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Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but the figures I gave were not my figures. The figures of the British Government and of the Gibraltar Government show that crossing takes a minimum of one and a half hours. From my experience and that of others, I can only say that the noble Lord was very lucky indeed.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I was obviously very lucky. I was merely going to say that the time it took me was mainly spent soaking my feet in the disinfectant provided because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
The present position is not sustainable; it is not in the interests of Gibraltarians in the long run; and it is not in the interests of Andalucia. One has to talk about Spain in regional terms at this point. Part of the mistake of the Spanish Foreign Ministry—it has been the Spanish Foreign Ministry above all which has held firm on this point—has been due to the Castilians in Madrid who are strongly committed to the unity of Spain. Therefore it is highly appropriate that British/Spanish talks on Gibraltar should take place in Barcelona, where the Catalans have a slightly different perspective.
We should all welcome close relations between Britain and Spain because we have a wide range of shared interests. We should be searching for an agreed solution. The Andorran solution involving some form of shared sovereignty, which has been suggested by several noble Lords, looks to be the way forward.
We have to be careful to avoid allowing governments to get stuck on the question of legal sovereignty. The question of what exactly sovereignty now means is one which governments, such as the Turkish government at the moment, find very easy to debate passionately—but, of course, sovereignty has always eased a way between advanced industrial democracies. Shared sovereignty should be possible and mutually acceptable. That would allow for the development of the airport; for regional enterprise and regional employment; and for shared health services, education and telecommunications. As a number of noble Lords said, that would provide a more secure future basis for Gibraltarian prosperity than further development of its tax haven status.
We must recognise that part of the Spanish sensitivity is that Gibraltar is on the external frontier of the European Union. While we recognise that the smuggling issues which were there in Gibraltar many years ago have been effectively cleaned up, there is bound to be much concern about the security of the Straits of Gibraltar because a very large number of people are already being smuggled across those straits to southern Spain. This is an issue about which the Spanish Government are rightly concerned.
Anomalies such as Gibraltar should be manageable within the European Union—there are a number of other anomalies— but they have to be justifiable. Gibraltar's position in the EU and the question of voting rights must clearly go with Gibraltar's acceptance of EU obligations. There is a contradiction between the Gibraltarian Government asking to be treated in the same way as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man as a home dependency, when the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man go to great lengths to insist that they are not in the European Union and that their low tax status—I was assured by the chief executive of Jersey—is guaranteed by an agreement with the Duke of Normandy of 1204. If that agreement is still valid—as I was assured it was only a year ago—then 1713 is a relatively recent agreement.
We need to be cautious about allowing important British dependencies to cherry pick on their EU obligations while exploiting tax loopholes, on-line gambling, offshore financial centres and so on. This is not just about Gibraltar; it is also important for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
I support the Government's moves towards a settlement. I do not see it as appeasement, as the Daily Telegraph appears to charge at least once a week. I ask and urge the Spanish Government to hold back its Castilian nationalist hard-liners and to listen more to those in Bilbao and Barcelona who have a much better sense of Spain as a country which itself shares sovereignty. I ask the Gibraltar Government not to dig
themselves deeper into a hole from which it might be impossible to reach a settlement which would be in the best long-term interests of Gibraltarians.8.58 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Hooper for bringing this important subject before the House. We on these Benches welcome the Government's announcement that the Gibraltar electorate should be able to vote in European parliamentary elections. We look forward to playing our part constructively in the legislative process to enable that to happen. I also hope that the Minister will give the House some information today about a timetable.
This is a worrying time for the people of Gibraltar, a concern shared by a number of speakers from all quarters of the House. There is a genuine fear among Gibraltarians that they will be presented with a Xdone deal" affecting their sovereignty which they will be under enormous political and financial pressure to accept. This is particularly the case as the Spanish Foreign Minister has been quoted in the Spanish media as saying that taking over the sovereignty of Gibraltar is No. 2 on the ministry's priority list, immediately following the fighting of international terrorism.
Can the Minister confirm that the two governments are not working to a hidden and pre-agreed agenda? Will she confirm the point made by noble friend that the preamble to the Gibraltar legislation of 1969 still stands?
The Foreign Secretary met his Spanish counterpart in Barcelona on 20th November. As my noble and learned friend Lord Howe said, we seek good relations with Spain. Both countries have much to gain from working constructively together.
Although we welcome the Spanish decision to more than triple the number of telephone numbers for Gibraltar to 100,000 and its proposals to improve healthcare facilities in Spain for Gibraltar, we share the concerns of the citizens of Gibraltar. We believe that Gibraltarians have a right to veto any proposed change in their status and if they want to remain under British sovereignty, they should.
We on these Benches remain wedded to the principle that the future sovereignty should not be changed without the freely and democratically expressed wish of the people of Gibraltar. They are British and are living in sovereign British territory, as they have for 300 years. Mere consultation with them is, we believe, not enough. We feel that they should be involved, as equal partners, in the reaching of any agreements which might form part of a package. I share the aspiration of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe that the Gibraltar Government will adopt a flexible approach. But bouncing them, stitching them up—or even selling them out—is absolutely unacceptable. It would be an insult to people who have fought with us and for us and who bear allegiance to the British Crown.
From a recent Written Answer in another place, I understand that the Minister's right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is proposing to hold a further ministerial meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister early next year to discuss the future of Gibraltar. Is it still the Government's objective to resolve the future of the Rock by the end of next year?
Spain has refused to recognise Gibraltar-issued ID cards and passports as valid travel documents. The European Commission has accepted the Gibraltar ID card as a valid travel and residence document for the purposes of relevant EC directives. The purpose is clearly to frustrate further the free movement of persons at the border and to harass people, as the noble Lord, Lord Brett, said.
