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Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury): It is useful to have debates of this kind. The changes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) referred have not been unanimously welcomed in the House. However, they have been helpful overall, especially for Back Benchers, as this morning's debate demonstrates.
I am always reluctant to disagree with my hon. Friend on matters of procedure, but I must say that some of the procedures which were changed by Jopling and about which he complained have fallen into disuse and become difficult to defend. They fell into disuse not least because newer Members had not been as assiduous in mastering the procedures as my hon. Friend. The Jopling changes of which he complained have been helpful to the majority of hon. Members. It is not always possible for every hon. Member to attend on Wednesday mornings. Rather unusually, I should like to mention to the Leader of the House one colleague who could not be here--my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen). He lost an Adjournment debate on Monday through no fault of his own, but he had told the Minister exactly what issues he wanted to raise. I think that he gave the Minister a copy of his speech, which was on European co-operation. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept my hon. Friend's apology for not being here this morning, and will be able to arrange for the Minister to give my hon. Friend the reply that he would have had if he had been here.
Obviously, we cannot deal in detail with all the issues that have been raised, some of which will be the subjects for the debate later today on Bosnia. This morning's debates were unusual because so many Conservative Members spoke about internal Conservative party matters.
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Perhaps, in view of what has happened in recent months, that should not surprise us. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) invited us to sympathise with his comments about how the press has treated his party in recent weeks. At last he now knows how it feels, because we have been subjected to that kind of treatment for many years. It was interesting to see the tables turned.These debates are always useful for hon. Members who wish to raise constituency matters, as did the hon. Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks), and not for the first time, as he pointed out. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) raised some serious matters about his constituents, who must feel very insecure because the basic services provided by general practitioners are threatened in the way that my hon. Friend described. I hope that Ministers have taken his concerns on board, and that the Leader of the House will make sure that they are followed up.
The hon. Member for Teignmouth (Mr. Nicholls) spoke about the concerns of his constituents following water privatisation. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not in his place. When the Bill for water privatisation was going through the House, many of us suggested that prices would go through the roof and that the salaries of directors would be increased to ridiculous levels. The hon. Gentleman complained that a monopoly utility was allowing one of its executives to have a salary increase of £67,000, but such suggestions were described as scaremongering when we complained about water privatisation.
In such debates, some matters are raised which could be described as regular. Not for the first time hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) raised the issue of European Union policy, and especially the common agricultural policy. I agree with many of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Southend, East about the CAP. The slowness in moving to reform must concern hon. Members in all parts of the House. The speech by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) was somewhat unusual, in that the hon. Gentleman attacked Labour party policy on the EU rather than that of his own party. Perhaps we should put that aside this morning.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) again spoke about the Latham report. Perhaps the Leader of the House will be able to respond to my hon. Friend's information about the construction industry's agreement to the proposals.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) spoke about local government settlements, a topic that has been mentioned on other occasions. He was right to acknowledge the need to take account of such vital issues as family holidays when the Procedure Committee considers when the House should sit. Perhaps I will not be popular with all my colleagues when I say that I told the Procedure Committee a few days ago that there was scope for considering whether the House should sit for some weeks in September as a means of keeping us in touch with what is happening and avoiding such long gaps between our activities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South raised some topical issues about the need for a debate on sport. I raised that with the Leader of the House during business questions yesterday, and I hope that the right hon.
