FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE

HC Deb 26 April 1966 vol 727 cc542-669

Mr. Speaker

I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if I were to announce that of the Amendments on the Order Paper I have selected the third Amendment, that in the name of the Leader of the Opposition the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath).

May I inform the House that already 44 hon. Members, including 10 new Members, have intimated that they wish to catch my eye in today's debate. With regret to the new Members, I must announce that I shall be able to call only two maiden speakers.

3.34 p.m.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Kinross and West Perthshire)

My first duty in opening this debate on foreign affairs in this new Parliament must be to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary on resuming command of his great Department of State, one which I know from experience myself is one of the happiest over which a Minister can preside.

The House will welcome the opportunity which the Gracious Speech gives of making a comprehensive review of the international situation and of Britain's rôle in it. No doubt the Foreign Secretary, with his usual lucidity, will bring us up to date with the events in those areas of the world in which peace is disturbed. That will be very valuable to the House, because we have not had the opportunity for some time, for instance, to review the situation in Malaysia or in Vietnam. However, while that will be valuable, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will go much wider and will do much more than that. It is very seldom that Parliament has the opportunity to allow a Secretary of State to divulge his strategic political thinking, and, therefore, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us the benefit of his medium and long-term forecasts and appreciations of the international situation by which alone the House can judge the merit of the long-term defence plan of the Secretary of State for Defence, who is, we understand, to wind up the debate.

I express the hope, too, that as this Parliament proceeds, using this general review as a basis, we may be able to debate the world situation area by area. In the last Parliament, this was something which we were too seldom able to do. The need was felt for it, but the need was not met. As we embark on another Parliamentary Session, I hope that the Foreign Secretary will bear this in mind because I think it necessary from time to time to debate, say, the Middle East, the Far East or European affairs by themselves so that we may give more detailed attention to them.

I should like this afternoon to examine the direction and objectives of British foreign policy at this time because I think that it is only by so doing that we can decide where and how our defence effort should be deployed to the best advantage. Too often in the last Parliament, if I may say so to the right hon. Gentleman, it seemed to us that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was calling the tune both to the Secretary of State for Defence and to the Foreign Secretary. I hope that in this Parliament the right hon. Gentleman will reassert his authority.

When we consider British foreign policy and the widest aspect of it, there are, I believe, two basic questions which must be asked and answered. The first is how far are the aggressive intentions of the Soviet Union against the West a thing of the past; and a subsidiary question: is there a change which is sufficiently definite and measurable to justify a modification in deployment within the N.A.T.O. Alliance? That is the first main question which should be asked and answered.

The second question, which is much more difficult to answer but, nevertheless, one which must be asked, is: what is China's political and military intention; and a subsidiary question: if there is evidence of China's aggressive intention to expand, and if that is conclusive, what form of collective defence is there which can be organised to ensure the freedom of the different nations in the Far East from being dominated and overwhelmed by the Chinese? I should like to take these two questions in the order in which I have named them.

I think that the evidence of a change of emphasis in Russian foreign policy and a reinterpretation by the Soviet leaders of the doctrine of peaceful co-existence is sufficiently conclusive to allow of a positive reaction by the N.A.T.O. Powers. The reason for the change in the Soviet Union's attitude is as instructive as the fact of it, and unless we are aware of the reason we may go very far wrong. The reason carries with it a lesson for the future application outside the N.A.T.O. area. The revision of Soviet policy, which in past years has been one of subversion backed by armed force, was not induced by feelings of neighbourliness towards the non-Communist countries of the world. It was induced and brought about by the hard facts of power. Those hard facts of power are the fact of the United States' lead in nuclear weapons, which the Russians now understand cannot be overtaken except by placing a terrible burden upon the Russian people; the fact that Cuba brought home to the Russian leaders that the United States was prepared to use her nuclear weapons rather than witness encroachments on free territory and against free men; and now, of course, the hostility of China, with her vast superiority in manpower, later to be reinforced by a nuclear arm.

Faced by these considerations, which, I think, from the point of view of the Russians, are permanent considerations, at least as long as the United States' will holds, it is a fair conclusion that self-interest is inducing the Russians to change their policy, to override their doctrine, to reinterpret their policy of peaceful coexistence, and inducing the Russians, from the view-point of self-interest, to stabilise their relations with the West, and, indeed, perhaps, to consider a reduction in the confrontation as they face towards Europe and the Atlantic.

It is fairly clear that the Soviet Union does not at present feel sufficiently secure either to propose a settlement over Berlin or to loosen her grip on East Germany, although I would venture a forecast that when the reunification of Germany comes, as I think it inevitably will in the future, the initiative for it will come from East Germany, discontented with her lot as compared with the lot of the other Eastern European countries, rather than from pressure from the West.

In such circumstances, however, as we face today, with Berlin unsettled and East Germany, in effect, dominated and occupied, a comprehensive peace pact with the Soviet Union and between the N.A.T.O. allies and the Warsaw Pact is really not practical politics. Therefore, the real question would seem to be whether confrontation between the N.A.T.O. Alliance and the Warsaw Pact can be reduced significantly in scale.

On the evidence as I have shortly reviewed it, there is, I think, justification for a modification in the N.A.T.O. deployment. The aim should be a smaller force on the eastern frontier of West Germany, with a high degree of mobility and a high striking power, designed to prevent a major coup or penetration which, an enemy might calculate, could pay because once it was an accomplished fact, the Western Powers would hesitate to use their nuclear weapons to reverse it. Those are the circumstances against which it is realistic that the N.A.T.O. Alliance should plan.

If we are to consider any war of a wider character than that—that is to say, a major invasion of West German territory, or a war which would involve, for instance, a submarine blockade of this country—clearly there would be the nuclear exchange. The realistic thing against which we have to plan is something more limited than that, perhaps a coup or a limited penetration.

I do not want to comment in detail, before I have heard the Foreign Secretary and the House has had the advantage of hearing what he has to say, upon the French attitude towards the N.A.T.O Alliance. In the context, however, of the speed of reaction against aggression of which I have been talking in the case of the forces on the ground, the necessity for a high degree of mobility and for speed of reaction, one point which must be stated in the context of what the French and General de Gaulle are doing is that there cannot be a really effective alliance in these days of instant aggression unless there is in the alliance an integrated high command.

That is a point which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will try to bring home to the French. I suggest that this must be achieved if N.A.T.O. is to be effective. It must be achieved on the ground, if not in name, if the French participation in the alliance is to contribute any strength at all to N.A.T.O.

I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman what diplomatic action and initiative he is taking with the French Government to persuade them of this essential fact. Yesterday, in answer to Questions, the right hon. Gentleman said that we were in contact with the other 14 members of the alliance. It seems to me, however, that the essential thing is that we should be in close diplomatic contact with the French on this matter, because an integrated command is of the essence of the success of N.A.T.O. in stemming and deterring aggression.

I would like to turn to ask whether there are other ways in which the British Government are quickening the pace of what I conceive to be a diminishing confrontation with the Soviet Union. Faced with the possibility of Chinese aggression and the present mood of the Chinese, I very much doubt whether the Russians can consider any general disarmament plan. It is probably unrealistic to press them on this at the moment.

Apart from those items mentioned, quite properly, in the Gracious Speech by the Government, there are two proposals which are worth constantly probing. It may be that if the Russians are in the mood to reduce their commitments facing the West, they will give these two proposals greater attention than they have done in the past.

Disengagement as between the N.A.T.O. Alliance and the countries of the Warsaw Pact is, I think, in present circumstances, dangerous, because a no-man's land is a standing temptation and a vacuum of power would be one of the most dangerous things that we could create. That is true whether in East Germany or in Aden. Nevertheless, there is a plan as a first step to which the right hon. Gentleman might profitably return.

