§ Q7. Mr. Shinwellasked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that in any negotiations concerning British entry into the European Economic Community a proposal for the association of the United Kingdom with a supranational Government in Europe and a European Parliament to which the Parliament in Westminster would be subordinated will be resisted.
§ The Prime MinisterThere is no question of Her Majesty's Government in such negotiations entering into any arrangements which would involve a supranational Government or a Parliamentary assembly to which this House would be subordinated.
§ Mr. ShinwellWould the Prime Minister be good enough to convey that Answer to some of my right hon. Friends in the Government who are making speeches, some of which frighten me?
§ The Prime MinisterWhile not questioning the capacity of my right hon. Friend for fright, I would make it absolutely plain to him that it is not necessary to circulate this to my right hon. Friends as none of them has made a speech even remotely suggesting that this was a possibility or that they had even thought that it was.
§ Mr. StraussDoes not the Prime Minister agree that Parliament in fact limits its right to take unilateral action every time it joins an international organisation, as we did when we joined G.A.T.T. or when we became a member of the United Nations?
§ The Prime MinisterThere is always a limitation on the right of the Government and to that extent of Parliament to act in certain directions unilaterally whenever they sign an international treaty. It is inevitable. I remember this being debated year after year when we were discussing the Common Market. But my right hon Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was concerned with the suggestion sometimes heard in Europe that joining the Economy Community, which is an economic organisation, automatically means a single foreign 1555 policy, a single supranational Government in foreign affairs and defence matters and ultimately the disappearance of this Parliament in those matters. That is not, in my view or the view of any one of us, in question in any such negotiations.
§ Sir D. Walker-SmithDoes not the Prime Minister agree that if the Treaty of Rome is signed in its existing form, Article 189 automatically involves a subordination of Parliament here to the regulations and directives of the Council or Commission over the whole wide range of economic and social matters which are within the ambit of the Community.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. and learned Gentleman had a Question down on that very point today and I was hoping to deal with it when we reached it. That point is very much in our minds. The right hon. and learned Gentleman now having reached it, I will say that we are studying very carefully what would be the implications both for Parliamentary procedure and of course for all questions of British lawmaking and judicial machinery arising from that Article. It requires close study. I believe that the previous Government had a working party on this subject under the then Lord Chancellor. I do not think that it finalised its inquiries. This is a very important question which needs working out before we get involved in any negotiations.
§ Mr. HenigIs my right hon. Friend aware that many people in Europe regard the supranational institutions of the Treaty of Rome as being the things which make the E.E.C. so important a departure in international affairs? Does he not think that it would be most unfortunate if the entry of this country into the E.E.C. were to damage these institutions, which are of so great and imaginative a conception?
§ The Prime MinisterAgain, my hon. Friend has a Question on the Order Paper today, which may now not be reached. But, anticipating that Question, in my Answer I was dealing with supra-nationality or supranationalism in relation to foreign affairs, defence and the rights of this Parliament. Whatever some people in Europe may think, I am 1556 sure that no hon. Member wants to see this House subordinated to an outside body or to see this country deprived of its independent foreign and defence policy. Within the Treaty of Rome—within the economic side with which it deals—there are certain commissions and other authorities. There is a big argument going on about this within the Community, and I have always taken the view that we should not, in Her Majesty's Government or in this House, take sides in that argument between the Six, who have not yet settled the argument.
§ Mr. JenningsDo we take it that the Prime Minister's statement means that in the lifetime of this present Parliament we shall not, while negotiating on economic matters for union, now or then even negotiate for political union?
§ The Prime MinisterPolitical unity, and various proposals for greater political unity in Europe, is something which all of us would want to support. What we have always said is this. I remember that is used to be said in moving terms by the late Hugh Gaitskell that, in his view, this country is not ready, and would not be ready for at least 20 years, to consider any political arrangements, as opposed to economic arrangements—[Interruption.]—which would involve foreign policy and defence matters being settled over our heads by some supranational organisation, and I believe that this is still the case.
§ Mr. BellengerSo that the House may understand on what basis negotiations are now going on by Her Majesty's Government, are we to understand from my right hon. Friend's reply which he has just given that all considerations of politics as embodied in the Treaty of Rome are out from the point of view of Her Majesty's Government?
§ The Prime MinisterIn the first place, no negotiations are currently going on. I have announced exactly what is the position of our probings and discussions with individual countries, our hopes with E.F.T.A. and the E.E.C., but there are no such negotiations going on. In the Treaty of Rome, apart from the institutional arrangements needed to make effective the economic arrangements set out in that, there is, apart from a very short reference in the Preamble, no 1557 political organisation affecting foreign policy or defence at all. It is an economic instrument with certain machiner for dealing with economic problems.
§ Mr. PardoeIs the Prime Minister aware that the best case for political unity in Europe was put forward in the pamphlet "Keep Left" written by hon Gentlemen opposite in 1947? Will the right hon. Gentleman bring that firmly to the attention of his hon. Friends and pledge his Government to build a United States of Europe governed by a directly elected supranational Parliament?
§ The Prime MinisterI do not think that any of my hon. Friends who are concerned with the preparation of that particular literary masterpiece or any of those who have been concerned with its successors, such as "One Way Only" and the rest, have ever felt that it was right to set up a directly elected assembly in the foreseeable future, within the next 20 or so years at any rate, to which this Parliament and this country would be subordinate. The economic negotiations are an entirely different matter.