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Gentleman will be able to tell us when it might be possible to have such a debate. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's every word about nursery education. When he was speaking about that, I thought of the earlier speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), whose constituency I have visited. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney about jobs and development. People in his area are working hard to attract development, and perhaps some of them feel that they are running hard just to stand still, because of all the factors that are stacked against them. My hon. Friend's remarks coincided with what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) said. He highlighted one of the main concerns of all of us about the future of young people and what is happening in our constituencies. It was in my hon. Friend's constituency that riots took place, but we are all aware that they could have taken place in many other areas. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central about the problems of young people and those of unemployment, deprivation generally and deprivation being side by side with affluence, and many young people feeling that they have no stake in society, must be extremely worrying to us all. If young people have no hope, no expectations and no aspirations, the future is bleak, not just for them and their families, but for society as a whole. That is because we are all threatened by such lack of hope, and by youngsters who can turn to crime. As my hon. Friend said, unfortunately they often turn to drugs. In political terms, if they turned to anything, they would probably turn to some form of extremism. My hon. Friend was right to remind the House and the Government of those dangers.I was reminded of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South, because there is clearly a link between nursery education and aspirations and achievements later in life. There is overwhelming evidence that the best action we can take for our young people is to give them the best possible start by investing in nursery education.
The evidence shows that, if we spend more on nursery education, we shall get a return for the money, because there will be less crime, young people will grow up with more opportunities, and there will be fewer teenage pregnancies. Those are all direct benefits. I wish I could say that the recent Government initiative on nursery education will provide, as the Prime Minister has promised, nursery education for all four-year-olds. In itself, that is not good enough, because our three-year-olds should also be entitled to it. I fear that the voucher scheme will be a third-rate imitation of a proper comprehensive policy for nursery education for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want them to have it.
I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to respond in detail to some of the important points that have been raised. It is useful to have such debates, and I hope that we will continue to provide opportunities for hon. Members to raise issues in this way, because that is valuable to our constituents and to the House. 12.50 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I note that the hon. Member for Dewsbury(Mrs. Taylor) expressed
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the hope that I would be able to respond in detail, in 10 minutes, to 14 speeches--15, including her own--on a wide range of matters. I must tell her that that would be a triumph of hope over experience, and over practicality. I shall do my best. I shall, of course, consider what the hon. Lady said about her hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen). Given the circumstances that she described, I shall see whether I can get him a written reply from a Minister.Although I cannot speak for the hon. Lady, I suspect that she would agree with me that this debate is one of the pleasures of the job of Leader of the House. I learn an enormous amount in a short time. I am provided with endless briefing notes, which I digest, I hope, at least to some degree, in the relatively short time available. I am offered a guided tour around the United Kingdom.
As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said to me informally outside the Chamber--I hope that he will not mind me repeating it--today we travelled from Liskeard, to Kelso, by way of Merthyr Tydfil. That is surely a testament to the flexibility and efficiency of the Government's transport policies.
We have heard wide-ranging and entertaining speeches from everyone, but some speeches have been wider ranging than others, in particular those of my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin), for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) and for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson). I am sure that they would not expect me to range as widely as they did over the policies of the Government towards the world in general and Europe in particular.
I particularly agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South about the current policy vacuum in the Labour party, which certainly was not filled this morning. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) made an impressive speech about one definite part of the Opposition's current policy. I think that I would be right to say that it was probably his most helpful speech in many years. He drew attention to the dangers of the Labour party policies towards the European Union, and I wholeheartedly agreed with his every word.
Mr. Newton: My powers do not extend that far, but they extend to giving him the encouragement to make frequent speeches along those lines.
I shall make necessarily brief comments on some of the specific points raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) raised important points about Liskeard junior school in his constituency. I shall certainly draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
My hon. Friend also asked me to encourage one of my hon. Friends, who has been most recently appointed to the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), to visit that school at some stage this year. I have received a
characteristically cautious briefing note from the Department of Education, which states:
"Ministers of course do receive a very large number of invitations to visit schools and simply cannot accept them all. I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend would be willing to consider a visit if that could be fitted into a wider programme."
