Examination of Witness (Questions 200-207)
HON. JOE
BOSSANO MP
6 FEBRUARY 2008
Q200 Chairman: There was a problem
until recently of a backlog of implementation of European Union
directives in Gibraltar. I understand that that has now largely
been resolved.
Joe Bossano: We still have some
directives that we implement now and again and that are overdue,
but the bulk of them have disappeared. At one stage, there was
a huge backlog that was in dispute. We are not part of the single
market in goods—at one stage the European Union decided
that, for example, even though there was no free movement of goods
between Gibraltar and the European Union, we still had to introduce
all the legislation on labelling, even though the goods were not
in free movement.
Literally hundreds of provisions were related
to the free movement of goods, which we had never had implemented.
The Foreign Office originally advised that they were not implementable
in Gibraltar. You cannot say that something must be labelled in
a particular way—in all the languages of the European Union,
for example—if at the end of the day we bring in something
from Morocco. It cannot enter Spain because it is a non-EU product,
so why should we have to label it in 12 or 24 languages or whatever?
A big chunk has been removed from the backlog
because the European Union has accepted what we are required to
do under our terms of membership. We have to implement things
to do with the movement of people, the movement of services, health,
employment because of the movement of labour, and social security
legislation. Anything to do with the import or export of products,
agricultural products, or fishery products—those are ours.
That has meant that the amount that we have been liable to implement
is less than originally appeared.
The other thing is that, increasingly, we are
using the Italian model, which is that we just put a piece of
paper and we virtually repeat the text of the legislation, and
quite a lot of it is meaningless, I always remember the time I
was in government when we were required to implement a piece of
legislation that had to do with ensuring that we prevented the
pollution of rivers where we grew oysters, especially pollution
from effluent from chemical plants. We do not have oysters, we
do not have rivers, and we do not have chemical plants, but the
Foreign Office told the European Union, "They don't have
chemical plants." It did not say anything about the oysters
or the rivers, and the EU said, "Ah, yes, but they might
have in the future." We might have chemical plants, but we
will never have rivers, believe me. At the end of the day, I,
as a Minister, introduced the Bill in the House. Although it makes
nonsense of the concept of Parliament and legislation, we have
got a law to make sure that our non-existent chemical plants do
not pollute the non-existent oyster beds in the non-existent rivers.
That was the easiest way to deal with the issue.
Q201 Mr. Pope: I realise that we
are short of time. I wanted to ask about your view of Gibraltar's
relationship with the British Parliament. Obviously, Gibraltar
has some powerful advocates in the House of Commons.
Joe Bossano: Yes.
Mr. Pope: Including a member of this
Committee, the hon. Member for Thurrock and Gibraltar, Central
(Andrew Mackinlay).
My point is about the formal relationship between
Gibraltar and this place, and whether you think that we would
be better moving to a system similar to what happens in France,
where Overseas Territories are represented in the National Assembly
in France. Now that Gibraltar is in with England, South West in
the European Parliament, do you think that there is a case for
having representation in the House of Commons, or, as this Committee
has recommended in the past, do you think that in a reformed House
of Lords, Gibraltar and the Overseas Territories might be represented?
Do you think that that would be a helpful step forward in the
relationship?
Joe Bossano: I said earlier how
the UK had shifted position, from first of all accusing the UN
of equating decolonisation and self-determination with independence,
and that that was not necessarily the correct view. The UN has
now accepted and said so categorically that independence is only
one option and that there are other options. One of the clear
options is the concept of integration. It has been there from
the beginning; it has not been used on many occasions, but certainly,
both the Dutch and the French integrated their colonies a long
time ago and, in many respects, on very generous terms.
I noticed that in some of the questions that
you put to representatives of the other Overseas Territories you
asked them, "What does it take for somebody from the UK to
belong here and to have the right to vote?" Well, anybody
from the UK who comes to live in Gibraltar is entitled to be entered
in the list of electors after six months, and has the right to
vote and to stand for election, provided that his intention is
to stay in Gibraltar and make it his home. We do it because we
are the colony that is geographically closest to the UK. The influence
of this House and the influence of the culture of the UK reached
Gibraltar before it reached anywhere else, including our special
relationship with the Navy. We were the first and the last port
of call of every naval ship leaving Devonport or Plymouth.
Those links make us feel very much at home here,
and I believe that it would be entirely consistent with the UK's
history in creating, out of the Empire and the Commonwealth, for
a solution for the remaining territories to be found that gives
them the maximum level of self-government that they can achieve,
given their particular geographical and human resources. A way
should be found whereby they are involved in representation in
Parliament. There is an argument that the level of self-government
is not full self-government to the extent that there may be a
residual power in the Parliament of the UK to overrule the Parliament
and the Government of the former colony so that it has not ceased
100% to be a colony. However, for as long as that residual power
exists ,that argument is answered clearly by us participating
in voting in that Parliament.
