disagreed with them. I have often wished them to go away, go to bed and to get lost. However, I do not doubt that their struggle and arguments will find a remembered place in the annals of parliamentary conflict.

I believe that the argument about ratification will end today in success for the Government's arguments. After today, we must all turn to the future and on this point I particularly endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup said. We have, in the House, in our party, in the country and more widely in Europe, to begin to talk together more intelligently about the future. We are willing to do that and willing to listen carefully to the wide range of views within our party and outside.

But I would not like to end this debate without saying warm thanks to my right hon. and hon. Friends who, throughout, have been on the Government's side of the argument. They have been working morning, noon and night to support the Government, to safeguard their and, indeed, my idea of our place in Europe. They might have found that they have gained a little less publicity than the others, but, of course, without their help, we would not have reached this point and we would not have prevailed.

As the talk about the future continues, common ground will begin to emerge. Again, I am talking partly about my own party, but I am talking also about the House as a whole, I am talking about the discussion in Britain as a whole, and I am talking about the discussion in Europe as a whole. The argument is not over, and there will still be those people who hold to what I regard as an

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old-fashioned view--that the definition of Europe and the success of Europe, is the steady centralisation of Executive and parliamentary power.

I think that the ideas that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sketched again yesterday and which he, I and others have steadily set forward at Maastricht and ever since are gaining ground--a Europe which is steadily enlarged as a Community not as a super-state, which is founded on open trading, which makes a success of our membership, which means that the Community is successful in those spheres where it has to act as a Community if it is to be effective, which makes a success of the concept in the treaty of intergovernmental co-operation, and which makes a reality of subsidiarity.

We have never argued that Maastricht was a perfect treaty. We believe that we won a sufficient quantity of the arguments in the negotiations to make it a good treaty for Britain, as negotiated by my right hon. Friend with the opt out. I believe that on that foundation, on that basis, as we begin to discuss in the party, in the Government, in the House, in the country and in Europe the way in which the Community should evolve in the future, we will find that the arguments that we began to put at Maastricht and before, and which we have put throughout these debates, will continue to prevail.

But there is a wider point for Conservative Members, because, as my right hon. Friend said, what we are talking about is the survival and the future of this Government. We are, I think, at a turning point. Politicians often use that phrase, but it is apt this afternoon. We have an economic recovery under way. It is not even seriously contested now by the Opposition. The good economic news is actually flowing in faster than either my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Government as a whole would have expected. What is important and what is new is that we have a reasonably good chance of sustaining that recovery without inflation.

That situation arises after a year which has been extremely rough, with many misfortunes and, no doubt, a share of mistakes. When I say that I believe that this afternoon can be a turning point, I believe that we can put behind us not just the long, necessary but debilitating debate about Maastricht, but that whole year of roughness and misfortune. Because of the coming together of this debate on Maastricht and the economic news, we can go away for the recess with greater confidence than at any time since the previous general election.

The political mood of the country often starts in this House. It takes time to spread outwards, to percolate and to prevail, but I believe that we have a good chance this afternoon, as a result of a successful vote, to change the tone and to make a starting point. I believe that, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we have cultivated the land well, despite much rough weather. I believe that we have sown good seed, and that we can now work together to bring in a good harvest.

Question put, That the amendment be made :--

The House divided : Ayes 301, Noes 339.

Division No. 360] [3.59 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Mrs Irene

Ainger, Nick

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Allen, Graham

Alton, David

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Ashton, Joe

Austin-Walker, John

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