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9.44 pm
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Ms Joyce Quin): As is usual in these debates, a wide variety of issues have been raised. Unfortunately for me, a common thread throughout the speeches was that they nearly all contained specific points for me to deal with in my reply. As I have only 15 minutes to answer all those questions, it is not merely a Herculean but an impossible task. However, I can write to hon. Members if they feel that I have not covered certain matters.
There were many interesting speeches. Indeed, many of my hon. Friends spoke effectively and movingly about the importance of representing their constituents on European
issues. That was clear from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), who mentioned the way in which Europe has helped and will be able to help in her area. Given that this debate is in the run-up to the European elections, it seemed entirely appropriate that hon. Members on both sides of the House should remind us of local and regional aspects of European policies. Certainly, my hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) effectively referred to the situation in their areas, as did the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh).
I also commend the many speeches from both sides of the House that stressed the importance of an outward-looking European Union in various ways. It was important to stress, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) and the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), the situation with regard to Russia and the importance of European engagement with Russia, which is why it has been identified as the subject of the first common strategy under the European Union's common foreign and security policy. I very much welcome that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) mentioned the importance of developing countries. I hope that I will get an opportunity to pick up on one or two of the points that he made later, but he was right to bring developing countries into the debate on the European Union.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) mentioned the middle east and the importance of ensuring that we do what we can to give the necessary momentum to the peace process, in particular in the light of the new Government in Israel.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke at some length on the situation in Kosovo and responded to many thoughtful and probing interventions. He gave examples, which moved us all, of the extent of the suffering and the appalling experiences that have been inflicted on whole families--men, women and children--by Milosevic's troops. He also looked to the future--rightly in my view--and mentioned the work that the European Union wants to do to help economic recovery and progress throughout that region in a way that can make all the countries concerned feel that they can move towards and into the European mainstream.
Our proposals will be considered at the Cologne European Council. We wholeheartedly endorse the presidency proposal for a south-east Europe stability pact, which could provide a unique and multilateral forum, involving all the countries of the region in due course, and could help to create a future partnership based on core democratic values.
The United Kingdom Government are also contributing ideas for action in other international forums, such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, NATO and the international financial institutions, to ensure that those various initiatives do not duplicate each other, but can complement each other and be effective, in that important task.
Various questions were put to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. Although some may obviously be pursued with him directly, in answer to the shadow Foreign Secretary I can say that in NATO we are examining arrangements for an enhanced force to
underwrite a ceasefire in Kosovo and to provide security for refugees to return. It is envisaged as a NATO force, under a NATO command structure, and will provide the core for an international military presentation in which we would welcome the participation of other partners. The sense of direction is clear.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary several specific questions about which I think that I can reassure him. There is no question of immunity for Milosevic and others, but those will be matters for the International War Crimes Tribunal. He also asked about territorial integrity. We are not advancing solutions based on partition, or partial or zonal arrangements of the sort that he mentioned.
I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Mr. Williams) paid tribute to the efforts of the Foreign Secretary, which have been remarkable before, during and after Rambouillet. It is a record of which the country, and certainly the Government, are proud.
On internal European Union policy issues, I thought that our debate was interrupted by a disgraceful intervention on a point of order by the shadow Chancellor. I had already explained to the House what happened in ECOFIN, but he was not present when I intervened. As he had intervened, I thought that I had better check my information. In a short absence from the Chamber, I checked with my Department and the Treasury but the situation was as I had described it to the House. What happened at ECOFIN was very advantageous to this country and to the Chancellor's work. He has managed to move the debate on to a recognition of the particular problems of the eurobond market and financial markets in a way that did not exist before. We should recognise and pay tribute to his achievements.