I refer to the plan, which has been on the stocks for a long time, for observers on each side of the frontier in the N.A.T.O.-Warsaw Pact area, first to guarantee the status quo—that would be worth doing—and to guarantee the status quo for a comparatively short time as a prelude to the thinning-out of forces to agreed levels. I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman will find this plan ready to his hand and I consider it worth his while to return to it.

The second plan which is worth constantly putting forward is the plan, which the right hon. Gentleman himself has mentioned, to try to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I will not rehearse the general arguments in favour of this. The fact that the 100 and more nations have signed the nuclear Test Ban Treaty is in itself an indication that they do not want to have nuclear weapons themselves, because one does not embark upon the production of nuclear weapons if one cannot test them. That seems to me to be something on the credit side, but the chief merit of a plan to prevent a proliferation of nuclear weapons is, in my mind, this, that it might enable the Russians and the West to begin to think in terms of a minimum nuclear deterrent.

I remember putting forward this idea myself at the N.A.T.O. Council three or four years ago. This is something which one cannot, of course, write into a treaty, nor can one expect that it would be embodied in any formal document, but when we are coming to the point where confrontation between the Soviet Union and the Atlantic and European areas seems to be being reduced I think that we might, by mutual consent, arrive at a point where both the Americans and the Soviet Union begin to think in terms of minimum nuclear deterrent.

This would have great advantages, because it would enable both the Soviet Union and the United States to go slow on the exhausting process of, for instance, doing the research which is necessary to arrive at an anti-missile missile and all the research which would have to follow that if any country happened to be successful in devising one.

So I would think that these two proposals are well worth the right hon. Gentleman's pursuit. The threat to Europe, as long as the Berlin situation remains and Eastern Germany is occupied, has not lifted, but I think, in conclusion of this section of what I have to say, that there is a sufficient change in the Soviet attitude to justify reorganisation of the N.A.T.O. Alliance, and that there are openings in the context of and in the atmosphere of lessening confrontation of which skilful and active diplomacy can take advantage.

I come next to the further item of political assessment which is necessary if we are sensibly to calculate the British defence effort as a whole and its proper deployment. What is China's intention? Here I can only take the evidence. I think that one can confidently say that the first Chinese objective has been and is to assert her domination over all the territory which she considers was historically part of her empire. It seems to me that her action both in Tibet and on the frontier of India justifies that conclusion. Secondly, she wishes to secure South-East Asia as an undisputed sphere of Chinese influence, installing, by one means or another, in each country in South-East Asia, a Government subservient to her, and for that purpose, as we have seen in Vietnam, she is prepared to use war at second hand.

I will leave an account of the confrontations at the point at which we have arrived in Vietnam and Malaysia to the right hon. Gentleman, and would only say to some of those on the opposite side of the House who have put down to the Motion an Amendment on this matter that I believe that on this side we are not one whit behind them in desiring a political settlement of the confrontation in Vietnam. That almost goes without saying, although we realise, perhaps more readily than they do, how difficult this is to achieve.

What I am saying is this, that on the evidence as it has been interpreted, not by me or by my hon. and right hon. Friends, but by India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, China may have to be contained in the medium and long run, and contained by superior strength. I think that we have to face up to that possibility.

Nor has Russia been able to contain her own anxiety. Almost every week we can find in Chinese propaganda the phrase, "Russia is preparing to attack China". Well, the Russians, of all people, understand what that means. That is the classic, historical formula for contemplated aggression. I have no doubt myself what the eventual answer to an expansive, aggressive China is. It is an Asian coalition. Indeed, the reaction is already beginning. We see it in India, we see it in Indonesia—apart altogether from Vietnam. When the Asian coalition comes I believe that it will have as its base India and the Soviet Union, and that this will introduce into world politics a new dimension in the balance of power.

Several Hon

. Members rose——

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I should like to complete this argument, if I may. I am attempting to look forward and trying to appreciate what I think will happen, and spontaneously happen, in Asia.

In my view, Indian leadership here is the key and Japanese participation in such an Asian coalition would be desirable; and if the Indians were willing to take the initiative to form such an alliance for collective security, then I believe that confidence might well spread through the whole of the Far Eastern area.

Mr. Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich, East)

Without disputing that these trends may be on the way, do I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that, in the meantime, before this happens, it is the Opposition's policy to contribute to the military containment of China?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I was just coming to that, if the hon. Gentleman would be a little patient. I was going on to complete the argument, because, I agree[...] it is incomplete at this point.

This is what I am saying, in my view, will be the development in the medium and long term, but not yet. Till then, and perhaps even then, I think that the security of these free countries in the Far East will have to be conditionally underwritten by Western power. The question which I think——

Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire)

This question of the containment of China is very interesting, but is the right hon. Gentleman bearing in mind the pacification of other areas and free elections being held and people returning a government of their choice whatever its colour may be? How does that fit into his philosophy, as he does not yet accept free elections?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Certainly. I deliberately said that I wanted to wait for the Foreign Secretary rather than myself deal with Vietnam or Malaysia, but whether we assume that the American confrontation must go on, or whether there is a political settlement, my feeling is that, looking forward to the medium and long term, what we have to anticipate is the formation of an Asian coalition, but meantime it must be underwritten by Western power.

The question, therefore, which I think the right hon. Gentleman has to answer on behalf of Her Majesty's Government is: is there a British interest in the security of these nations, many of which are members of the Commonwealth, and, if so, what should our military deployment be?

On the assumption that the answer to the first question is yes—and I think that it must be—then I would make the plea that our military contribution in this theatre of operations should be a balanced naval task force and air power, with the bias—if I may say so: it is a personal view—tipped towards the sea and the naval task force.

If a war were to develop in Asia, inevitably others would have to bear the main burden of the land battle. I think that almost the whole House would agree to that. But essential to the collective security of this area is the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, of the Indonesian Sea and of the Indian Ocean. If those seas are kept open, the lifeline for all these free nations is intact.

I will leave most of this to my right hon. Friend who is to sum up this evening. At present, I am afraid that the Government's decision to abolish the aircraft carrier and to rely on a limited bomber force is likely to fall between two stools, and that we are not likely in that respect to have an efficient force to back up the right hon. Gentleman's foreign policy.

There is one point that I would like to make particularly to the Secretary of State for Defence. If we have to rely on a bomber force in circumstances less than total war, in any given situation, once the order is given for the sortie, the bombs have to fall. With a carrier force, the political objective can very often be attained without a shot being fired. That is a very serious consideration when one is considering whether, after 10 years or so, one should abolish one's carrier force altogether. To my mind, the carrier force is a much more flexible weapon and, incidentally, one which fits in much better with the defence arrangements and organisation of our great allies in the area, the Americans.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey)

I am trying to follow the right hon. Gentleman's argument. Surely he would agree that the weapons value of carrier-based or land-based aircraft lies in the capacity to deliver bombs with aircraft. It makes no difference whether the base is a mobile base at sea or a fixed base on land. Once the aircraft are launched, there is no difference between them.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

That is a professional argument, and I do not want to enter into it in detail today.

First of all, I have grave doubts whether the land base will ever be in the right place at all, and also whether it will be possible to retain land bases for the period of time of which the right hon. Gentleman is bound to think. Secondly, on the evidence of past experience, when the aircraft carrier has been the centre of all the operations that we have had to conduct since the last war, it has very often been the fact that the appearance of the aircraft carrier with a landing force has been enough to gain the political objective without shots being fired. If the aircraft start from a distant land base, that is much more difficult to achieve.

