---

Mr. Forth: The lamentations.

Mr. Cook: Or, in the case of Lord Tebbit and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, the lamentations over her resignation. Lord Tebbit said of current Conservative policy--[Interruption.] At last, I have united the Opposition behind a Government proposal. Lord Tebbit said of current Conservative policy in Europe:

We both have doubts as to whether our partners will agree to having us "in" if we are not to be ruled "by". That of course raises the question should we be in or should we be out?

The "we" at the start of that quotation refers to Lord Tebbit and Lady Thatcher. The past week has shown once again how, 10 years after Lady Thatcher resigned, what she thinks today, Conservative Members will think tomorrow.

Nobody tries to catch up faster with Lady Thatcher's views than Lord Tebbit's replacement, the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith).

Mr. Bercow: A great man.

Mr. Cook: The hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green is certainly typical of the modern Conservative Front Bench. Yesterday, during the statement on European defence, there was a revealing moment when he described Europe as "over there", which is how the Americans used to refer to Europe. Plainly, in the mind of the hon. Gentleman, what separates Britain from the continent is not a channel, but an ocean. Europe is not over there.

Mr. Cash: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Foreign Secretary is deliberately misrepresenting what is in Hansard.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that what the Foreign Secretary is saying is not deliberately misleading.

Mr. Cash: I shall rephrase that by saying that the Foreign Secretary is misunderstanding what was said in yesterday's debate. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), the shadow Defence Secretary, made it clear in an intervention after he was accused by the Defence Secretary of referring to "over there" as the continent--

Madam Deputy Speaker: Once again, this is a point of information rather than a point of order.

Mr. Cash: It all appears in Hansard, Madam Deputy Speaker, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green meant the other side of the House.

Mr. Cook: I am neither misunderstanding nor misrepresenting the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green: I am quoting him. He did say "over there" yesterday. Europe is not over there. Britain is part of Europe, and it is in our interest that we are a leading partner in it. The stronger Europe is in the world, the

23 Nov 2000 : Column 462

stronger will be Britain. The more Europe embraces economic reform, the more prosperous will be Britain. The more Europe co-operates to defeat organised crime, the safer will be the streets of Britain. The more successful Europe is in the negotiations to halt climate change, the better will be Britain's environment. The greater Europe's military capacity for crisis management, the greater will be the security of Britain.

That is why the Government believe that Britain's place is not just in Europe, but in playing a leading part in Europe, setting the agenda and securing Britain's interests in Europe, as we will do at Nice. By contrast, the Conservative party is embracing policies that are a betrayal of Britain's strategic interests and would end up with a Britain marginalised and possibly excluded from a European Union that will soon stretch from the Atlantic ocean to the Black sea.

Mr. Robathan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cook: No, I will not. I keep reading that the Conservative party thinks that this is its trump card. If it is, it should play it as often as it can because, if that is the choice that it offers the electorate at the general election, it will lose and we will win.

1.54 pm

Mr. Francis Maude (Horsham): When we last debated these matters in June, the Foreign Secretary was, we later understood, unfortunately unable to deliver his speech in full as the result of pressure from on high. Time will tell whether what we heard today is his full speech or just the Chancellor of the Exchequer's expurgated highlights.

Last weekend, the Foreign Secretary was good enough to let the world know that he hoped the Chancellor would remember that he is not the Prime Minister. Perhaps in future he should let him know that he is not his sub-editor either, and that Britain expects to have a Foreign Secretary who is big enough and serious enough to decide for himself what he says to the House of Commons.

This has been a shabby start to the debate--a shabby speech. It is increasingly interesting to see how the Government are trying to frame the debate about the European Union. As time goes on--we have had a flavour of this today--anyone who disagrees with the Government's view of the future of Europe is written off as anti-European and, as the Foreign Secretary has said, as peddling lurid scare stories. We hear increasingly the authentic tone of a Government who are deeply out of touch with the people whom they govern--condescending about their concerns and contemptuous of their aspirations. Never has there been a Government so adamantly convinced that the men and women in Whitehall know best--although yesterday it seemed that the men and women in Whitehall do not altogether know what it is that they think is best.

The subject of the everything but arms agreement came up twice yesterday. It would be helpful if the Foreign Secretary could clear this matter up, as we have been given some confusing signals. At Question Time yesterday, the Secretary of State for International Development made her position absolutely clear when she talked about

Pascal Lamy's proposal, which we strongly support.

23 Nov 2000 : Column 463

A few minutes later, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who asked about this subject, the Prime Minister said:


The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and, yes, we are concerned about the proposal.--[Official Report, 22 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 293-307.]

Which is it? Are the Government concerned about it or do they strongly support it?

The Foreign Secretary gave evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this week. He started off by saying:

This is not a matter for the General Affairs Council.

He was apparently unaware that Pascal Lamy had made a presentation about precisely this matter at the General Affairs Council on 9 October, which, according to the minutes of the meeting, the right hon. Gentleman had attended. One Minister says that the Government support the proposal strongly and another is concerned about it, so we looked to see what the Foreign Secretary said about it. He said:

It is a very major issue . . . I am unsighted on this.

So that clears that up. What a magisterial position that is--yet another bit of paperwork down at the bottom of the Red Box that the Foreign Secretary did not quite get to.

The Government will say anything and do anything to hide the truth. They will go to any lengths to distort what is happening, and have no shame about standing on their head if that serves their purpose. It is worth reflecting on the recent furore over passports. That is not in itself the biggest issue, but it is indicative of how the Government operate and what they do.

The fact that the European Commission was considering harmonising the design of national passports across the European Union was revealed in The Mail on Sunday--[Interruption.] Hon. Members should wait, because this incident becomes more revealing later on. The Mail on Sunday had picked up the story from a publication called the European Voice. Not surprisingly there was a storm of protest. Commissioner Kinnock came on the scene, and he described the report as rubbish. Without bothering to find out whether there was any basis to it, he decided to complain on the radio about

the perpetual disservice done to the readers of several British newspapers . . . who continually pump out this bilge which simply doesn't have a basis.

The Government contended that the report was untrue--a lurid scare story, in the Foreign Secretary's language. Unhappily for them, it soon emerged that it was true, as a couple of telephone calls could have confirmed. The Commissioner was indeed considering precisely such a proposal, as the Minister for Europe has subsequently admitted. In a statement that will have given pleasure to all his many friends, he said:

We are grateful to the readers of the Mail on Sunday for letting us hear their views on this matter and congratulate you--

congratulate The Mail on Sunday that is--

for running this story.

Could this be the same media whose coverage of Europe the Prime Minister described two days later as anti- European and fundamentally dishonest?

23 Nov 2000 : Column 464

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Keith Vaz): The right hon. Gentleman failed to quote the end of the article. I told The Mail on Sunday that it should not have run the story, because there was no proposal; there was only an idea put up by one official.

---