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Mr. Forth: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that what defines a nation will rarely, if ever, be found in a treaty.
My concern is that what threatens the nation may well be contained in a succession of treaties, and that we must be ever vigilant about that.
Mr. Pound: What threatens the nation has been addressed by the Amsterdam treaty specifically and not hypothetically. I cannot comment on what may happen further down the line. Today we are under threat, and in many ways Amsterdam addresses and responds to that threat. What happens in future will be discussed then. The Government have returned from Amsterdam with the best possible deal for Britain in Europe and the best deal for Britain and Europe.
I am no slavish lickspittle of the Front Bench; I am far too new to the job to have acquired such habits. I would be prepared to make the effort, but at the moment I simply try to speak my mind.
Earlier on, I was accused of trying to incorporate the Petersburg tasks into a somewhat unfortunate incident that occurred at Ealing town hall yesterday morning when a rocket was fired at the end of the two minutes' silence. It soared into the air and then fell to earth and ignited five cars in the car park. That is not why I am speaking today. I hasten to add that Ealing town hall is just outside my constituency.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife):
I cannot help thinking that the independence of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) may be modulated by membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee or participation in the annual trip to the United Nations; this institution has many remarkable ways of ensuring loyalty to the Front Bench. Indeed, there will be a demonstration later this evening from the official Opposition of how loyalty to the Front Bench can be assured.
If we are to believe the Foreign Secretary, the Amsterdam summit was a triumph; if we are to believe the shadow Foreign Secretary, it was a disaster. They cannot both be right, but they can both be wrong--and they are.
The Amsterdam treaty is really a rather mild-mannered document that does not justify the apocalyptic consequences attached to it a moment or two ago by the shadow Foreign Secretary. He was right when he said that the treaty is more notable for what it omits than for what it contains.
The shadow Foreign Secretary told hon. Members who represent constituencies with fishing interests that, unless we go into the same Lobby as him today, we will be betraying the fishermen we represent. If he wants a sense of betrayal, he should come with me and talk to fishermen in my constituency, who feel a very deep sense of betrayal about the 18-year stewardship of British fishing interests by the Government of which he was a member.
As we are dealing with the European Union, I should mention the sense of betrayal about the continued and entirely unjustified refusal of the Conservative
Government to provide adequate funds to match the money that was available from Brussels to decommission fishing vessels. Some of the problems of too much fishing effort--which hon. Members with fishing interests in their constituencies know about--could have been ameliorated if the Government of which the shadow Foreign Secretary was a member had taken a much more active role in promoting decommissioning by using the funds that were available.
It is quite right that all hon. Members are opposed to quota hopping, but we should remind ourselves that that practice has arisen because of the sale by British fishermen of licences, particularly to Spanish fishermen. Nothing was ever done by the previous Government to prevent those sales. Time after time, the Fisheries Council's December meetings were foreshadowed by statements that there would be no deal unless the issue of quota hopping was dealt with. Time after time, however, there was a deal; and time after time quota hopping was not dealt with.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton):
Does the hon. and learned Gentleman concede that the previous Government tried to do something about quota hopping but that our hands were tied by court judgments such as that in the Factortame case? It was not a matter of our lacking will. The will was certainly there for the intergovernmental conference--when the Foreign Secretary singularly failed to win any agreement.
Mr. Campbell:
It is difficult to blame a Government who had been in office for perhaps six weeks when the Amsterdam treaty was negotiated for problems that were not capable of being dealt with by the Government that had responsibility for them for an entire 18 years.
One Fishing Council after another, we were told--the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) may attempt to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because he had responsibility for fishing at the time--that there would be no deal in December unless quota hopping was resolved, but it never was.
Sir Richard Body (Boston and Skegness):
Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Campbell:
No, I shall make some progress.
A moment ago, I said that the Amsterdam treaty is more notable for what it omits than for what it contains. What is certainly true is that the challenge of enlargement has not been properly met. Specifically in the context of Amsterdam, there was no effort at common agricultural policy reform, without which enlargement will be financially impossible.
As hon. Members have already observed, no effort had been made to deal with the institutional implications of enlargement. How will larger member states be compensated for losing their second Commissioner? How will voting rights be rebalanced within the Union? If the European Parliament is capped at 700 Members, how many Members will be allocated to each member state? How will Commission portfolios--which are sometimes matters of great controversy--be allocated among Commissioners if there are more than 20 of them? Such functional issues demand early resolution if enlargement is to proceed.
The treaty contains modest progress on common foreign and security policy, with protection of the United Kingdom veto. It provides limited extension of qualified majority voting. It accepts closer co-operation with the Western European Union but recognises the primacy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It creates greater clarity on subsidiarity and allows the United Kingdom to have some say on the social chapter.
Those are pretty modest achievements. They can be only modest achievements, or the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)--who takes an interest in these matters--would not be justified in describing Amsterdam as a "mouse of a treaty." He might have been a little more restrained in his metaphor if he had known that his support for a single currency would later cause the leader of the Conservative party to describe him, at least by implication, as a lemming. One has only to look at the right hon. and learned Gentleman to realise that neither his physical nor his intellectual bulk entitles one to describe him as a lemming.
Perhaps the mere use of such language--lemming is a silly description--tells us quite a lot about the Conservative party leadership's intentions towards the European Union. Such language sits particularly uneasily with a professed and much published desire to have an informed debate on a single currency.
Mr. Forth:
Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is not relevant for the House simply to be invited to examine each treaty or measure in isolation, having been reassured that, "There is not much in it--so don't worry"? Does he agree that hon. Members are entitled to consider the totality of treaties and measures and the cumulative effect that they will have on our country and on our relationship with the European Union? At what point will he allow us such broad consideration?
Mr. Campbell:
To echo something that was said earlier in the debate, I do not know whether my next comment will damage me more than it will damage the right hon. Gentleman. I thought that he made an honest speech. I have absolutely no difficulty with the totality of legislation currently directing the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, and the Liberal Democrats have never had such a difficulty.
In 1961, my party was the first to force a Division in the House on the matter. There were only six Liberal Members, but they forced a Division on the question of Britain's application to join what was then the European Community. They were defeated by several hundred votes to four--because they had to provide two Tellers and only four Members were able to go through the Lobby. We were proved correct on the matter very soon thereafter. Britain should have applied, and Britain did apply. I think that our membership has been entirely to the benefit of the people of the United Kingdom.
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