The adequacy of Britain being able to fulfil any of the rôles that I have mentioned depends on our strength as an economic base. We have on our doorstep two opportunities of making the country really strong. The one is the E.F.T.A. Alliance now. The other is, I would hope, the European Economic Community tomorrow. Britain has made very convincing progress, but I am concerned, as the whole House should be, about the anger which is reported from our Scandinavian partners with the British Government's handling of the surcharge issue. Therefore, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what assurances were given to our partners in E.F.T.A. that the surcharge would be lifted within a reasonable time; what, in the Foreign Secretary's judgment, ought to be done and when is it likely that it will be done? We are in great danger of sacrificing the E.F.T.A. partnership without having entered the Common Market.

Then we come to the Common Market. I suspect that the Foreign Secretary himself has always been convinced that we ought to join it. The case for doing so is becoming more urgent, because the industrial advantages which accrue to the United States at the expense of those who are able only to enjoy much smaller home markets becomes more evident every day. There is no use blaming the Americans for hogging the market if we are so supine and fatalistic as to sit back and wait for the fate which we deserve and which will surely overtake us unless we can take some decisive diplomatic initiative.

I notice that in a speech delivered on behalf of the First Secretary yesterday, he clearly indicated that he, at any rate, was convinced that we should take a decisive diplomatic initiative to join. I read the language of the Queen's Speech with interest because it differed in emphasis from what the spokesmen for the Government had been saying before the election. What of the Prime Minister himself, even if the Foreign Secretary is convinced? In his speech at Bristol, during the General Election, he seemed to slam the door even more firmly than it had been shut before on our prospects of joining the Common Market and to make the five principles which he has enunciated in the past more rigid.

The right hon. Gentleman said, about agriculture: We shall not shake their confidence"— referring to the farmers and farm workers— by substituting for the well-tried deficiency payments the levies on imported foodstuffs advocated by the Conservatives. But they are not only advocated by the Conservatives, because they are an essential part of the organisation of the Common Market.

If that was taken literally by the Six, negotiations could never start or be conducted by the Government. I must tell the Foreign Secretary that I hope that the Prime Minister's recognised capacity for saying one thing and doing another will work in this case. It has never failed yet, and I hope that it will not fail now. But I ask the Foreign Secretary, seriously, in what he says today, to give us an account of the diplomatic initiatives which he proposes to take. Lying on the table, there is an open invitation to Britain to join the Six, and that invitation has not been answered, except indirectly yesterday by the First Secretary of State. We want an authoritative pronouncement from the Government.

In this Parliament we will not seek party differences on foreign affairs and defence. Indeed, if the Foreign Secretary wants to "pinch our clothes" in respect of entry into Europe, we shall be delighted, as long as he can make the Prime Minister look respectable when he puts them on. But in his conduct of foreign affairs in these next months and years, if the Government survice so long, the Foreign Secretary can look forward to support from the Opposition on foreign policy and defence, so long as we are convinced that he is conducting those in the national interest, because we believe that the maximum agreement from the House on issues of foreign policy and defence serves the nation.

4.9 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart)

I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), as I think the whole House did. He put it in the framework that there are certain major questions, one about Russian and one about Chinese intentions, that we must endeavour to answer in order to frame our policy. I do not think that I am misrepresenting him there.

I want at once to put in my qualification to that approach. It is no doubt necessary to study affairs to try to judge how they will move. To try to exercise foresight is one thing, to imagine that one can be a prophet is quite another, and the situation will often arise where, after the most careful consideration of the evidence, one must none the less conclude that one cannot yet reach a firm answer on the questions and one must concentrate, therefore, on the real problem, what is it most prudent to do now in the light of two or several possible answers to a question such as that which the right hon. Gentleman propounded, namely, what do we think of the real intentions of the Chinese Government?

If we decide that we have to reach a firm and decided answer on that question before framing policy, we shall be putting the cart before the horse. There are still too many unknown factors, but, as I shall hope to show when I come to speak on Far Eastern matters, there are certain decisions which we can take as to what we ought to do now in the Far East, while leaving open the question which, in the end, is for those who have the gift of prophecy, if there are such, to answer, and I must put that in as a qualification to the right hon. Gentleman's whole approach to the question.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke also of our assessment of the Russian attitude towards Europe, and I should like to take that up in the context of a general consideration first of N.A.T.O. and of European affairs because I think that the House will want to be informed on how matters stand now in the light of the crisis—and I use no less a word—which has been created inside N.A.T.O. by the French proposals.

The French proposals can be briefly summarised as, first, that it is France's intention to remain a party to the Atlantic Treaty both up to 1969 and beyond, but that French forces should be withdrawn from N.A.T.O. Command, and French officers withdrawn from integrated N.A.T.O. Headquarters, by 1st July of this year. Further, that there should be a new agreement relating to the status of French forces in Germany by 1st July of this year, and that any integrated headquarters or non-French forces which are not under French command should be withdrawn from France by 1st April, 1967.

That is the nature of the proposals which we and our other allies in N.A.T.O. have been invited to consider, and in stating the British attitude towards those proposals I can, at the same time, state an attitude which is shared by the other members of the Alliance, apart from France. First, we hold that the continuance in full vigour of the N.A.T.O. Treaty is still an essential, and, taking up the right hon. Gentleman's point as to the nature of the confrontation with the Forces in the East of Europe, I believe that the right answer is that whatever estimate we form as to the strength of that confrontation at the present time, we must still hold that the continued existence of the Treaty in full vigour is essential.

Mr. David Winnick (Croydon, South)

On a point of order. May I ask whether it is in order for an hon. Member to sleep in this House?

Mr. Speaker

I suppose that it is in order, but it is unusual.

Mr. Stewart

One may be able to argue, as I think the right hon. Gentleman was doing, that the nature of the confrontation has changed to such an extent that N.A.T.O. ought to review the size of the force that it keeps in Europe, and the form of its organisation, but I think the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that this has always been in the mind of the Government, and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence had already, before the present crisis in N.A.T.O. arose, made considerable progress along these lines.

But whatever view one holds of that, I repeat that it must be a fixed point that the continuance of the Treaty itself is essential, and the second point which I would make with regard to the British and general allied attitude towards N.A.T.O. is that the Treaty and some form of integrated organisation to give it effect go together. The basis of our disagreement with the French proposals is that the French attitude appears to be that one can separate the Treaty from some form of integrated organisation to give it effect.

That might have been true of treaties in past centuries, but in view of the nature of modern conflict, of the speed with which forces can be moved, and the range over which weapons can strike, an alliance that is no more than an undertaking, given in whatever good faith, to come to somebody's else's aid in time of need, but with no provisions worked out in advance as to how that promise should be fulfilled, is not effective. A promise or a treaty of that kind, however much good faith there may be behind it, is not effective.

The third position which we take is that, although some form of integrated organisation is essential to give life to the Treaty, the present form, present strengths, and the present details of the Organisation, are certainly not to be regarded as immutable. Indeed, the Treaty itself has never so regarded them, and I could have wished that the French Government had made use, as any member of N.A.T.O. could have done after 1959, of Article 12 of the Treaty, under which it would have been possible to have had a complete review of the Organisation. I feel that if great changes were wanted, this was the way in which the matter should have been approached, but, since N.A.T.O. does face this present crisis, it is right to make use of the opportunity to see what changes in the Organisation, what streamlining can be achieved in the light both of modern military knowledge and what judgment we may form as to the nature of the Russian confrontation.

The fourth point of our position is that, while we take this opportunity to review, reform, and streamline the Organisation, we and our allies are determined that there shall be an effective Organisation and that, for this purpose, there must be unity of counsel among the 14 members of the Alliance other than France.

When I referred yesterday at Question Time to consultations among the 14, the right hon. Gentleman raised the question of consultation with France. We are, of course, making, and have made, our views known very clearly to the French Government. There will be further opportunities for doing so when the French Prime Minister and Foreign Minister make their visit here in the near future, and it is right that that should be done, but this must not rule out businesslike consultation among the 14 as to the nature of their reaction to the French proposals. It was made clear in the Declaration of 18th March that that was how they would proceed—not by each making individual approaches to the French Government to settle their own individual anxieties but by a joint consideration of the problems created for the Alliance as a whole by the French proposals.