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I hope that that gives at least some modest encouragement to my hon. Friend. I shall also have a more informal word with the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment to draw her attention to what he said.The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) raised a important and difficult problem, which he would not expect me to answer in detail, about family practitioner services in part of his constituency. He acknowledged, as I have been told, that County Durham health commission is taking urgent steps to help residents in the Coxhoe area to identify alternative doctors, and has set up two help-lines for patients to ring. The hon. Gentleman also made it clear, however, that the problem required further examination. I shall bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East made a wide-ranging speech, but he also referred to a matter of considerable importance to my constituency and subject to many protests from my constituents--the policies of Essex county council, under Labour-Liberal control, towards transport to selective schools that still exist in Essex. My hon. Friend said that his children went to those schools, so perhaps I should declare a past interest in that both my daughters went to Chelmsford county high school for girls, which will subject to the same problem.
I share the concern that my hon. Friend has expressed about the effect on less well-off able children in the county. I hope that the people of Shoeburyness, to whom he referred, will make their views clear in the by- election that will take place, tomorrow, 20 July, for a county council seat.
The hon. Members for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney made impressive speeches about their areas. The speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, Central was one of the best that I have heard in Adjournment debates for a long time. He will know that I, too, am concerned about drugs. I have worked with the chief constable of West Yorkshire, Keith Hellawell, on producing a new Government strategy on drugs, "Tackling Drugs Together". That places greater emphasis than in the past on prevention and education. I certainly hope that it reflects some of the thoughts that the hon. Gentleman expressed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) gave me notice that he intended to raise a complex problem. He made some important points. I understand that, alongside the correspondence he has had with previous Transport Ministers, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has written to him this week on that very subject. I understand that my hon. Friend has not yet received that letter, but I assure him that it is on its way, and I hope that it will be helpful to him.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) spoke about a problem in a pleasing town in his constituency, Kelso, where I had the pleasure to holiday a few years ago. On that occasion, I ran into the former leader of the Liberal Democrats. I note the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, but I am sure that he would not expect an off-the-cuff answer from me. I shall make sure that his remarks are drawn to the attention of Scottish Office Ministers. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) that I shall draw to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends the fact that a west country
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Member has yet again raised the water industry, which is significant and important to his constituents. I hope that my hon. Friend was encouraged by the Government's response to the Greenbury report.My hon. Friend will be aware that the Director General of Water Services has set new and tighter price limits for South West Water, which have been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission at the company's request. We have to await the outcome of the commission's determination of price limits for South West Water. The problems to which my hon. Friend referred are being considered. I may have inadvertently encouraged the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) to take part in the debate, because I reminded him of it when I bumped into him in the Corridor yesterday. He duly took up that invitation, and spoke about the Latham report. He will be aware that, in the past few weeks, I have regularly made what I have described as sympathetic noises from the Dispatch Box about relevant legislation. I cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech, but, as I said to someone last Thursday, the hon. Gentleman can take my comments as a sympathetic noise.
I think that I have come close to running out of time, so I dare not embark on commenting on any other speech. I have noted the points made by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). If any other speech remains unmentioned, or if any hon. Member is dissatisfied, I shall make efforts to remedy that in some way. Meanwhile, I hope that I have given universal pleasure and have caused universal enthusiasm by creating a position in which, later today or early tomorrow, all being well, hon. Members on both sides of the House will be able to enjoy a short break from the duties that they have so assiduously pursued on behalf of their constituents this morning.
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French Nuclear Testing
1 pm
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): A week last Monday, Madam Speaker was in the Chair when a few hon. Members raised points of order about the French nuclear testing proposed for September and about the seizure of the Greenpeace ship, which had happened the previous day. Madam Speaker was kind enough to say that, if Lady Luck smiled on me or perhaps another of those hon. Members, we might have an Adjournment debate. Had it not been this particular Wednesday, when three hours have been devoted to discussing the summer Adjournment, we might have had an hour-and-a-half debate, and many of my colleagues would have been able to speak.
I hesitated before applying for this debate, because I was not that sure that it was the sort of subject with which I could deal. I used to be a big mate of Bob Cryer, and I realised that if he had been here, he would have got to the Chair faster than me. It was his subject--he knew about nuclear weapons and nuclear testing better than anyone else in the House. He had spent 20 or 30 years of his life travelling around Britain speaking to thousands of people. I hope that my comments will accord with his beliefs, although I shall not be able to give them quite the same treatment.
