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Madam Speaker: That is not a point of order, but I am sure that it is welcome as a point of information.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I raise the question of the behaviour of a Minister towards the House and towards hon. Members. I refer to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), and his actions concerning a refugee, Mr. Mikrea Ilin, who is due to be deported from my constituency on Friday and who is currently being held in Rochester prison.
The Under-Secretary wrote to me last night--I received the letter late last night--to say that he would not receive any representations whatsoever from anyone concerning that man, who attempted suicide following a previous attempt to deport him from this country. Is it in order for a Minister to tell another Member of Parliament that he is not prepared to receive letters, representations, faxes or telephone calls about a matter of deep concern regarding a constituent's human rights? It seems to me that the Under-Secretary is setting his face against the Parliament to which he should be accountable.
Madam Speaker:
That is not a point of order for me, although the hon. Gentleman certainly raises a serious and interesting matter. He will understand that I have no authority over Ministers' actions, their remarks or the
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In the event of an hon. Member giving a clear assurance to the contrary, is it in order for a Minister speaking from the Dispatch Box to continue to peddle a view that the hon. Member in question has refuted? If it is in order, what protection does that hon. Member have?
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South):
Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. You act to defend Back Benchers such as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), who have raised the issue and said how wrong the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) is in that particular respect.
Madam Speaker:
I defended the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) when he was being shouted down by hon. Members. Any hon. Member who is a member of a minority party has every right to be heard and to express his views in the House. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to persist with his views, perhaps he will seek an Adjournment debate, introduce a ten-minute Bill or use some other method to make his views even better known.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to reinforce the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) concerning the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. Recently, that Minister refused on two occasions requests by me for meetings to discuss immigration cases. For that Under-Secretary now to refuse written representations is an extension of the barrier that he seems anxious to build between himself and hon. Members on important matters. If, on reflection, the Minister in question does not have a change of attitude, perhaps you will give a ruling, Madam Speaker--bearing it in mind that the right of hon. Members to make representations to Ministers is a basic right, but one that the Minister in question seems anxious to erode.
Madam Speaker:
I will take the matter no further. I responded fully to the original point of order, and we will see how matters develop.
Association (United Kingdom, United States and Former Dominions)
3.36 pm
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to strengthen institutions to promote economic, cultural, and political ties between the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand.
Malcolm Turnbull is the leader of the republican movement in Australia, and he defended Peter Wright in the "Spycatcher" trial. Some have even said that Mr. Turnbull might have become Australia's first President. Although I do not support his republican views--I am a royalist--some of his arguments are interesting. Similarly, although I do not suggest that Britain should leave the European Union, Malcolm Turnbull's belief that we turned our back on our natural friends and allies when we joined the European Economic Community, as it then was, is persuasive.
A few months ago, Malcolm Turnbull was quoted in The Sunday Times:
I was educated for a while in America and like you, Madam Speaker, I have worked there. You were based on Capitol hill in Washington DC, working in Congress--and I worked not far away, from a base in New Haven in Connecticut, setting up and financing radio stations. As I have also worked in Europe, I have long held views similar to those of Mr. Turnbull, but with one big difference. There does not have to be a mutual exclusivity between membership of the European Union and strengthening ties with the old Commonwealth and the USA. The Government already do just that.
But I believe that we are reaching a crossroads in our nation's history. Our country cannot survive and prosper on its own. We have always needed to be part of a trading bloc. In the 18th and 19th centuries, that bloc was the British empire. People who now think that we can go it alone live in an economic cloud cuckoo land. But the crossroads are fast approaching as a confluence of technology and dissatisfaction with existing trading blocs fast approach each other. That creates a window of opportunity and an unlocking door to a future of mutual prosperity that this nation must not miss lest future generations rightly condemn our short-sightedness at the obvious and our failure of stewardship of our country.
Before I speak of the confluence of ways and the unlocking door, I shall state the obvious and the not so obvious about Britain, Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand. We all share a common language. We may speak in different dialects, but there is a greater diversity in the British Isles than between London and any state in the United States. We all share a common heritage. The kings and queens of England are still taught in Brighton near Melbourne and in Brighton near New York, even if not in Labour-controlled Brighton in Sussex.
We all share a common legal system. Do we all realise how important that is to British trade? Can that be why the US is still the biggest holder of investments in the United Kingdom and why the UK is still the biggest holder of investments in the US? Is not it startling that despite America having won its independence back in 1783, its independent legal system developed in parallel with our own after all those years? We still share a common basis in law. Our sense of natural justice is similar to that in America and in the old Commonwealth. Wittgenstein was right to illuminate the immutability between language and cognition and it is well demonstrated by our common jurisprudence.
We all share common economic cycles. While Britain and America enjoy growth, continental Europe wallows in recession. Let us pray that France and Germany's slump does not pull us down too. We all share a common state of economic development. There is no need for cohesion funds, huge fund flows or tides of immigration from one nation to another. We all share a view that we should not subsidise industries, such as airlines that should stand on their own two wheels.
We all share relatively wealthy populations. Britain, the US and the old Commonwealth combined have a population of around 356 million, slightly less than the European Union population of 369 million. But whereas the gross national product of the European Union is $7,280,975 million, that of the United Kingdom, the United States and the old Commonwealth is in excess of $8,274,500 million.
Finally, we all share a common culture bound together by a common history. Our nations' folk memories are not scarred by recent lesions caused by war and invasion. No need is felt to concede the nation state in order to seek the will-o'-the-wisp of peace for all time.
But what of the confluence of circumstances, which I mentioned earlier, which creates the unlocking door that we should now seek to push ajar? There are two aspects to that confluence.
First, the nature of trade has altered over the years. In extremis, we no longer export locomotives: we export microchips and software. We no longer export girder bridges: we export financial services, although not enough to Europe, where some borders are not yet open to the City of London. In 1970, 9 per cent. of our import costs were insurance and freight. In 1994, that figure had reduced to 2 per cent., and the trend continues downwards.
Distance is no longer the object in international trade. In my own experience, the selling price in Copenhagen of a broadcast console made in Britain is higher than the selling price in Auckland. The local market determines the price, not the distance of the goods travelled. I do not have to remind hon. Members that telephoning distant destinations has been transformed since the recent laying of trans-world fibre-optic cables. There is no more satellite delay or echo. Calling Seattle is as clear as calling Lichfield.
Secondly, there has been a more fundamental change. For the first time in its 220-year history, the United States is no longer isolationist. It has recognised the need to form strategic trading alliances, and that has not happened before. It has joined the North American Free Trade Agreement, of which Canada is also a member. Yet Canada and the United States find that they are exporting jobs to and importing finished goods from Mexico.
Australia and New Zealand trade with the Pacific rim, as we do. Yet Australia and New Zealand also export jobs to and import finished goods from countries such as Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea. Those countries assumed wrongly that trading blocs must consist of geographically close nations, not economically and culturally close nations. They are beginning to recognise with growing unease that other more compatible partners may need to be sought.
Surely whether one enters into a marriage partnership, a business partnership or a geopolitical trading partnership, if the partnership is to endure, it must be more than merely a marriage of convenience. My Bill recognises today's reality and future certainty.
"I think that was a terrible mistake for Britain. Why should you at this point in history, when technology has made distance more irrelevant than ever, suddenly choose to become a political part of Europe? Technology has made geographical proximity irrelevant and geographical proximity was the only reason for being part of Europe. Britain would have been much wiser focusing on and developing closer relations with those countries with which it really did have a lot in common in terms of language, background, human relationships and institutions. And those countries plainly were the Anglo-Saxon countries--the old Commonwealth and the USA."
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