By definition, the argument that our Government
started, which was subsequently completed, won us the vote in
the European Parliament on the Matthews case, which was about
a complaint of a breach of human rights This argument was that
a Parliament that is able to legislate for Gibraltar does not
represent Gibraltar because the residents of Gibraltar are not
able to vote for that Parliament. Clearly, it was felt that giving
an electorate of 20,000 an MP in a place where most MPs represent
750,000, would create problems for everybody, so the compromise
was found that we form part of the South-West region. Therefore
when Glyn Ford, for example, stood for the South-West region,
he got elected as a British Labour Party/Gibraltar Socialist Party
candidate, because we endorsed him as our candidate as well as
a candidate of the British Labour Party.
It does not require enormous imagination to
find a way of reconciling the maximum levels of Government within
the territory and the recognition that, for practical reasons
rather than for archaic treaty reasons, independence is not a
solution for any of us—with the possible exception of Bermuda.
One should not look closer at the Dutch model; I would certainly
be supportive of that idea.
Q202 Chairman: Can we just look briefly
at two other areas? First, in the financial sector, there have
been significant improvements in the regulation of financial institutions
and the offshore financial activities over the recent years—not
just in Gibraltar, but also elsewhere in the Overseas Territories.
Do you think that there are any lessons that can be learned by
the smaller financial centres, such as Anguilla, Montserrat, Turks
and Caicos Islands, from the improvements that have taken place
in Gibraltar?
Joe Bossano: This issue is closely
linked to the concept of contingent liabilities in the UK, which
is one that the UK Foreign Office always raises with the National
Audit Commission. Let me tell you how I think one ought to approach
this question conceptually. The concept has to be "polluter
pays". By that, I mean that if the United Kingdom says to
the territory, "This is what you should do," and the
territory says, "I don't agree with you, I want to do something
else," then collateral to that, there must be an undertaking
that if the territories disregard the advice, they have to underwrite
the cost.
The opposite side of that same coin is that,
where the UK insists that we do what it thinks best, it has to
pick up the bill. The cases that have cost the United Kingdom
money was first, Barlow Clowes, which was sent to Gibraltar with
a licence from the Department of Trade and Industry when we did
not have our own licensing authority. The second was BCCI, which
was a case of a UK bank buying a small, Jewish-owned Gibraltar
bank which had come to Gibraltar from Morocco and which, with
£10 million, was totally solvent. I used to have the union
bank account there because it was 100% unionised. When BCCI came
in, it took the bank over, and increased its activity from £10
million to £100 million. BCCI then took the £100 million
from Gibraltar, and put it in London; from London it took it to
the Cayman Islands; and from there it disappeared. The third saga
was the mismanagement of the pension issue by the United Kingdom.
In all three cases, local advice was overruled
because they knew better in London; they all turned belly-up and
cost a lot of money. My experience was that the UK gave bad advice,
things turned out wrong and they subsequently blamed us. In my
time, in 1988, we pushed out the regulatory mechanism from the
Treasury. I felt that since we were going to go out on a marketing
exercise to attract people to Gibraltar, it was inconsistent to
invite people to apply for a licence and then, when they applied,
to tell them that they did not meet the standards. So, we would
market it but at the same time said to people that there was an
independent entity over which we had no control and which laid
down the criteria that they had to satisfy.
There must be no possibility of political
influence. We are all politicians and we know that if you have
an industry and there is something that will cause a lot of unemployment,
you are tempted as a politician to try to bend the rules if for
no other reason than the good intention of saving jobs and people's
livelihoods. There has to be a machinery that is completely independent
of the Government. In Gibraltar it is. I should like to see that
machinery become so independent that it receives no money at all
from the public purse and is financed by the industry. The criteria
should be that if it is a small industry, it may need to be partly
financed from public funds to get it on its feet but it should
have a clear guideline that it is expected to pay its way and
raise its own money and then not have to report or explain things
to the Government, or to the UK Government either. Independence
should be independence of any external influence.
Chairman: That is very helpful.
Q203 Sir John Stanley: As I am sure
you will agree, the 1996 Hague convention on the protection of
children is one of the most important international conventions
on the protection of children that has ever been concluded. I
am sure you would also agree that it is a total human rights disgrace
that the ratification of this convention has been held up for
some five years by the entire EU—because the EU has to proceed
by unanimity—as a result of the inability of the Spanish
and British Governments to agree how the convention should be
operated in Gibraltar.