I am glad that the British Government played a prominent part in bringing about that Declaration of 18th March. I was sorry that yesterday, at Question Time, the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) should have suggested that this country was not qualified to take a lead of this sort. I can assure him that that view is not held anywhere in the Alliance, and it is surprising that this diminution of our rôle should be expressed, and expressed alone, by a Member of the British Parliament.

That is our attitude; now as to the procedure. I mentioned the importance of businesslike discussions among the 14, and they are now proceeding. I will not weary the House with a list of all the consequential problems that flow from the French proposals. There is a need to consider the military and financial consequences, the future of the infrastructure of N.A.T.O., and the opportunities for making the Organisation more streamlined and economical. That is the particular problem on which Britain has taken on the responsibility of collating ideas and preparing recommendations. That work is proceeding already, and has proceeded since the Declaration of 18th March.

In June there will be the N.A.T.O. ministerial meeting in Brussels. I expect that by that time recommendations on these problems will be available to Ministers. That will mean a good deal of hard and detailed work in the meantime, some of it conducted by experts and officials and some requiring ministerial action.

In view of his special concern for Europe my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be particularly concerned with this problem, and he will, as may appear to be appropriate and necessary, make visits to certain European capitals and carry out such discussions with particular members of the Alliance as will be helpful to carrying forward the discussions to the point of agreed recommendations at the N.A.T.O. ministerial meeting. Opportunities will also be provided by other international gatherings for members of Her Majesty's Government and their colleagues in other N.A.T.O. Governments to discuss these matters.

For example, early in May I shall be in Strasbourg for the meeting of the Council of Europe, and somewhat later in May, on the occasion of Her Majesty's State Visit to Belgium, I shall be going to that country. In the middle of May my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy will be at the E.F.T.A. meeting. All these will provide opportunities for discussion of N.A.T.O. problems between Ministers. Before long we shall also be welcoming here the Danish Foreign Minister and the Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany. My expectation, therefore, is that the work which was speedily begun following the Declaration of the 14 will be brought to the point where recommendations to Ministers will be made at the meeting in Brussels in June.

While dealing with this matter it has been necessary to speak of the nature of the Russian confrontation, as the right hon. Gentleman phrased it, but I now think it important to add that the Alliance, while its maintenance is essential, must not be allowed to be turned into a barrier to understanding between East and West Europe.

Mr. K. Zilliacus (Manchester, Gorton)

It is a barrier.

Mr. Stewart

Indeed, one of the purposes in mind when the Alliance was framed was that this would make possible such discussions with the Soviet Union and with Eastern European countries as could lead in time to a firmer settlement of European affairs. I think we all know very well that there are certain very great problems that divide East and West Europe, and it has seemed to me right, therefore, in the immediate present, to concentrate on those matters where there was prospect of reaching agreement.

One field of activity in which there is universal recognition of mutual advantage is trade, and I want to draw the attention of the House to a passage from the report of Mr. Kosygin to the Soviet Party Congress, when he said: It is becoming more and more important in our time that the scientific and technical revolution at work in the modern world calls for fresh international economic contacts, and is creating the conditions for broad economic exchanges between Socialist and capitalist countries. This process, in its turn, may have a beneficial effect on the international situation. That is a proposition with which we can all agree. It is something that I have been endeavouring to foster in the series of visits that I have made to Eastern European countries, and which I shall be continuing this year when I visit Bulgaria and Rumania. The House will remember that we had a visit from Mr. Birladeanu in February of this year.

Over the face of Europe there still broods the unsolved question of the future of Germany, and we must all accept that until there is an agreed settlement of that question there will be strain in Europe. Our view has been that if we can have the reunification of Germany in a manner which gives proper respect to the wishes of the German people the way is open to a general settlement of European questions. So far it has not been possible to get the agreement of the Soviet Union to this proposition. In the meantime, therefore, it seems to me that one of the things that we shall want to promote is an improvement of ordinary relations between Germany and her Eastern neighbours.

There has been some improvement in their trading relations, and the German Note of 25th March—if, as I hope, it is carefully studied by her neighbours in Eastern Europe—can provide the opportunity for further improvement of relations. It holds out, for example, the possibility of the establishment of official relations between Germany and Czechoslovakia; it holds out a possibility of a fruitful discussion even of the frontier question between Germany and Poland; it reaffirms Germany's intention not to manufacture nuclear weapons, and it makes proposals for the reduction of military forces which at present add to the tensions in Europe.

It seems to me, therefore, that if the nations of Eastern Europe give careful consideration to this Note of 25th March we may get that reduction of tension between Germany and her eastern neighbours which is an essential first step to the solving of the major European problem.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned certain particular proposals which might be made. Some time ago—I have done this on more than one occasion since—I put before the Russian Government the proposal for observers. It is not yet acceptable to them. They are inclined, I think, in their less generous moments to maintain that it is a form of espionage, but all experience shows, I think, that one must not abandon a proposal of this kind when negotiating in this quarter because of a first refusal. Substantially the same is true of the right hon. Gentleman's other proposal with regard to nuclear weapons.

I think, therefore, on this whole European question—without attempting to abandon the rôle of a Minister for that of a prophet and trying to give a 100 per cent. certain answer about all the intentions and policies of the Russian Government—one is still able to say that the course of wisdom at present is to preserve the strength and vigour of the Atlantic Alliance, and, at the same time, in the immediate ways which I have described, and as opportunity opens on a larger scale, to seek for better understanding between East and West.

These two proposals, these two parts of policy, have always to go hand in hand. To allow N.A.T.O. to fall to pieces would make impossible any settlement of European problems except on terms which were wholly agreeable to the Communist Powers. To concentrate so exclusively on the strength of N.A.T.O. that one forgot that one of its major purposes was the reaching of a settlement in Europe would be to lead Europe down a blind alley and to mistake the means for the end.

I want to turn——

Mr. G. B. Drayson (Skipton)

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the question of Europe, would he not agree that the question of the frontier between Poland and Germany is not a matter to be settled between the Poles and the Germans but by the allies? Did not the British Government state in 1944 that the Polish loss of territory in the East would be made good by the obtaining of territories from Germany and the West?

Mr. Stewart

This has to be decided by a peace treaty. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is the status of international law on the question. Why I referred to this matter was that, if the hon. Gentleman will study the reference in the German Note, he will see that there is a real readiness to understand Polish feelings on this question. That seems to me one of the necessary ingredients in any final settlement of this problem.

I want to turn now to the other great European question, that of the relations between this country and the European Economic Community. I want to repeat what has been said so often as a correct description of the Government's policy—that we are both ready and willing to enter the European Economic Community, provided certain essential British and Commonwealth interests can be safeguarded, and mindful of our obligations to our partners in E.F.T.A.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the reaction of E.F.T.A. countries to the surcharge and asked for a statement of our policy towards the surcharge. He will find that, I think, in the communiqué of the Copenhagen Conference of E.F.T.A., where I explained that it was no part of our policy to make the surcharge a permanent institution and that, as soon as this could be done consistently with our balance of payments position, it would be removed.

This met, of course, with much argument from our E.F.T.A. colleagues, but they were prepared, as was stated in the communiqué, to accept that statement of our position. At the moment, that is how the matter stands and I do not think that I ought, with the forthcoming E.F.T.A. Conference so near, to go further than that present, except to repeat that the making of this surcharge permanent is no part of the Government's policy.

I was saying that we are ready and willing to enter the European Economic Community, provided that there is the safeguard of essential British and Commonwealth interests, and are mindful of our obligations to our partners in E.F.T.A. I want to carry this a little further. We recognise—I think that everyone now recognises—the very considerable advantages which would be open to this country if we can get into the European Economic Community. I think it is true that there is a wider realisation of this than there used to be.