I think that the shadow Chancellor should come to the House to apologise for his intervention. While I have him in my sights, I want to deal with a claim that he made in last week's debate on fraud in the European Union. I am not sure why, but he claimed that I had been forced to admit that we had done little to tackle such fraud. I do not know where he got that from. I said no such thing and would happily defend to the House in detail our record on tackling fraud and financial irregularities, at both national and European level. In the early days of the Government, we managed to get into the Amsterdam treaty a legal base to combat fraud against the Community budget. I hope that it can be used now that the treaty has come into force.
In January, the Chancellor proposed that the head of UCLAF--Unite de Coordination de la Lutte Anti- Fraude--should be boosted to make him independent of the Commission, and I am glad that that independence has now been agreed. Some hon. Members on both sides of the House expressed concern about the office being within the European Commission, but I defend that strongly because I know well from the past it is when people have had access to the system, the files and the information, that fraud has been uncovered. The proposal ensures that the head of the unit is independent and does not owe his
career or prospects to the European Commission. That independence is the key to tackling fraud effectively in the European Union.
Mr. Howard:
Does not the right hon. Lady understand that it is possible for an independent body to have full access to all the documents and people that it needs while being outside the body that it is investigating? The Foreign Secretary gave no direct answer to the hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty). Why will she not undertake to reconsider the proposal so that we can have an independent fraud investigating body outside the Commission?
Ms Quin:
I have already answered the right hon. and learned Gentleman. We have agreed the best combination of independence and access to the information. That is what we believe is really important in tackling fraud. I am glad that that has now been agreed.
Many other points were raised and it will be difficult to cover them all in the course of my remarks. Although I enjoyed and appreciated many of the contributions that were made, I was somewhat depressed by the degree of inaccuracy in the speeches of many Opposition Members and by the repeated scare stories and assertions that have no foundation in reality. One Opposition Member said that it was a rarity for us to discuss European issues in the House. That is complete nonsense. Apart from the regular debates on progress in the European Union, statements are made and questions are answered after every European Council meeting. A variety of debates are held and evidence is given to Committees; only last week, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave lengthy evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs--quite rightly--on the prospects for Cologne. We have overhauled the European scrutiny arrangements in the House, which means that Members have a better opportunity to scrutinise European legislation than ever before. We are proud of our record in bringing such issues before Parliament. I should like Opposition Members to acknowledge that, rather than making constant wild allegations that we do not listen to them.
I struggled to find anything to agree with in the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I thought that I was going to agree with some of his comments about Kosovo when he said that we have a bipartisan approach--although his version of bipartisanship could most kindly be described as idiosyncratic. However, I agreed with him and his hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend) about enlargement. Unfortunately, both of them gave a wholly inaccurate version of the Government's policy on enlargement. Instead of going slow, we are speeding up the enlargement process through our actions in the EU. I commend to them the speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in Romania and to Members of the Bulgarian Government, when he said that we would support an invitation to Romania and Bulgaria to open negotiations at the Helsinki summit. As the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned Romania and Bulgaria specifically, I was surprised that he did not acknowledge the work that we had carried out.
Furthermore, we recognise and encourage the aspirations of other states in the enlargement process, especially the other two Baltic states, Slovakia, which has made good progress recently, and Malta, which has
recently come back into the frame with its renewed application. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Malta and the Maltese are thoroughly preparing their accession negotiations, so that they will be in a position to take advantage of them when the time comes--despite the fact that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) seems to be laughing at the prospect. That time will be as soon as possible.
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe and his colleagues were keen to disown what he daringly described at one point as his sister parties in the EU. I think that he was also keen to disown some of his party's MEPs, who obviously work closely with the European People's party group. He should read the information that I found on the internet yesterday, in which the links of Tory Members of the European Parliament with the European People's party are trumpeted. The list of the key positions held by Tory MEPs in the European People's party is highlighted.
It is good to remind the House of what the allies of the Tory party are putting forward in the European elections. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary rightly entertained us, but perhaps I could add something that he did not mention--the phrase in the European People's party manifesto that the party was committed to greater social integration.
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
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