On the day that I asked for this debate, I and some of my hon. Friends had been to a hastily arranged wreath-laying ceremony at the French embassy. Apart from the fact that all Labour Members are hostile to French nuclear testing and the seizure of the Greenpeace ship, I detected among the demonstrators the feeling that the vast majority of British people abhor the idea of the French going to the south Pacific, doing as they like and attacking a Greenpeace ship--which, in many ways, was standing up not just for the people of New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the south Pacific, but for the people of Britain.
I am staggered by the fact that this House has not debated the French decision to resume nuclear testing. A mere half hour is hardly adequate to deal with the issue. I can only assume that, when the Prime Minister met Mr. Chirac at Cannes--a summit meeting that he reported on to the House--he gave Chirac the nod and the wink to do as he liked. Indeed, he confirmed that in an answer to a parliamentary question last week, when he was asked, deliberately and directly, why he would not join those protesting against French nuclear testing. He said that under no circumstances would he do that.
That does not excuse the fact that we have not had a debate--
Sir Teddy Taylor (Southend, East): Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should ask his Front Bench why not.
Mr. Skinner: I accept that. There should have been a debate. There was a debate on a similar occasion--although not as dramatic as this--on 2 July 1973. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)--who might get two minutes in this debate if I hurry--spoke from the Front Bench.
Can anybody believe the change that has taken place since then? My hon. Friend was actually on the Labour Front Bench when 266 Labour Members of Parliament
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went into the Lobby on a three-line whip. My hon. Friend forced Jeffrey Archer, as he then was, to say that, if there was a vote on the Labour motion, he would join us. In fact, he did not, but that is another story. I read his speech, which was very clever and typical Jeffrey--now Lord--Archer.The important point was that we had a debate, and we protested to the French. We cannot have a proper debate before the recess, so I call upon my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, together with other members of the shadow Cabinet, to send a letter of protest to Chirac, making it plain where we stand. I would have said that at the parliamentary Labour party meeting if I had had the chance. I know that many of my hon. Friends want to speak, and I shall try to accommodate them, but it will not be easy.
The problem is the colonialist mentality. When I went to school, Britain used to have lots of pink pieces on the map. The French had some, but not as many as us. There was an idea that the south Pacific could be picked out, as it was by Britain and then by France, and that we could do our bit among the Polynesians. It is all about old-fashioned imperialism and the colonialist mentality. The French cannot do it in their own backyard.
During that debate in July 1973, some of my colleagues--who are still Members--said, "Why can't they drop it in the bay of Biscay?" Charles Loughlin said, "What about the English channel?" I thought that that was getting a bit too close. What I am trying to show is that, 22 years ago, people were determined--
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North): Is my hon. Friend aware that it is only 10 years since French Government agents murdered members of the Rainbow Warrior crew? It is a disgrace that, when they returned to France, those agents were given orders of merit by the French Government. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling for the maximum protest possible outside every French embassy between now and September, and for a boycott of all French products, to force the French to stop these monstrous tests?
Mr. Skinner: I am absolutely in favour of doing so; indeed, it is what I was doing last Monday. I said then that, had it not been for what the mining industry calls a basket Monday, just before a holiday, some other Members of Parliament would have been at the demonstration. Had it been a Tuesday, another 20 or 30 of them would have been there. Many hon. Members travel to the House on a Monday. When we debated the issue of the common market in 1971, we were told, "Don't worry, we'll look after the Commonwealth. New Zealand, Canada and Australia will be looked after. The common market will not affect that." It has.
When the Prime Minister gave the nod and the wink to Chirac and turned his back on New Zealand, Australia and the other areas in the south Pacific, he was showing that despite the protests from the Tory Government, he has more in common with Chirac, the right-wing President of France, and with the Common Market than he has with the old-fashioned Commonwealth. I have reason to believe that Jim Bolger--not a friend of mine, but the Prime Minister of New Zealand--has written to our Prime Minister in protest. The Minister has a duty to tell us the Prime Minister's answer.