Therefore, the question today is not so much whether we ought to try to join, but whether it is possible to negotiate the kind of terms which would safeguard the essential interests to which I referred. As to that process of safeguarding, the House will remember that it took at least two years to hammer out the Treaty of Rome itself and that, in that process, the nations that fashioned that Treaty were naturally very mindful of their own essential interests. We would not ask or expect that this whole process should be begun again from scratch, nor do we question the institutions set up by the Treaty, but it is essential that, within the framework of those institutions, provision should be made for the safeguarding of our essential interests.

This will mean changes in the working rules of the European Economic Community. When I say that, I am not suggesting that Britain is trying to enter the Common Market without accepting any of the obligations. But I am saying that, if Great Britain became a member of the European Economic Community, we, with our world-wide trading position, would add very greatly to the advantages which members of the Community now enjoy. We should, in fact, enrich the Community considerably, just as membership of the Community would bring advantages to us——

Mr. Arthur Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

rose——

Mr. Stewart

I would ask my right hon. Friend to wait just a moment.

If the Community were to be expanded by the addition to it of this country, it is clear that there would have to be some adjustments in our practices. There would also have to be adjustments in some of the working rules of the Community. The process of adjustment would have to be carried out on both sides and it would not be wise to enter into negotiations unless that were clearly understood on both sides.

The reason that it is sensible to urge this process of adjustment on both sides is that there are advantages on both sides. There would be advantages to us in membership of the Community and there would certainly be advantages to the Community if it were enlarged by British membership. There would also be a general advantage to mankind if the European Community became wider in this fashion.

Mr. Woodburn

My right hon. Friend has rightly stated the importance of the economic aspect and the balance of advantage and the contribution that this country and the other countries could make to a general Community. On the Continent, however, there is grave suspicion that our only interest in the Community is the question of economic advantage. There is a great feeling on the Continent that there is something greater as well to be taken into consideration, and that is the ideal of European unity, politically and otherwise. Would it be possible for my right hon. Friend to go a little further and assure the Community that if we did enter we should enter, as we have said before, in the spirit of making a contribution to build up a Community, rather in addition to the economic advantages, but with political idealism——

Mrs. Renée Short (Wolverhampton, North-East)

We would never support it.

Mr. Woodburn

—as was foreseen by this Labour movement—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher)

Order. This intervention is becoming rather too long.

Mr. Woodburn

—at the end of the war.

Mrs. Short

That was a long time ago.

Mr. Stewart

If I have so far laid chief stress on economic matters, it is because I think that it is in that field that some of the most difficult and complicated arguments will have to take place. I have made it clear that we would not question the institutions set up by the Treaty, and that membership would involve acceptance of the objectives and ideals that were in the minds of the framers of the Treaty. But my right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) will realise that the Community itself has still a long way to go in giving flesh and bones to this concept. I do not think it would be sensible. before some of the more immediate and tractable matters are dealt with, to try, as it were, to solve for the Community from outside a problem which it is still dealing with itself.

Mr. Gilbert Longden (Hertfordshire, South-West)

Reverting to the economic aspect, I think that what the right hon. Gentleman has said so far, with great respect, is exactly what the Conservative Government were saying when we were trying to negotiate entry. The question is what rules will have to be adjusted, for instance, in the agricultural sphere?

Mr. Edward Heath (Bexley)

I was about to raise a rather similar point and ask a question. The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to adhere to the Treaty but wants the working rules to be changed. But in the Community the working rules consist of the Treaty and the directives agreed by the Council of Ministers under it, and not to be more precise only raises anxieties. Could the right hon. Gentleman state what are the essential interests of Britain and the Commonwealth which have to be safeguarded, and the obligations to E.F.T.A. of which he has to be mindful?

Mr. Stewart

I am certainly not going to take up that last point now. In the first place, we have discussed this matter very often, and I believe that in general the answer is known. In detail, these are the very matters which will have to be argued out in a process, perhaps a prolonged process, of probing and inquiry.

Let me put it this way to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think he will suggest that it would be possible for this country to enter the Community without any adjustments of any kind. We should have to make some changes in our institutions. That could not be a wholly oneway process. I think that what one has to find out in a process of probing and inquiry which may take some time, but which ought to proceed, is exactly the question that the right hon. Gentleman has asked now: where, when one comes down to detail and precision, will the lines of division appear to be, and how can they most effectively be crossed? That, I think, is the task that now awaits the Government—a process of inquiry on those lines—and during that inquiry, of course, we must be in consultation with our Commonwealth and with our E.F.T.A. partners.

But there are two other points that we have to bear in mind. The first is that the last time this country attempted to enter the Common Market it failed partly because of the flat refusal of one member of the Community. Before one proceeds from a process of inquiry and probing to formal negotiations one would want to be certain that the real political will was there on both sides of the Channel to get us in. I was a little surprised when the right hon. Gentleman said to me that he did not mind in the least if the Government stole their clothes with regard to entry into Europe, and that he hoped that if the Prime Minister put them on they would be respectable. But what clothes are they? Anyone would think from the way right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about negotiations to enter the Common Market that this had been one of the howling successes of the previous Administration. I am invited to steal the clothes of the Conservative Party on the question of the Common Market. If it is not too undignified a comparison, I am reminded of an advertisement appearing now in certain newspapers: Look at Slim, the man who prefers to have holes in his pants. I do not think that if we stole these clothes anyone could look respectable in them. If we are sometimes accused of too negative and cautious an attitude on this matter—and I admit that it is a matter where one has to keep the balance very carefully—it is because we do not want to repeat, and all Europe does not want to see repeated, what happened in 1963. Whatever our views——

Mr. Nicholas Ridley (Cirencester and Tewkesbury)

rose——

Mr. Stewart

I have given way several times on this question, and, as Mr. Speaker has reminded us, there are many hon. Members who wish to speak.

I think that I should now turn from European matters to a further field. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the confrontation not only in Europe but in South-East Asia. There have been, of course, considerable changes in Indonesia since I last spoke to the House on these matters. There has been a new Government there faced with an appalling economic situation and one made worse by the recent floods in Central Java. It is at any rate encouraging that the new Government in Indonesia seem fully aware, in a way that their predecessors were not, of the economic plight of the country and of the need to rescue it. Emergency aid has been forthcoming, with our full approval, from some of our friends. If an opportunity to help Indonesia in this emergency arises, we would feel it right to take it, as I do not believe that the economic collapse and disintegration of Indonesia could serve anyone's interests in this part of the world.

But there is, of course, the critical question whether the new Government of Indonesia will offer to us the opportunity, which the movement of events seems to be creating, to remove the differences between them and us. I think that the criterion or touchstone by which we shall be able to judge that will be whether the incursions into Malaysian territory cease. If the actual conflict on the ground can cease, or can even be reduced in scale, we can get that growth of confidence on both sides out of which a peaceful settlement could be reached. I notice that the Indonesian Foreign Minister has said that he is anxious to secure a peaceful settlement with us, and I welcome that. We shall certainly play our proper part in bringing such a settlement about. Meanwhile, we must, of course, have regard to our duties towards Malaysia and Singapore, and we in this country have been glad to welcome the Prime Minister of Singapore here recently.

If one passes from that area of South-East Asia to another, to Vietnam, it is not, unhappily, possible to report new developments in a hopeful direction. I will refer, first, to the political strains and stresses inside South Vietnam. The country has for a long time been the field of differences, not only political but racial, religious and, indeed—and sometimes most strongly—regional. These have been present all the time and one can say that it was the decision to dismiss General Thi which crystallised the many feelings of discontent there were about the military government in South Vietnam.

