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Mr. Murphy: I thank the hon. Gentleman for those comments, and I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for using the incorrect personal pronoun.
In response to the hon. Gentleman, I could refer him to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) who in response to the comments of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, said:
"Trying to claim that Amsterdam is some great threat to the nation state is not very sustainable at all."
Perhaps Conservative Members can tell me whether they agree with or disown the comments of the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) who, in an honourable act, removed himself from the Front Bench and said:
"I do hope that we do not take a bull-headed view of the Amsterdam treaty."
Mrs. Browning:
Had the hon. Gentleman been in the Chamber earlier, he would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) say that he vote with the Opposition tonight.
Mr. Murphy: I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, but thus far we have indeed had a bull-headed approach from Conservative Members. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton may vote with the Opposition tonight, but that will be in direct contradiction to his previous pronouncements.
Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset): I am not sure that I recognise the people's Europe or new Europe about which the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) was talking. I hope that I can convince him that there will be only one Conservative party voting tonight.
I have always regarded myself as absolutely positive on our role in the European Union, and I believe that we should be an active member of it. During the general election campaign, the Referendum party claimed that a vote for me was a vote for Brussels, but I hope that everyone will be disabused of that this evening and will not find it strange that I intend to oppose the Bill and the treaty, for three very good reasons.
First, it is a mean treaty. It does nothing to adjust the institutions to cater for an enlarged European Union. Enlargement is hardly addressed, so we will need another intergovernmental conference and another treaty.
Secondly, the social chapter and employment chapter, of which little mention has been made today, will do nothing to create a single new job in my constituency, and I believe that the resulting loss of competitiveness may well lead to job losses and bankruptcies among small and medium-sized businesses.
Thirdly, the Government's failure to use the unanimity that is required in treaty negotiations to secure any concessions on fishing quotas or the working time directive is a disgrace to whatever negotiating skills they thought they might have.
I call the treaty mean because it is not a striking document and lacks the simple focus of the Single European Act with its creation of the single market. It lacks the purpose of the Maastricht treaty, which dealt with economic and monetary union--whatever one's view of that might be--and set up the pillars of intergovernmental co-operation on foreign affairs, justice and home affairs.
The treaty should have been bold--a blueprint for the enlargement of the Union. It has clearly failed in that. Conservative Members have asked about the changes in qualified majority voting and the powers of the European Parliament. In terms of the great leap forward that the Community is about to take in incorporating the formerly oppressed and destitute nations of eastern Europe, the treaty is merely tinkering. It does not deal with the problem at all.
If we are to incorporate states in central and eastern Europe, we must tackle the complex web of institutional questions, including the voting weights in the Council, the presidency of the Council and the way in which it rotates, and the size of the Commission. As we take in smaller and weaker nations, the whole question of big versus small nations must be tackled. The strains are not only institutional but financial. Neither the Amsterdam treaty nor the Commission's agenda 2000 go any way to tackling the financial problems or genuinely reforming the common agricultural policy. It is in that respect that the treaty is a failure, and the blame for that lies collectively with all the nation states that negotiated at Amsterdam.
However, the blame for incorporation of the social chapter lies firmly with the Government and their adherence to outdated and uncompetitive dogma. There are those who would protest that, at the time of the signing of the Amsterdam treaty, the social chapter was an empty box. It contained just two provisions--one on works councils and one on parental leave. But for how long?
The United Kingdom has business practices that do not follow the European social model. The United Kingdom is seen on the continent as more competitive and, as a result, a threat. Already, the Commission proposes to make the works council directive, which originally applied to firms with 1,000 employees or more, apply to firms with just 50 employees. That would make a great difference to the implications of the directive.
How many new jobs will be created as a result of the Government's signing the social chapter? Perhaps more pertinent, how many jobs will be destroyed by it and by the associated introduction of a statutory minimum wage?
Mrs. Anne McGuire (Stirling):
Will the hon. Gentleman explain how a level playing field is uncompetitive? If he is into statistical analysis, will he advise us how many people's working lives will be improved by the social chapter?
Mr. Walter:
I suggest that those who are unemployed on the continent of Europe would welcome the employment opportunities that exist in Britain as a result of the previous Government's policies. We are talking about a Europe that is able to compete in the modern world.