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Nuclear proliferation is a problem. For a long time, certainly since the collapse of the Berlin wall, many people have said that we can all live happily ever after. I have never accepted that naive, innocent view of life. The net result is that countries such as Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel and China are developing nuclear weapons.We in the Labour party, and many others across the world, have been telling them not to develop nuclear weapons because we are moving into a new era and trying to stop nuclear proliferation. As part of that, we said, Britain and America were not going to carry out tests. That was our argument, but it will break down.
Iraq and the other countries will be emboldened by the fact that nobody cares tuppence what the French are doing down in the south Pacific, and will say, "Anything goes; we can have some, too." The world will become a lot more dangerous. Someone said to me--I had better be careful how I choose my words--that there could be an Islamic fundamentalist nuclear bomb. It certainly makes one wonder. The French argue that they are not doing much, anyway. They say that they are merely engaged in a bit of extra testing, but nothing new. The information that some of us have received--it might be revealed a little later by one or two colleagues--is that the French are up to something else. It is said that they are going to develop a new type of nuclear warhead, and that at least one of the proposed tests is dedicated to that. I was going to read out some comments about that, but I do not have the time.
We were all very worried about Chernobyl and the radiation that spread for several hundred miles across many countries. How do we know that the ocean currents are not roughly the same as the air currents? Will the results of the nuclear tests be as dramatic as the effects of Chernobyl? I do not know, but it crosses my mind that it is quite feasible that the radiation in the south Pacific will in some way affect the food chain and contaminate some species. It is a major problem for all of us.
Many years ago, when Mrs. Thatcher came back from an environmental conference in Rio, I explained to her that the environment was a socialist issue. Not all green issues can be dealt with by market forces, and no individual can resolve the problem. The solution must be collective action, not only in the common market but throughout the world. It is a world problem, which means people banding together to solve it. When she went on about the hole in the ozone layer, I told her that she would not patch it up with a man, a bike, a ladder and an enterprise allowance, but that the solution had to involve the will of literally millions of people banding together.
It is therefore a matter for us; it will be a matter for new Labour, with all the added ingredients. It will have to deal with the problem, so it might as well get used to it. I hope that, at the conference on Hayman Island, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition listened to the people of Australia and New Zealand, and took note of what they said. I hope that many people bent his ear as they said, "G'day, Blue." What should we do now? I have suggested what the Labour party and the Labour leader should do, and I do so in all friendliness.
Millions of people in Britain who are not necessarily Labour supporters agree with us. All the people in the animal lobby are not protesting only on behalf little furry creatures. The fact is that there is now a new level of understanding about the food chain, the environment and
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animal life in general; people's interest goes beyond simply saving a few creatures. They can see what is happening. I call on the Government, even at this late stage, to protest before 1 September, and to have the guts to tell Chirac what the British people really feel.There should be an independent health inquiry into the population in the south Pacific. The least we can do is ensure that such an inquiry is held to monitor the effects of the proposed tests and those that have taken place, because the people we met in a Committee Room upstairs feel that they are on their own.
I support Greenpeace and what it did in trying to sail its ship into the area. The members of Greenpeace were brave. We saw some similarly brave people last Friday--disabled people in wheelchairs, who parked themselves in front of moving buses. Greenpeace did the same sort of thing.
There are some things that we remember for ever. I can still hear the voice of Stephanie Mills, the lass from New Zealand, on the Greenpeace ship a week last Sunday, squealing in passion, hoping that someone could hear her as the French moved in with tear gas and commandeered the Rainbow Warrior. That powerful voice should have registered with everyone in the Labour party. It is high time the Government understood what is needed. Let us stop the tests now, and take steps to save the planet, not destroy it.
1.15 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for allowing me to ask three technical questions of which I have given notice to the Foreign Office.
