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Mr. Giles Radice (North Durham): They are not reported.
Mr. Hurd: Indeed; they are not reported.
At the moment, four major British companies are involved in actions before the Court, trying to resist protectionism and encourage competition--British
Petroleum, British Steel, British Airways and Ladbroke. I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West(Mr. Budgen), who has left the Chamber, that if those companies win, they expect the judgments to stick. They do not expect their opponents to follow the lawless advice that my hon. Friend gave a few minutes ago.
Finally, in negotiations before Maastricht and in public, I have always strongly opposed the idea of majority voting on substantial matters of foreign and common policy. From my experience, it is clear to me that it would not work. We do not need majority voting or endless arguments about procedure; what is needed is agreement among Europeans, when and where it can be found.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary pushed forward excellent ideas in Paris--some are in the White Paper--on how the chances of agreement can be improved. Agreement on eastern Europe and Russia is needed now, not later, once the IGC has been ratified.It would be vain for Germany, for example, to suppose that it can pursue a German foreign policy towards Russia that we opposed or that we could pursue a British foreign policy towards Russia that the Germans opposed. That is nugatory.
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye):
If there is one issue on which there has been broad agreement--there has not been agreement on much else--it is the point raised by the former Prime Minister: that to shoehorn this debate into one Thursday evening, following a very important statement on Northern Ireland, is a ludicrous way to go about our business.
It was interesting that, under pressure from some of his Back Benchers, and in a way that had perhaps not been considered by the Leader of the House or the Foreign Office, the Foreign Secretary buckled and promised that he would give us a full account of the negotiations as they proceeded. That might be disastrous for him from a political point of view and as a negotiating tactic, but, now that he has made that concession, I hope that we shall hear from the Minister of State when he winds up what shape and form that reporting back will take--whether there will be an oral statement every so often in the House or whether there will be a Government-initiated debate such as this to take note of progress in the negotiations. From a personal point of view, he may live to regret the commitment he gave, but, since he has given it, the House will be eager to take advantage of it, no matter from which side of the argument we approach the issue.
The Harold Wilson phrase about a week being a long time in politics is certainly true for the Government's IGC White Paper. It was Janus-faced when it was produced,
and it has been exposed as Janus-faced in this debate.As we know from the Chancellor, who is about as far away from the Government as he can physically get at the moment, discussions inside the Cabinet are no happier than the debate within the broader parliamentary Conservative party itself.
To sum up the Foreign Secretary's strategy as outlined this afternoon, it seems to be a case of, "Goodbye Helmut, hello Jacques". The former Prime Minister is correct--the Foreign Secretary will find that, when the chips are down, the President of France will stand shoulder to shoulder with Germany on key constitutional aspects relating to the development of Europe, and that we will be isolated.I have to say that I would be slightly worried if I were a Tory Back Bencher watching the Foreign Secretary this afternoon. He buckled under a bit of constructive pressure when asked to what extent he was willing to be accountable to the House in the next 18 months. If he buckles to the same extent in the IGC negotiations, the White Paper will not be worth the paper on which it is printed in terms of the assurances that it seeks to offer.
The Foreign Secretary used the word "disingenuous". If ever a word could be applied to the Government's performance, that is it. It is surely disingenuous to erect these Aunt Sallies and proceed to knock them down when they are not seriously on the negotiating table. For example, there is in fact agreement among the three political parties about the type of issues to which a national veto should pertain and on which it should be maintained--troop deployment, immigration policy, own resources and tax.
Mr. Radice:
As the reflection group said.
Mr. Kennedy:
As the hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, the reflection group made that clear.
There is a broad consensus on these issues across the political divide in this country and among member states. It is frankly disingenuous of the Foreign Secretary to say that he will be battling against such things when they are not on the agenda and not up for discussion. He will find that echoed in the Labour party's policy document and in the policy document that we produced last week.
It would improve the tenor of the debate if, instead of creating myths to tilt against for the purpose of assuaging those from his own side who, I fear, from his point of view, are not to be bought off, the Secretary of State was honest and constructive and dealt with the agenda that is before the IGC rather than with a mythical one, which is doing no good in the eyes of his own Back Benchers and doing no good for this country's credibility in the rest of Europe.
The Foreign Secretary's strategic objectives, of which there appear to be two in the White Paper, are ones with which no one would disagree. He wants a better deal for animal rights and he wants enlargement. He does not want social or human rights for workers in this country, but he wants a better deal on animal rights, something with which no one would seriously disagree. Nor would anyone seriously disagree with enlargement, but I doubt that his aim to deliver enlargement is going to be achieved by his apparently setting his face against any extension of qualified majority voting.
The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is surely right. Can the Foreign Secretary provide some clarification? He appeared to avoid it in the "Newsnight"
interview that he gave last week after he had made a statement to the House. Is he saying that there is to be no extension whatsoever of QMV? Is he willing to sacrifice the cause of enlargement for a compromise on QMV over, for example, research and development? Is that the position? Is he saying that, if enlargement goes to the wall, so be it--if QMV did not apply in any other sphere?
Mr. Rifkind:
If the hon. Gentleman reads the report of what I said in my opening speech today, he will find that I explained fully why I believe that enlargement does not depend on an extension of QMV, and that the arguments that suggest it does are bogus. I went into some detail as to why I believe that to be the case.
Mr. Kennedy:
The right hon. and learned Gentleman did indeed do so, but that does not answer the question. He may well believe that, but he has to negotiate with a number of other member states. If his interpretation does not hold sway, he will have to make a decision at some point down the track about what the trade-off between QMV and enlargement is going to be. That is the issue that he will not face and to which he did not respond in that intervention.
Secondly, the confusion of the White Paper is best summed up by one quotation, which is supposed to be a ringing statement of the British Government's position with regard to the approaching set of crucial discussions. The Foreign Secretary says, in the White Paper:
That is hardly the visionary stuff of politics, if ever we heard it.
The Government are trapped in the headlights of the views of their Back Benchers on this subject. They cannot give leadership or enunciate a vision, because whatever they do will deepen the chasm behind them. That will be bad news for this country, not just for our contribution to the IGC but for what comes out of the IGC and what should be a more democratic and decentralised European Union. Ultimately, I fear, we will have to have a referendum on these matters, and it would be better if the Government endorsed that position now and got on with an honest and open negotiation.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury):
What question would you ask?
Mr. Kennedy:
I would ask, first and foremost, for a public endorsement of the outcome of the IGC, if it has constitutional implications, in the same way as I voted for a referendum on the outcome of Maastricht. We could have had a referendum on that, too. There will have to be a referendum and it would be better if the Government were to embrace one positively now rather than being forced into that position later. We could then get on with a more vigorous debate outside this place, because it is clear that the Government will not give us an opportunity for one inside.
"As the European Union matures it needs a clearer sense of what it is, and of what it should never aspire to be."
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