I regard myself as a good European, but I have no problem in opposing the social chapter and the employment chapter that goes with it because they are bad for Britain and bad for Europe. The treaty is a missed opportunity for Europe and for Britain--the opportunity has been missed to right some of the wrongs of the past, such as the abuse of fishing quotas. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) has left the Chamber. We could have righted a wrong that had been imposed on the fishermen of Britain. There is also a wrong in the back-door provisions of the working time directive. The Government failed. It was only to be expected that they would not do anything about the working time directive, but on fishing there was a unique opportunity to do something.
Nothing is achieved in treaty negotiations without unanimity. We could have said, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) was prepared to say if he had been at the negotiating table, that if there was no deal on fishing there would be no treaty. The Government failed to do that and, as others have said, they came back with a worthless piece of paper. The Government continue to fail to stand up for Britain.
Dr. Rudi Vis (Finchley and Golders Green):
Amsterdam is my home town, so I must be a raving Europhile in the eyes of most people, but I have to admit that, as a Dutch-born person, I have found this a very amusing debate.
I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who has now left the Chamber, saying that what is before us is more or less empty. I heard the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), who has also now gone, saying that he will fight every letter, every word and every sentence because it is all wrong. Finally, I heard the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), who is trying a new tack for a Conservative, saying that he was a good European but that he could not possibly sign up to anything that Europe might put to him.
It is a pity that he has gone, because I also listened carefully to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins). With my Dutch background, I know one or two things that might lift the veil a little between those Conservative Members who are so upset about Europe and my own position, which might not be the position of the Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman said two things that I found very interesting and they stand out for me. First, he said the devil is the detail and, secondly, he said that there must be an end point.
If the devil is in the detail, we will never get anywhere and that is a difficulty. That is not Dutch thinking--I am not standing here as a Dutch person--but the Dutch have always said that Europe is a journey. It is not about detail--we sit around a table and negotiate and we have to put ourselves in the driving seat if we want to say anything about the direction in which this country wants Europe to go. As for the contention that there must be an end point, how can one argue in general that it must be good for Britain to go no further with Europe? How can one determine an end point if one cannot determine beforehand whether that end point is or is not good for Britain?
Am I a raving Europhile? Let us check a few points. I believe that something went wrong when this country first considered joining the European Economic Community, which really started not in 1958, but--as most people would accept--in 1951, with the treaty of Paris. It was a shame that Britain did not join at that time. It was the Dutch who argued strongly that Britain should come in, because they foresaw the difficulties arising from an alliance between France and West Germany, as it then was; but the decision was no. The second chance came in 1955 in Messina, but again the answer was no, despite the fact that the Dutch, the Italians and the Belgians wanted this country to join. It was not until 1958 that the treaty was signed to establish the European Economic Community.
Much has been said about the awful aspects of being a member of the European Union and playing a strong role in Europe. I suggest that Conservative Members should go to the Library and ask what was the gross domestic product of the United Kingdom and of France in 1958; they should then compare those figures to the GDP of the UK and France when this country finally joined the EEC--they will see how we have missed the boat. If Conservative Members look at the development of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was
established in 1951, they will see--more than 40 years later--that, if this nation had joined in 1951, it would have suffered far fewer problems.
The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East--I listened to his speech on the monitor--talked about the CAP. I am aware that the CAP is not necessarily a good policy now. It was added in 1961--it was written by Mr. Mansholt, a friend of my family--when aspects of the CAP were necessary. The fact that we cannot get rid of it now that we have gluts is a design fault, not a fault of the intention of the CAP. Like many other people, I was very much in favour of the British agricultural policy, but in 1973 we had no chance to insist that the CAP be changed to the British agricultural policy. Had we had such a chance, I would have applauded Mr. Mansholt and argued the case for adopting the British agricultural policy rather than the CAP, which is basically the French agricultural policy. Those matters are easily forgotten by Conservative Members.
A few days before the signing of the Amsterdam treaty, I was in Amsterdam asking Dutch people, on behalf of a television company, what they thought the treaty would do. As I said before--I was able to make one hon. Member leave the Chamber when I did so--the Dutch see Europe as a journey. It is an agenda of thought and of contribution, in which one plays a role. That is a good agenda.
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