The first concerns coral reefs. The French spokesman said that not one fish would be harmed by the tests. That is not true--one coral reef at least will be destroyed. Has the Foreign Office been in touch with Ghillean Prance of Kew, who has substantial evidence that it is the nature of coral reefs to fertilise one another at a distance of 200 miles or more? Are we not creating mayhem in a specific part of the south Pacific? The effect of the destruction of coral reefs on fish stocks is important and must be borne in mind. Has the Foreign Office a technical opinion on what could happen?
Secondly, may I repeat a question that I asked on 2 July 1973 on behalf of the official Opposition. I said:
"Does the right hon. Gentleman"--
I was speaking to Julian Amery--
"deny the presence of strontium 90, and does he further deny the connection between strontium 90 and bone cancer and leukaemia? Does the right hon. Gentleman deny the presence of caesium 137, which has a longish half-life of 30 years, and does he further deny the connection between caesium 137 and many forms of cancer, a connection which has been proved by work which has been undertaken by scientists in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Does he deny the presence of iodine 131 and its attendant dangers to the thyroid gland? "--[ Official Report , 2 July 1973; Vol. 859, c. 48.]
My final question relates to an assertion made in The Guardian on 11 July under the byline of Tim Radford and David Fairhall. They said:
"In one notorious episode, a nuclear device jammed halfway down the shaft, and had to be detonated prematurely. This is believed to have opened up fissures in the basalt, and caused submarine landslides. In another episode, a typhoon tore across the
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atoll and ripped away a bituminous seal that had been covering irradiated spoil. A large area was contaminated with plutonium and other radionuclides."Is that true? If so, things could go tragically wrong again, with disastrous ecological effects.
1.19 pm
Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North): I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) not only on securing the debate but on the manner in which he opened it.
I want to report to the House that, when he was requesting the debate, I was representing the House in Ottawa at the plenary session of the parliamentary assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. At the end of the week, the plenary session considered its declaration. It goes through it paragraph by paragraph to ensure that it has got it right. When it got to the paragraph that had been hard fought in the security committee and which condemned the French decision to resume nuclear testing and the French reaction to the Rainbow Warrior, the French naturally opposed it.
The OSCE parliamentary assembly is made up of 52 nations, plus the Holy See. There were almost 1,000 delegates there. The only delegates who supported the French in the objection were some of the UK delegation. Yet when the full declaration was put to the full assembly, the UK declaration voted to a man along with it to condemn the action, and it was carried nem. con.
If the Government need some backbone, all they need to do is look to their colleagues in the OSCE, including America, Canada--indeed, every nation there--which condemned the French decision and action in relation to the Rainbow Warrior. I hope that the Government, and our Opposition in response to the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, show the same backbone.
The French in the past have been very dismissive of health effects. Their memorable line is:
"You do not consult the frogs when you are draining the swamp." If anybody were as dismissive as that and agreed with such dismissiveness, I would point them in the direction of the work done by Dr. Sister Rosalie Bertell, who conducted a major health survey, very much in line with that called for by my hon. Friend, which proved beyond all doubt that a serious genetic impairment resulted not only from the previous tests of the French, but from our previous tests and America's previous tests. Such impairment goes on for generation after generation, it affects the seed stock of the whole of humankind, and it can never be put right.
If we believe anything at all, we should do our utmost to bear properly the responsibility that God has given us. The world has been entrusted to us. In their decision, the French are betraying that trust.
1.21 pm
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. David Davis): I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) oobtaining this debate. His new-found interest in defence matters is welcome. He is no doubt responding to Bob Cryer's interest in it in the past. I welcome, too, the apparent broadening of his horizons to such distant climes as the south Pacific. Unfortunately, I do not welcome the thrust of his speech. It was remarkable, if unsurprising, for three
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reasons. Where we needed logic, we got populism; where we needed analysis, we got invective; and where we needed facts, we got hyperbole.I shall deal first with the incident that the hon. Gentleman led on, in which the French forces boarded the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior II on 9 July. With respect, the hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, missed several points. First and foremost, he referred in his familiarly colourful manner to an incident in which the French Government acted entirely within their rights in French territorial waters. The hon. Gentleman too, of course, is within his rights in raising the matter, but it is another matter to suggest that the British Government are somehow guilty of some outrageous crime just because we have refused to join the Greenpeace-led chorus of disapproval.