As the House knows, there followed a series of demonstrations, protests and manifestations in many ways of dissatisfaction with that régime. The situation was changed when the National Political Congress was held in Saigon between 12th and 14th April, and an undertaking was given by the Government for elections within a limited period and for a return to civilian government. I should tell the House that there are still some uncertainties as to the reactions of the various groupings in the country to what is now proposed. However, the present programme seems to have the support of both the Government and all the major forces that were in opposition to it.

One should notice one other point about these political strains and stresses in South Vietnam; that it has not appeared at any time that any of the various groupings wanted a Communist solution to the problems of South Vietnam. That, I think, is why the Vietcong have not been able to draw any political comfort or substantial military advantage from these events.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone)

Has not my right hon. Friend omitted, in listing the reasons for discontent, the clear expression of opinion by many South Vietnamese people to the effect that they want an immediate end to the war and the bombing operations which are going on?

Mr. Stewart

I do not think my hon. Friend is representing opinion there at all fairly. However, we are now—or shall be within a measurable time—in South Vietnam in a position for people to judge the answer to that question, and the House should notice certain facts of the situation which, on any interpretation, are undoubted.

The Government of Marshal Ky and his predecessors have many times been subject to criticism. Demonstrations have occurred, often on a very large scale, voicing criticism of the Government, followed by a congress at which those who had these dissatisfactions could freely express their opinions, this leading towards the process of elections. I wish that this could be said of North Vietnam as well.

Mr. Will Griffiths (Manchester, Exchange)

Does the Foreign Secretary really think that free elections can be held in South Vietnam when more than two-thirds of the area is without any electoral machinery, constituencies and so on, and when more than two-thirds of the area is under Vietcong control?

Mr. Stewart

In answering that question I draw attention, first, to the fact that some while ago local elections were held successfully and, secondly, to the fact that the view which my hon. Friend holds—that the process of election, although no doubt difficult, will be impossible—is not shared by any of the major political forces in South Vietnam.

Having said that, I will take my hon. Friend's point a little further. He holds the view that free elections are impossible. I agree that anyone would go as far with him as to say that they must be very difficult, but what is the moral of that? It is that we should get the fighting stopped so that free elections can be held. I have repeatedly said to the House that I believe that one of the essential elements of a settlement in Vietnam is a process of free elections, and I should like to feel that this could occur in the north as well as in the south so that there shall be an opportunity for the Vietnamese people generally to express their opinion.

My hon. Friend thinks that this would be impossible. Everyone would agree that it must be difficult before the war is stopped—and this brings us to a point in the argument at which we have been many times before; that the immediate and pressing necessity is to get some form of conference and negotiation going that will bring the war to an end. I do not think it can be said by anyone that Her Majesty's Government have been laggard in seeking and making opportunities to try to promote negotiations.

The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire said that his party were as anxious as my hon. and right hon. Friends to get a political and negotiated settlement. I dare say that is true. I only regret that they have criticised, some of them in the most intemperate language, every practical attempt that we have made to try to get negotiations going. I hope that his more reasonable attitude will, in time, prevail over that of some of his more irresponsible supporters. I am taking the opportunity of the presence of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in this country to see if, again, any further door can be found.

It has been argued that, in addition to seeking methods of negotiation of this kind, we should have been more successful in finding them if we had been prepared to issue a statement of condemnation of the attitude of the United States. There is nothing at all in the whole history of the matter to support that view, for they are not only our initiatives that have been turned down but the initiatives of the non-aligned nations. Steps taken by countries often bitterly critical of the United States have met exactly the same negative response as our own proposals.

Mr. Stan Newens (Epping)

rose——

Mr. Stewart

I will not give way. I have given way many times already.

It has also been urged that these initiatives might have been more successful if the bombing by United States forces of North Vietnam were halted. It was halted for five weeks during the end of last year and the beginning of this and neither the American Government nor we were idle during those weeks in trying to get negotiations going.

As the House now knows, at the end of that period far from there being any greater willingness by Hanoi to negotiate, they put forward an entirely new and totally unacceptable demand on any analysis that the National Liberation Front, as it is called, should be regarded as the sole representative of the peoples of South Vietnam. Most recently there has been the suggestion by Senator Mansfield that there should be a direct confrontation across the peace table between the United States, North Vietnam, China and, the phrase he used, "essential elements in South Vietnam."

This proposal was endorsed by the President the day after it was made. Two days later the Chinese Press dismissed it as "another peace talks hoax" and a day later the North Vietnam News Agency rejected it, saying that the proposal was "a new peace trick" which would fall as flat as similar attempts.

It seems to me that whatever view one takes of the history of the Vietnamese conflict, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion now that it is open to Hanoi, if she wills, to negotiate on terms consistent with her interests and her honour, and that she refuses to do so. I trust that that situation will alter. If it appears at any time that any action by the British Government can help it to alter, we shall certainly take that action. Our past record in this matter shows that we have not been idle, but that, unhappily, is the situation at the present time——

Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)

Will my right hon. Friend say whether he supports the bombing programme outlined by Mr. McNamara to the American Senate Commmittee last week?

Mr. Stewart

I should make it clear to my hon. Friend that the United States have made it clear that their bombing will be concerned simply with the military necessities—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] If hon. Members ask questions, there should be some willingness to listen to the answers. One of the things I noticed during the General Election was the remarkable unwillingness of the Government's criticis on this subject to listen to argument—but we are now in the House of Commons.

The bombing conducted by the United States has been directly related to the steady determination of North Vietnam to send men, materials and military direction down into the South. It has been made clear to us that if any alteration of such policy were ever considered we should be consulted about it. The evidence of the facts, as was brought out in an Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister today, is that the United States adhere to that policy. It seems to me to be quite wrong to make no condemnation at all of the rigid determination of North Vietnam that this struggle with the South should be continued, with now massive aid from the North, and that those on the other side should be denied even appropriate military measures in response.

It is an entirely improper suggestion that anybody, whatever his views on Vietnam, likes either the spectacle of towns bombed from the air or the spectacle of mass murder carried out by the Vietcong in the villages. All of these things are detestable. The remedy lies in the cessation of the war. The cessation of the war requires a conference. It is now possible for Hanoi, if she wishes, to have that conference. She ought so to wish.

Having spoken of the Far East, I should now take up the right hon. Gentleman's comments about the general position of China and how we see the general direction of British foreign policy. Here, again, I would say of China as of Russia—do not let us try to begin the exercise by imagining that we can certainly foretell what China's actions in the future will be. If we were to take her words at their face value, it would be very alarming indeed. Fortunately, human beings are very rarely either as good or as bad as the creeds which they sometimes profess.

If we look at China's actions they are, fortunately for mankind, much less bellicose than her words, but I think that it is certainly true that her neighbours in Asia do regard China's policy and pronouncements with increasing alarm, and it is right to point out that if the conflict in Vietnam were to end by the complete abandonment of the area by the United States, or by an outright Communist victory, this would be a matter of the very gravest concern to all the non-Communist States in that part of the world.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me: do we regard it as a British interest that the independence of countries which might, whether rightly or wrongly, feel themselves threatened by China, should be preserved? I think—indeed, I am sure—that it is in the interests of all of us that the rule of international law should be preserved, and that nations should be able to live at peace. That is one of the reasons why, in planning our defences, we thought it right to put ourselves in a position in which we could influence affairs in this part of the world in the 'seventies.

The policy advocated by some critics of the Government's defence policy—by, I think, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in one of his moods—was, in effect, that we should withdraw from this area altogether. I am sure that that would have been wrong because, although we cannot foretell future developments, we should not now take action that would put us in a position in the 'seventies where, whatever the situation was, we could have no influence upon it.