The question I want to put to you, because I
find it genuinely mystifying, is why, when a simple and almost
self-evident solution was available, it took so long to agree
it. The simple self-evident solution, which I have advocated in
this House, and any number of other people must have advocated
in any number of other Parliaments and international forums, was
that agreement be made between the British and Spanish Governments
on how the convention should be operated in Gibraltar, with both
Governments agreeing that that did not in any way prejudice either
side's position on the sovereignty issue.
Our Foreign Secretary made his ministerial statement
on 8 January, finally announcing a solution and putting copies
of the relevant exchange of letters in the Library. The last sentence
of David Miliband's letter to the Spanish Foreign Minister, Mr.
Moratinos, reads: "These arrangements or any activity or
measure taken for their implementation or as a result of them
do not imply on the side of the Kingdom of Spain or on the side
of the United Kingdom any change in their respective positions
on the question of Gibraltar or on the limits of that territory."
So there is the self-evident solution. It is in the Foreign Secretary's
exchange of letters. I wonder whether you can provide us with
any explanation of why on earth it took five years to agree this
simple self-evident solution, at the same time depriving children
around the world of the protection of the 1996 Hague convention.
Joe Bossano: I have the debate
of 21 June here in front of me, and I have read carefully everything
that you said in that debate, Sir John. Let me say that one thing
on which I disagree with you is that you seem to apportion blame
equally. You have to first ask yourself how a civilised democracy
in Europe can put all those children at risk for the sake of defending
a principle enshrined in the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which
allowed, inter alia, the exportation of slaves from west Africa
to the Spanish colonies in 1714. I think it is a disgrace that
the Spanish Government should behave in that way. What is wrong
is to say, "Look, why do you not find a simple solution?"
The answer is that Spain accepted from Miliband something they
had been rejecting for the previous five years. That is the answer.
What is even worse is that here we have a nation
which is apparently wooing us now, when only two weeks ago they
entered a reservation about the extension to Gibraltar of legislation
to stop international organised crime. The extension of the UN
convention on combating international organised crime was signed
by the United Kingdom some years ago and extended to Gibraltar
last year. The first thing Spain did was to object to its extension
to Gibraltar. You would have thought the last thing they want
is for us to become a nest of people who organise international
crime, unless they want to be able to point the finger at us because
the criminals are there, because we have not got the convention
extended.
I know you are a good friend to Gibraltar and
I agree with you entirely that it is indefensible that children
should have suffered because people are playing games in Madrid
or London. The answer is that the stick cannot always break at
the weakest link. Because we are 20,000, you are 50 million and
they are 45 million and the whole of the EU is 400 million, people
say, well, here we are, 400 million and we cannot sign because
of 20,000. No, you cannot sign because someone says, "Either
you screw Gibraltar"—pardon me for saying so—"or
I will not sign."
One of the things the British lads on the Rock
used to call us for many years when there were lots of them there
was Rock scorpions. It is an apt description of us. We are small,
very tough and very proud of our links with the United Kingdom.
It is in your culture and in your history that you do not like
small guys being stepped on, and we are the small guys in this
outfit.
Q204 Chairman: Do you have any concerns
about human rights in Gibraltar, apart from this issue that has
just been mentioned?
Joe Bossano: There are problems
in Gibraltar in a number of areas. For example, I am dealing with
one particular case in an unfair dismissal tribunal which has
now been dragging on for two years where the Government, which
is supposed to be ensuring that the law on unfair dismissal is
observed, is the litigant. Because they are the litigant they
have gone all the way to the appeal court in England to argue
that somebody that has worked for one year and two days has not
worked for 52 weeks because the week starts on a Monday and not
on a Sunday. That would make a year 53 weeks long. If I was not
there giving a free service, that person would have lost out.
Q205 Chairman: Excuse me, if this
is subject to legal action at the moment we cannot discuss it
here.
Joe Bossano: No, we won. It cost
the taxpayer a lot of money, but we won.
One of the advantages of a place like Gibraltar
is that you have a single system. One of the problems is also
that there is no deus ex machina—there is no external body
to appeal to. If you are fighting the Government in any area,
there is nobody above the Government other than the judiciary.
In the case I mentioned, we won at the tribunal, we won at the
supreme court and then it went to the appeal court. There are
people, for example, who have been making representations to you
in respect of the gay rights movement. They say it is against
human rights not to equalise ages for sex between consenting adults.
We decriminalised it in 1988 when we came into government. Therefore
there are areas where I can tell you that we are all on paper
committed to 100% observance of international human rights. Our
new constitution says so.
