House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Oct 1996 (pt 3)

Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): When President Clinton was in Ireland, masses of people turned out in Belfast and Dublin wearing white ribbons to support the cause of peace. Today is Ceasefire Now Day in Ireland, as can be seen from early-day motion 42.

[That this House notes that the Solidarity to Organise Peace (STOP) group is organising a Ceasefire Now Day on Thursday 24th October throughout the Irish Republic and for which they are asking for one minute's silence in memory of Warrant Officer James Bradwell, who was murdered at the Thiepval barracks in Lisburn; notes that on this day STOP will urge the Provisional IRA to call an immediate ceasefire, as desired by 71 per cent. of their own voters according to a poll in the Irish News, and will encourage the loyalist paramilitaries to maintain their own two year old ceasefire; and encourages all those who sympathise with this initiative to wear white ribbons in solidarity.]

As a result, people in Ireland are repeating the exercise to which I referred. The demand for peace has not gone away. Is there some means by which the House can show its sympathy with that cause, such as a minute's silence for the warrant officer who was killed at Lisburn, and with the demands that the IRA should enter into a ceasefire--even if it only takes the form of the right hon. Gentleman's reply?

Mr. Newton: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy, and I am happy to respond. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to raise those matters and make his points. I would like, as would everybody else in the House, to support the efforts of groups--wherever they may be--working for a peaceful and lasting settlement in Northern Ireland.

Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Leeds, South): I suggest that the Secretary of State for Health addresses the House along the lines of his speech to the Association of Directors of Social Services last week, when he suggested that the future role of social services departments should be limited to purchasing. That comment seems ill-timed in view of the national report on child abuse, which obviously envisages social services departments continuing their current major role in dealing with child abuse.

Mr. Newton: From my knowledge of such matters, for which I have also had responsibility as a Minister, I believe

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that the hon. Gentleman is being somewhat unfair. None of the reports that I read of my right hon. Friend's remarks suggested anything other than a determination to ensure proper registration and inspection schemes for homes of whatever kind. The issue is how that is best achieved.

Mr. Toby Jessel (Twickenham): As the national lottery was mentioned a few moments ago, does my right hon. Friend consider that the time is right for a further general debate on that subject this winter--particularly in view of the national lottery's tremendous success in raising sums of money for the arts, the national heritage, sport and charities, which is a brilliant national achievement?

Mr. Newton: That is an attractive subject for debate, but one of the Bills expected to follow yesterday's Queen's Speech is connected with the national lottery, so that might provide the opportunity for a debate of the kind that my hon. Friend is seeking.

BILLS PRESENTED

Orders of the Day

Debate on the Address

[Second Day]

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [23 October],

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.--[Sir Norman Fowler.]

Question again proposed.

Foreign Affairs and Defence

2.58 pm

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): This debate offers the House the opportunity to consider British foreign policy against the background of a Europe that has changed more in the past 10 years than probably at any time since the French revolution in 1789. Over the past 10 years, we have seen the collapse of the Berlin wall, end of the cold war, disappearance of the Warsaw pact, disintegration of the Soviet Union and a series of other dramatic changes in Europe. They have had an effect which has resonated throughout the world and has had substantial global implications.

For some 44 years, our world was essentially a bi-polar world as the two alliances--the NATO alliance and the Warsaw pact--faced each other in a potentially threatening fashion. There were super-powers in each alliance--the United States and the Soviet Union--with massive nuclear arsenals. There was the ideological conflict of capitalism versus communism.

Those disagreements, disputes and conflicts were not limited to Europe. The cold war meant that events throughout the world were assessed, largely, in relation to their implications for the cold war. Indeed, the rest of the world called itself the third world. The very name it gave itself had significance only as an aspect of the cold war between the west and the Soviet Union. When there was a coup d'etat in Latin America, the main interest was whether it would produce a Government who were pro-communist or pro the United States. If there was a revolution in Africa, what were the implications for the cold war? If there was a civil war in Afghanistan, what were the geo-political considerations beyond Afghanistan in the wider international context?

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): The right hon. and learned Gentleman is taking a historical road and I should point out that this is the 40th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising. Also, since it is the 40th anniversary of the Suez aggression, would it not be appropriate for the Government to publish a White Paper which, for the first time, gives the truth about what happened before the aggression and about the collusion which undoubtedly took place between the three Governments--the British, the French and the Israelis? After 40 years, why can we not be told the full truth at long last? Surely we are entitled to know.

Mr. Rifkind: I suspect that we do know the full truth. I am not aware of any significant unresolved issues.

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Although the hon. Gentleman's party has not been involved in producing White Papers for a long time, he should realise that the primary purpose of a White Paper is to look to the future. We are content to leave it to historians, taking into account Government documents, to assess the lessons of the past.

That bi-polar world is now behind us with the end of the cold war and we now have a multi-polar situation. There is only one world super-power, yet we have the development of global politics. So many issues are affecting the world as a whole in an unprecedented way. The last time there was a global world, it was based on colonial empires. All those empires--the British, the French and even the Russian--have now disappeared. The factors that now lead to global issues, which will increasingly dominate our debates and the interests of our country, do not arise simply as a result of the end of the cold war but have been given a spur because of that.

Market economy capitalism is dominant throughout the world. Almost every country, including communist China, is developing what is, in effect, a capitalist economy. We have an extraordinary development in personal communications and information technology which is accelerating and which will give rise to new global dimensions. We have the movement of capital in an unprecedented way which is making it impossible for any one country to have a completely separate economic policy.

We have the extraordinary growth of trade, not just with the single market in Europe or the North American Free Trade Agreement area, but with the countries of south-east Asia, Japan, Latin America and China which are increasingly becoming major international contributors to the extraordinary increase in global trade and are doing so through the disintegration of internal barriers to wealth creation and economic activity.

There are not just encouraging developments. There are new global threats of which we should be equally conscious. One of the most unwise predictions of recent years was that of the American philosopher who, at the end of the cold war, said that it was the end of history. I prefer the alternative statement which is that as one door closes another slams in your face.

We have significant new threats. The international development of terrorism and crime can be properly combated only by unprecedented international action. The threat of drugs is, clearly, an international threat with those who produce drugs and allow them to transit through their territory having to be involved in dealing with that difficulty.

There is the ever-present threat of weapons of mass destruction, and I do not mean only nuclear weapons, on which most attention has been focused. The increasing threat from chemical and biological weapons is introducing an entirely new dimension into the world, and it is relevant not only as a threat from states but as a potential threat from terrorist organisations.

We have increasingly become aware of the fact that environmental considerations can be understood properly only in global terms. Pollution knows no national boundaries--as we discovered when the Chernobyl disaster had implications for farmers in Wales and elsewhere. Those issues, too, require an international response.

The worrying and disturbing growth in religious extremism has major political consequences. I am not thinking only of Islamic extremism, although that has

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