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Mr. Giles Radice (North Durham): Does my hon. Friend consider that one of the problems with the Conservatives' approach is that so few Conservative Members have read the social chapter? I remember reading it during the Maastricht debate and the same was true then. I saw the astonishment on Conservative Members' faces because they had not understood how little was contained in the social chapter, how much was excluded, the way in which it protected small firms and the fact that it had to take account of economic conditions. That is the problem: Conservative Members have not read the social chapter.
Mr. Gapes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that comment because, as on so many other connected matters, he is right. He has read the social chapter and all the other matters that we are debating in the Committee.
Mr. William Cash (Stone) rose--
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham) rose--
Mr. Gapes: I give way to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash).
Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the problem is not the large multinational companies but the small and medium businesses? Does he accept that, if one were to draw an analogy with the United States, the key question is whether we have enough flexibility in our labour market to enable us to generate jobs of the type that are being produced in the United States and that he is misrepresenting the position? I have indeed read the social chapter.
Mr. Gapes: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman says that he has read the social chapter. I suggest that he reads it again because anyone who has read it and the directive knows that small companies are specifically excluded. Conservative Europhobes have an amazing misunderstanding of, or deliberately misrepresent, the situation. Their stance would be greeted with hysteria among Conservative and Christian Democrat parties in all other member states of the European Union.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the fundamental problems that businesses in Germany have is the incentive to remain small--at 10 employees or fewer--precisely because of the threshold in social legislation? That is exactly the threshold the virtue of which the hon. Gentleman now extols. The consequences are dire.
6 pm
Mr. Gapes: I am sorry, but I fail to understand the relevance of that intervention to the social chapter. I presume that it relates to internal German domestic law--if the hon. Gentleman is right. I am not sure whether he is; it certainly has nothing to do with the European Union or the social chapter.
Mr. Bercow: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's strictures on the social chapter with the greatest possible interest. What does he say about Commissioner Flynn's proposal that works councils should be established in companies with 50 employees or more? Is he opposed to it? If so, is there the slightest prospect of the Government doing something about it?
Mr. Gapes: Had this country not signed up to the social chapter, the Government could have done nothing about it. The only way this country can influence the outcome of discussions and negotiations on these matters is by being at the table--rather than opting out.
Various proposals have been suggested in a number of areas, but they have not yet come to fruition and negotiations continue. It is therefore premature and unrealistic to say that such proposals have been agreed. Indeed, only two matters are currently included in the social chapter and they relate to works councils and parental leave, which we discussed earlier. New provisions in other areas are under consideration, one of which relates to burden of proof in sex
discrimination cases. As a result of the Amsterdam agreement, the Government will now have a voice in the negotiations on the final wording of that proposal.
Other proposals concern part-time workers. The Confederation of British Industry said that there should be an agreement on that. An agreement has been made among the social partners, who believe that high regard should be paid to how employers consider the rights of part-time workers. I hope that progress will be made in the not-too-distant future.
All good employers want to consult, inform and involve their employees. They regard committed, dedicated and loyal employees as vital to the success of their business. The best way to achieve that is to pay people well, show them respect and listen to them when they have views to express or grievances. Bad employers operate on the basis of driving down wages, not consulting, imposing, and acting in an autocratic and arbitrary manner. Unfortunately, if no social legislation is in place and there is no social protection or social partnership, bad employers are more likely to exist, to succeed in the market and to undercut the rates paid by good employers. That is why it is important to have a national minimum wage and the social chapter.
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby):
The hon. Gentleman will be surprised to learn how much I agree with him about good employers. Almost everyone in the House agrees that any good employer listens to his or her work force. When I was on the Employment Committee, it never ceased to amaze me how many big companies, some of which the hon. Gentleman has quoted in terms of their support for the Amsterdam treaty, did not carry out such policies.
Does the hon. Gentleman not realise, however, that it is the business of neither national Governments nor the European Union to determine how an employer relates to his employees? That way goes the stifling form of government that we had previously, with beer and sandwiches at No. 10.
Mr. Gapes:
That was a most interesting intervention. There is clearly a deep philosophical division between those who believe that Governments have no role in setting minimum standards and those who follow that logic and believe that everything should simply be left to the markets.
Mr. Robathan:
I do not believe that.
Mr. Gapes:
If everything should not be left to the market, I presume that there must be minimum standards and regulations to prevent exploitation and injustice, just as was proposed by a former Prime Minister and Conservative leader when he was responsible for wages councils in the early years of this century.
Mr. Gapes:
Yes. I refer to the right hon. Member who, having started off in Dundee and Oldham, finished his parliamentary career in the borough I am also pleased
Mr. Gapes:
The hon. Gentleman seems to be a little agitated. Does he wish to intervene?
Mr. Bercow:
I should love to. We all appreciate the hon. Gentleman's genial spirit, but he is meandering somewhat. I shall rescue him with an alternative challenge. Does he think that the American model or the European model is a better route to the creation of jobs?
Mr. Gapes:
I was fortunate enough to come across some interesting statistics that show that unemployment in certain European countries is falling faster than it is in the United States. Among those countries are Sweden and Germany. That clearly shows that the model the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue--the American model--lock, stock and barrel, which has no social protection or legislation to help protect the poor, the disabled and those with other problems, is at variance with the European model, which I prefer.
If we had to choose--we do not because we are part of the process of developing a model--I would rather start with a model based on social partnership than one based on the avaricious grinding down of poor people and exploitation. The hon. Gentleman obviously prefers the other model. That is the philosophical difference between modern, hard-faced conservatism and the Labour party's one-nation approach.
Mr. Bercow:
The hon. Gentleman should know by now that I am a soft-centred individual. If he is not aware of that yet, he will be in the future. May I ask a simple factual question? Does he accept that, between 1974 and 1994, 31 million new jobs were created in the private sector in the United States and that precisely none were created in the European Union?
Mr. Gapes:
Those are interesting statistics. I shall check the facts when I have read the transcript of that interesting intervention. Even if they were true, which I doubt, they would be irrelevant to the argument about the social chapter, which is a recent innovation in the EU. The figures that the hon. Gentleman quotes from the early 1970s are neither here nor there. We must deal with the situation in the 1990s.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset):
The hon. Gentleman is providing the dual benefit of entertaining the House and being patient with it. Does he realise that almost every provision to be introduced under the social chapter--one of which, incidentally, the hon. Gentleman referred to as a proposal, but is a directive that was debated by European Standing Committee B this morning--is already implemented in one form or another in most of the European states which have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) pointed out, produced zero employment gain over the period in which the United States has produced some 30 million jobs?
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