As to the military form that that should take, the right hon. Gentleman will probably agree that this question will best be answered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence at the end of this debate—though, if I may say so, my right hon. Friend will need to have what is sometimes called a flexible approach, according to whichever mood the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is wearing when he winds up for the other side——

Mr. Mayhew

rose——

Mr. Stewart

I should be bringing what I have to say to a conclusion. I have been speaking for some time.

Hon. Members

Give way.

Mr. Mayhew

While quite agreeing, of course, that the military form is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, there is an important point of policy, too, which was clearly asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. That point of policy was whether, even before any Asian coalition was formed, we should be prepared to make a military contribution to the containment of China. The right hon. Gentleman asked it clearly—will my right hon. Friend answer it equally clearly?

Mr. Stewart

This phrase "the containment of China" contains a confusion in it from the start. My hope is that China will contain herself—that is, I think, an obligation on all great Powers. I do not think that we help the argument if we make ourselves the prisoner of these sloganising phrases. I will not go any further than to say that there is no doubt that China's neighbours are worried by some of her actions, and still more by her pronouncements, but it would be rash and unnecessary to try to prophesy exactly what China's future policy will be. But in view of the natural anxiety felt, we do not want now to take action in our defences which would put us in the 'seventies in a position where we could exercise no influence over those affairs.

That conclusion—that negative conclusion, perhaps—is a sound basis for policy at present, because the particular criticism urged by, I think, my hon. Friend and others, was that we ought not to have a rôle east of Suez at all. I am giving the reasons why I believe that view to be wrong. This is a disturbed area where it is difficult to foretell the future, where we and mankind have great interest in its remaining at peace, and we should not now cut ourselves off from having any influence in the future. That is the point I am trying to make, and my hon. Friend, if he is fortunate, may be able to answer it later in the debate.

The right hon. Gentleman asked: what is the general direction of foreign policy? One has to notice one thing before one can direct it anywhere. One must have proper balance between one's judgment of what Britain should be trying to do in the world and what her resources for doing it are. That was really what the Defence Review was about. The doctrine put forward in a policy debate by the right hon. Gentleman, that we ought to total up the foreign policy bill first and then present it to our colleagues in the Government, is not a possible way of running government, any more than it is possible for these matters to be decided by financial and economic considerations alone. It has got to be a balance of these conflicting factors.

Broadly the Defence Review took the position that, while this country today is not one of the giant Powers, it is still a very considerable Power with great responsibilities in the world. Those responsibilities in some parts are very clearly defined, such as our responsibilities in N.A.T.O. In the less settled parts of the world they must be responsibilities not only to be a reliable ally where we have alliances, but to be a patient and conciliating negotiator in those areas, such as South-East Asia, where a very considerable combination of firmness and of willingness seek to friendship even with the country which at the moment is injuring one are both needed. It is this combination of reliability as an ally and patience and willingness to conciliate in those areas of the world where the line between allies, friends and the hostile is less well defined, that one has to pursue all the time.

Britain has got to play her part in trying to get the world further out of that chapter in its history where it has to think so much in terms of alliances, defences and balances of power. The instrument for that is the United Nations, probably as well equipped or as ill equipped for that job as the English Parliament was for governing the country when it was first assembled. It found it then an extremely difficult job because of the great centres of independent military power that there were in various parts of the country, and it had to learn and develop a great deal the process of making power subject to common interest and the rule of law.

That is an extremely difficult process. It involves many compromises, many apparent set-backs on the way. It has got to be pursued because the nature of modern weapons is such that unless in the end mankind can turn this imperfect instrument into something capable of not only upholding the rule of international law but of making it possible that where necessary international law can be changed peaceably and by agreement, mankind is headed for destruction.

It is very easy for Governments endeavouring to put life and vigour into the United Nations to be subjected to criticisms as we often are by the party opposite because of the obvious imperfections of that body. We have all to realise that we are engaged now on a task that will certainly be one of decades and perhaps longer in which, while we can be firm and precise and immediate on what to do for example about N.A.T.O., we have to proceed often by elaborate argument, by compromise, by willingness to sit down with enemies as well as friends if the process of subordinating power to law is ever to become a reality, but that is the real objective of our policy.

5.14 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr (Down, South)

The House will be relieved to know that shall be very brief. I must start with an apology both to the Foreign Secretary and to the rest of the House, because I wish to depart from our joint intention today to talk about foreign affairs. This is the debate on the Address and it is the right of any Member to speak on any subject. I exercise this right for a particular reason and I shall be very brief so that the House may shortly go back to discuss the main topic upon which we are engaged.

The particular reason is the occasion of a maiden speech earlier in the debate, last night, by the hon. Member who has recently been elected for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). It is essential that I should do so in this debate because the opportunity of saying a word about this maiden speech may not arise again until quite late in this Parliament.

I must, of course, in accordance with the ordinary conventions of the House, congratulate the hon. Member upon having survived the ordeal of making a maiden speech. On the other hand, it was quite the most controversial maiden speech that I have ever listened to in my 16 years in the House of Commons. It contained, I regret to say, some of the wildest and most irresponsible assertions I have ever heard in any speech in this House of Commons, let alone in a maiden speech.

Mr. Christopher Rowland (Meriden)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I ask whether the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) has given notice to the Republican Labour hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that he was to make this speech today?

Captain Orr

Yes. As soon as I had decided to ask Mr. Speaker if he would be good enough to call me, I took every opportunity I could find to inform the hon. Member for Belfast, West, but unfortunately, he had already left for Belfast and it was not possible to get in touch with him in time.

Some of the things that the hon. Member said in his maiden speech were of a wild and irresponsible nature. Normally, at home in Northern Ireland they are taken as the stock-in-trade of his party and no one takes them very seriously, but they are on the official record of this House of Commons and it is necessary to put the record straight on one or two matters he raised.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

I assume that the hon. Member for Belfast, West made the same sort of speeches in his constituency at the election and thereby got the majority in that constituency to support him.

Captain Orr

I have no idea what impelled the majority of the constituents to support the hon. Member; I am referring to the speech which he made in the debate last night. As it is in the interest of all hon. Members anxious to speak in this debate to have an opportunity soon to do so, I think that I should make my speech as succinctly as I can without giving way to interventions. If any hon. Members wish to question me afterwards about it, I shall be happy to talk to them.

Let us take some of the allegations which the hon. Member for Belfast, West made. They have received wide publicity in the national Press. He first declared that his telephone was tapped throughout the election. This, if it were taken seriously, would be a serious charge. No one in Ulster takes it seriously, but it is a serious charge.

I have taken the trouble this morning to get in touch with the Northern Ireland Government to ask them if, in fact, there could possibly be any truth in this allegation. I was assured by the Northern Ireland Government that there was no tapping of telephones whatever for any purpose in Northern Ireland that is known to the Northern Ireland Government. The telephone service is a United Kingdom service. It is administered by the Postmaster-General here. No telephone tapping could have taken place unless the Postmaster-General and the Government here were responsible for it. That seems to be a clear answer to that allegation.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West declared that he and his election agent and others of his workers were subjected throughout the campaign to intimidation and threats of violence—indeed, I think that he went so far as to say to actual violence.

Again, I took the trouble this morning to investigate this matter and see if there could be any possible shadow of truth in it. I find, in fact, that the police in Northern Ireland, during the course of the election, did not receive one official or unofficial complaint of any attempt or any suggested attempt at intimidation, either from the hon. Member or his agent, or, indeed, from anybody else. That, I would have thought, was, again, a good and sufficient answer to what the hon. Member said. If it is not, is it not strange that he has not complained? Is it not strange that he has not asked that these threats to him be investigated?