We actually asked the United Kingdom Government—this
was something we felt very strongly about—to have the right
to change our constitution in Gibraltar in order to extend the
human rights chapter without having to wait for constitutional
change. It requires a two-thirds majority of the House and then
a referendum to do so. Therefore, the answer is that the political
and ideological commitment to human rights is as high as would
be found in this country or anywhere else. The reality in practice
might not be as high as the theory that we all subscribe to and
defend, and I believe that one of the problems is who to go to.
We want full self-government and to run our own affairs, but if
someone is in a position of too much power, who do you turn to
other than international organisations and so on? If there is
a deficiency there, it needs to be addressed and put right, but
I am not sure that I have the answer.
Q206 Mr. Keetch: You have covered
the point about gay issues, but surely there is more that the
Government of Gibraltar should be doing, for example, to equalise
the age of consent for same-sex couples, legalise the protection
against discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, and give legal
recognition of same-sex partners. That exists in the UK, but not
in Gibraltar. It exists even in this House of Commons, which is
one of the most conservative institutions in the land, but it
does not exist in Gibraltar.
Joe Bossano: No, I agree with
you. Sometimes there is a lot of hypocrisy in small societies,
where people all throw up their arms in horror at something, but
that does not equate to what they actually do in their own lives.
For example, I can tell you that one area of fundamental difference
that I pointed out in our new year message this year was when
the Government of Gibraltar came out talking and implying that
some of those areas of complaint from these groups were an attempt
to bring in extraneous standards from other places in Europe that
are causing the breakdown of the family and society.
I categorically rejected such an analysis and
such a view. I believe that the fundamental human rights of people
start from one premise and one premise alone: that you must respect
people the way they are. No one can be accused of doing anything
to destroy the family or society or anything if they are not interfering
with anyone else. We live in a mature and civilised world of which
the fundamental basis is that it is wrong to treat people differently
because of their religion, colour, political views or sexuality.
If Gibraltar has a hang-up about sexuality, then it is time that
it overcame it. It is as simple as that.
Chairman: Thank you. Finally, Andrew.
Q207 Andrew Mackinlay: My question
is slightly different from what Mr. Pope talked about, because
he talked about the representation of Overseas Territories and
of Gibraltar. What about the representation of Gibraltar's Government
here in the United Kingdom? We all know the distinguished Mr.
Albert Poggio, who ably represented Gibraltar here under both
your Administration and that of Mr. Caruana, but it seems that
there is one area of discrimination against Overseas Territories,
particularly the big Overseas Territories of which Gibraltar is
one, and that relates to Remembrance Sunday and to access to the
House of Commons. I think that diplomats have access to Parliament,
but representatives of Overseas Territories do not. If you want
to give us evidence on that, I wonder whether those issues should
be repaired or remedied, both in relation to Gibraltar, and speaking
for the wider constituency of the Overseas Territories.
Joe Bossano: That comes back to
the whole point that has prompted my wanting to come to speak
with you and my original submissions last year.[3]
In relation to this business of modernisation, we have a long
political battle in Gibraltar between us and the other side as
to whether modernisation equated to colonisation. In the Foreign
Office paper before you, all the territories are treated as going
through a process prompted by the 1999 White Paper to modernise
the relationship. However, modernising it and making it more modern
does not fundamentally alter the nexus or essence of it. It is
the essence of it that has to come to an end once and for all
and be replaced by something else. The 1968 constitution of Bermuda
is often regarded as being the most modern arrangement, but it
is in fact the most ancient, and it is a wonder that it has not
been changed. Yet that is the one that is the most advanced in
terms of devolved power to the people of Bermuda.
I think that the new element that ought to replace
what exists today between the overseas territories and the United
Kingdom is a partnership that is real in every sense of the word.
That includes that the position of the representatives of those
territories in the United Kingdom and the access to Parliament
of those territories should be based on what partnership means,
and partnership means equality. It does not mean having to ask
for favours and it does not mean having to bend the rules. It
is that philosophical approach that I think ought to produce what
I think is required, so that the Foreign Affairs Committee may
no longer be responsible for the territories, although I would
like to see some Committee of the House of Commons still being
responsible. We do not want to be your "foreign affairs"
anymore; we are part of the family, not foreigners.
Chairman: The reason that we are conducting
the inquiry, just for the record, is that the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office is the Department responsible.
Joe Bossano: I accept that.
Chairman: We scrutinise the Department.
If the Government chose to have a separate Overseas Territories
Department or if some other Government Department had responsibility,
no doubt that Select Committee would be conducting the inquiry.
Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Bossano.
It has been extremely valuable and we wish you all the best. It
has been good to see you.
Joe Bossano: It has been a pleasure
to be here.
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