As the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said in its report, the present system of border controls is Xunacceptable" and wholly inappropriate between two parts of the European Union. What progress have the Government made with the Spanish authorities on ID cards, passports and other border control problems?
Gibraltar is still a military base, and is especially useful for intelligence gathering. Bearing in mind the Government's renewed emphasis on the rapid deployment of British forces in response to crises, and that north Africa and the near and Middle East are widely regarded as regions where such crises could occur, do the Government agree that Gibraltar and its facilities provide a useful and independent forward operating base? Service manpower has already been reduced to the minimum necessary to manage the remaining defence facilities in Gibraltar. Will the Minister confirm that there will be no further defence cuts there in the short term?
9.4 p.m.
The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for initiating the debate. The All-Party Gibraltar Group, of which she is vice-chairman, does valuable work in bringing Gibraltar issues to the attention of Parliament. I also thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate.
On 26th July this year, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and his Spanish counterpart, Sr Josep Pique, met in London under the terms of the Brussels communique of November 1984, thereby re-launching a dialogue on Gibraltar between the Governments of Spain and the United Kingdom.
The Government's aim in re-starting the Brussels process is precisely as set out by the Conservative Government in 1984; namely, to overcome all differences between the United Kingdom and Spain over Gibraltar. It is the Government's firm view that the present situation in which Gibraltar faces long and unpredictable border delays, telecommunications difficulties, restrictions on the use of the airport and a range of other problems are not in the interests of anyone, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, told the House so authoritatively.
It is clearly not in Gibraltar's interest, nor is it in the interest of the United Kingdom, to see the citizens of a loyal overseas territory prevented from pulling their full weight in a European region full of opportunity. It is not in the European Union's interest for important EU business to be impeded by the Gibraltar dispute. Frankly, it is not in Spain's interest either to be at odds with a good European neighbour over this issue.
Her Majesty's Government see a strong, and very much a shared, interest between the United Kingdom, Spain and Gibraltar in finding a lasting solution to this dispute, which has continued for close on 300 years. The present UK-Spain and Gibraltar-Spain relationship is very different from that which pertained in 1969, when Franco closed the border; or even that which pertained in 1984 when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, agreed the Brussels communique. I was enormously pleased that he decided to participate in the debate, particularly as I agreed with almost everything that he said.
I am sorry that matters did not turn out then as the noble and learned Lord had hoped. However, I hope that he will agree that our relationship with Spain has developed enormously in recent years. We are now close partners in the European Union, in NATO and in other international fora. Spain is now one of our most important trade and investment partners and is home to half a million Britons. Millions take their holidays there every year. Similar trends can also be seen in the relationship between Gibraltar and Spain: there is much more economic interdependence and, despite all the difficulties, many Gibraltarians visit Spain regularly; hundreds have houses across the border.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, was right to ask the question: why are we doing this now? But there is a straightforward answer. We believe that, now, there is a real opportunity to resolve the historic tensions and to forge a new relationship between Gibraltar and Spain, to allow the people of Gibraltar to look forward with confidence to a better and more secure future. After the July meeting of the respective Foreign Secretaries, a further meeting was held in Barcelona on 20th November. The joint communique issued after that meeting has been placed in the Library of the House. In that communique the Ministers stated that the guiding principle of their discussion was,
- Xto build a secure, stable and prosperous future for Gibraltar and a modern, sustainable status, consistent with our common membership of NATO and the EU".
Secondly, the Ministers declared that their shared objective was,
- Xa future where Gibraltar enjoys greater self-government and the opportunity to reap the full benefits of normal co-existence with the wider region".
A number of noble Lords, most notably the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, in her opening address, raised questions concerning discussions on sovereignty under the Brussels Process. Of course, discussions will cover sovereignty. Indeed, it is explicit in the Brussels communique, agreed by the Conservative Government
in 1984, that the talks would include discussions on sovereignty. But the Barcelona communique made clear that no conclusions have yet been drawn on the nature or content of any proposals which might be put forward. Therefore, in answer to the noble Baroness's three options, it is up to the parties to discuss how the fraught issue of sovereignty might be taken forward. I make this point to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton. We cannot pretend that the Treaty of Utrecht simply does not exist. I shall return to that in a moment.As I told the House in response to a Question from my noble friend Lord Hoyle on 22nd November, the Government stand by the commitment contained in the preamble to the 1969 Constitution Order which states that Her Majesty's Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes. Consequently I reiterate to my noble friend Lord Brett and the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, that if agreement were reached with Spain which involved a transfer of sovereignty to Spain the wishes of the people of Gibraltar would be ascertained in a referendum.
It is important to be as explicit as possible on this point, particularly as my noble friend Lord Hoyle asked for specific assurances. Anything which affects the sovereignty of the people of Gibraltar will be put to them in a referendum. I do not want to mince around with terms such as legal sovereignty, or how we define it. I say that anything which affects the sovereignty will be put to them. That point was made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe when he gave evidence to the FAC on 28th November.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, and my noble friends Lord Brett and Lord Hoyle raised questions about the participation in the talks of the Chief Minister, Mr Caruana. As I told the House on 22nd November, the Spanish Government share our view that the Government of Gibraltar have a very important contribution to make to these discussions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brett, will make this point to his colleagues in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is guaranteed a separate and distinct voice alongside the Foreign Secretary within the British delegation. Spanish Ministers have assured us that the Chief Minister will be treated with the respect and dignity that his position deserves. So we very much hope that Mr Caruana will accept the invitation which has been extended to him to attend future meetings. His voice on behalf of the people of Gibraltar should be heard.
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