I make the point again quite clearly: we support the French Government in their right to defend sites of national security importance in their territorial waters. I think that the House would prefer me to enunciate a policy which is rather more responsible than the arguments that we have just heard, and I shall talk about that in some detail.
I remind the House of the facts of the incident, as we understand them. The boarding took place not only in French territorial waters, but in a 12-mile exclusion zone which the French Government had declared, as is their right under international law. The captain and crew of Rainbow Warrior II had been warned not to enter the exclusion zone, and that the French authorities would if necessary enforce the exclusion zone. Rainbow Warrior II none the less entered the exclusion zone in defiance of that order. The French authorities then took action to enforce the exclusion zone.
We have seen no evidence to suggest that the French actions were illegal. The press and the hon. Gentleman have made much of the alleged French heavy -handedness. He must address any detail questions on that to the French authorities; it is not for me to answer. However, so that the House is not misled and hon. Members do not think that the French authorities committed great atrocities on 9 July, I should make quite clear what happened and what did not happen.
From the information that I have, I understand that no injuries resulted from the boarding of the Rainbow Warrior II, and there were no injuries to the British people present on the ship. The ship and her crew have now left the Mururoa atoll. I, for one, certainly hope that they do not seek to return.
I turn to the difficult and very real issue that we have to face up to: nuclear testing. We have not criticised the French decision, and I do not intend to start now, but I shall explain to the hon. Gentleman, and any others of his persuasion, the position that we have taken and why we believe that it was right to take it. In doing so, I shall deal with some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell).
It might be helpful first to remind hon. Members of some further facts, particularly what President Chirac said when he announced France's decision to resume testing. On 13 June, President Chirac stated that France would undertake a final series of no more than eight nuclear tests at Mururoa, between September 1995 and May 1996 at the latest.
Mr. Llew Smith (Blaenau Gwent): Will the Minister give way?
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Mr. Davis: I am afraid not. I do not have much time to conclude my remarks.Importantly, President Chirac confirmed France's commitment to the conclusion of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty by the autumn of 1996 -- [Laughter.] --and France's intention to sign such a treaty once concluded. The laughter from the Labour Members sitting below the Gangway shows how seriously they are taking this matter, as against their rhetoric on it.
First and foremost, President Chirac made it clear that he took the decision because he considered that France's national security needs could not be met in any other way. I do not believe that it is for us to seek to second-guess his judgment on this. National security--our own and that of our allies--means something to Conservative Members. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bolsover seems to dismiss it so lightly.
Hon. Members heard a characteristically detailed speech from the hon. Member for Linlithgow, who has a long and honourable interest in this area and has some expertise in it, so in a second I shall come to the points that he raised. But in first addressing it, I reiterate that President Chirac has offered a clear assurance that a testing programme will not harm the environment. Indeed, we are told by the French Government that, despite the fact that more than 150 tests have been conducted at Mururoa, the level of radiation in the south Pacific is lower than natural levels in some parts of mainland France. The French Government have made it clear that all the tests will take place underground.
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point about atolls. I assume that he means that the atolls are linked biologically rather than physically. In fact, he talked to me earlier about seeding. Even so, from the scientific evidence at our disposal, I do not believe that there is the kind of problem that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
If I understand his argument correctly, the risk would reflect two things: the product of the differential in radiation at the source point, and the mass transfer between the points that he is discussing. Both those numbers will be very low. However, I will look into it in some detail, since he has raised it rather too late for me to study the matter further.
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