The hon. Member suggested that he had been subjected to a bigoted sectarian crowd, I think he said, on the occasion of the count at the end of the election. Again, I have inquired of the police what happened. They tell me that the declaration of the result of the election at Belfast, West was perfectly orderly, with the exception of one man who has since been prosecuted and convicted of attempting to incite a crowd. In fact, I have been told by those who watched the television showing of the election count in Belfast, West that the only thing out of the ordinary that anybody noticed was one of the hon. Member's own supporters crying out, "When are you going to pay me for personating, Gerry?" [Laughter.] If hon. Members wish to check on this, they are perfectly welcome to do so.

One serious allegation which the hon. Member made, and which must be corrected, was this. He suggested that the siting of a new university in Northern Ireland and the choice of Coleraine in preference to Londonderry was made as a result of some religious prejudice. In fact, the hon. Gentleman's precise words were these: The only consideration which activated the minds of the Unionist powers in Northern Ireland was that two-thirds of the population of Londonderry were Catholics."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April, 1966; Vol. 727, c. 444.] Hon. Members may not know that the siting of this university was decided after the setting up by the Northern Ireland Government of a committee on which some very distinguished people served. Let me just mention four. There was the late Sir John Lockwood, who was Chairman of the Committee, former Master of Birkbeck College at London University and a former Vice-Chancellor of London University. There was Sir Willis Jackson, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Imperial College, London. There was Sir Peter Venables, now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aston, Birmingham. There was Miss Murray, President of New Hall, Cambridge.

That committee came to the unanimous conclusion that Coleraine was, in fact, the place, under all considerations, at which to site the university. The decision of the Northern Ireland Government was bared upon that. Any suggestion that it was otherwise is a slur upon the distinguished people who made that recommendation. This is the reason for the decision of the Northern Ireland Government in the matter. The attempt by the hon. Member for Belfast, West to resurrect old animosities and bitternesses ought to be condemned.

During the course of his speech the hon. Member referred to the general situation in Northern Ireland. He referred, in particular, to the election which has just taken place. One of his more extravagant remarks was that the only issues discussed during the contest"— this is, the contest in Northern Ireland at the General Election— concern the question whether one is a Catholic or a Protestant."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April, 1966; Vol. 727, c. 440.] He said that no economic issues were involved. Did extravagance ever go further? if ever there was anything that was the absolute reverse of the truth, it was that. Any person who knows anything about Ulster must know that that is complete and absolute nonsense.

The hon. Member's own constituency is surrounded by four others—Belfast, North, Belfast, South, Belfast, East, and South Antrim. In all four of those constituencies my hon. Friends who have been returned for them were opposed by members of the Northern Ireland Labour Party. There were no other candidates in the field. If hon. Members are concerned about this, let them ask the Secretary of the Northern Ireland Labour Party in Northern Ireland. Let them ask their own defeated candidates in Northern Ireland whether at any time during their contests there was one single mention of religion, one single mention by any Unionist candidate or Labour candidate, one single mention by any of their agents of anything remotely to do with religious prejudice. They will get the answer: "It is absolutely untrue".

I regard it as a slander upon my native Province that anybody should even for one moment believe such an allegation.

Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)

rose—

Captain Orr

I am sorry, but I will not give way. I have often given way to the hon. Gentleman in the past, and I shall in the future, but in the interests of other hon. Members who wish to speak in this debate, I will not give way on this occasion.

In spite of the fact that outside Belfast we were fighting candidates—for instance, the candidate I was fighting—who were against the union with Great Britain, there was absolutely no attempt by me or by any of my hon. Friends to introduce anything remotely approaching religious prejudice. In fact, the trend in Northern Ireland is entirely the reverse. What we are trying to do in Nothern Ireland is to get away from the old animosities and bitternesses of religious prejudice. We are doing our utmost and all people of good will are trying to help us in this task.

When the hon. Member comes, with the voice of extremism, and seeks to stir up these things, the House ought to be very careful and beware. Let me just back up what I am saying by two quotations. One of them is from a man who is of the same religion as the hon. Member for Belfast, West and who is a Nationalist Member of the House of Commons at Stormont. Within the last fortnight he said this: Personally, I am convinced that Captain O'Neill's ambition is to take religion out of Northern Ireland politics. The Irish Independent, which is a Nationalist newspaper whose main readership is amongst the Roman Catholic community in Northern Ireland, said this on Monday: Captain O'Neill"— the Northern Ireland Prime Minister— has a new respect from the Catholics of Belfast who cannot remember a time when the police were more fair or more efficient than they were last Sunday, when the two rival parades were taking place in the City. This is what we are trying to do.

I do beseech the House of Commons not to listen to voices like those of the hon. Member for Belfast, West. I have, I hope, said sufficient today to show that what he has said about many things has not been based upon the truth. One would not want to be too severe upon an hon. Member when he has made his maiden speech; and I do not intend to. But I think that the hon. Gentleman should be warned that the House of Commons will not be quite so tolerant on a future occasion as it was on this one, but will expect higher standards of accuracy and responsibility from him when he comes to address it again.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Arnold Shaw (Ilford, South)

Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is with great diffidence that I rise to make my maiden speech, I can assure you that I would have been very much more at home in the debate yesterday afternoon. I seek the indulgence of the House in speaking on matters which are, if anything, rather divorced from foreign affairs and defence, although I suppose that it is very difficult to separate those vital matters of policy from any form of home affairs.

I have tremendous pride in presenting myself as the Member for Ilford, South. This constituency has for the last 16 years been represented by Mr. A. E. Cooper who, I understand, made quite a reputation for himself in the House. Like Mr. Cooper, I served on the Ilford Borough Council and still have the honour of serving the Greater London Borough of Redbridge, of which my constituency forms a part. I am sure that Mr. Cooper will enjoy a very long retirement and I hope that it will be a happy one.

At first sight Ilford, South is very similar to most other London suburbs. In fact, I remember that when I first went to live in the town I described it as something of a wilderness of bricks and mortar. But on closer examination one finds that Ilford has a vibrant life of its own. It is very fortunate in having many organisations which cater for the cultural and leisure pursuits of its inhabitants, and these activities are very well supported by the local authority through its newly-formed arts council.

It has a thriving shopping centre. It has a diversity of industries, most of them rather small, but, nevertheless, all playing an important part in the national effort. It is rather interesting to note that one firm carries the name of Ilford throughout the world, and there is another, a chemical works, which pioneered the manufacture of aspirin in this country. No doubt, many right hon. and hon. Members of the House must have been relieved at some time by its product.

My constituency has many problems, particularly with regard to housing, rates and the like, but it is on education that I wish to speak this afternoon. Parents of Ilford, South are second to none in their anxiety for the future of their children; for too long they have endured out-dated and unsatisfactory school buildings. This area contains much of the older part of the borough where, in the main, the schools are of the old school board type.

The conditions of many of these schools have already been brought to the notice of the House, but I cannot help referring to an article in last week's local Press dealing with one particular school, the Mount Girls' Secondary School, under the title of "School of Shame." I know that newspapers have the knack of using extravagant headlines, but this description adequately covers this school where constantly the work of the girls is interrupted by the noise of machinery and the sharp blasts of escaping steam from the nearby chemical works to which I have already referred. Even in the height of summer, windows have to be kept closed to keep out the dust and the noise.

The future of these girls must inevitably be influenced and jeopardised by the conditions under which they have to work. Yet we are told by the chief education officer that it will be at least eight or nine years before there is any hope of a replacement for this school. I suppose that since only this year we have started replacing a primary school in another part of the borough, which was started just after our glorious victory at Waterloo, this is not doing so badly.

I commend the intention of the Government to speed up school building. This is outlined in the National Plan. But I hope there will be some flexibility so that perhaps more money can be given for the purposes of school building to meet the various contingencies which will arise somewhere around 1970, to which references have already been made.

I was rather intrigued recently by reading a letter in The Guardian following the controversy raised by the visit of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the conference of the National Union of Teachers. In this letter the author pointed out to teachers the tremendous amount of money which is being spent on education, second only to expenditure on defence. I might comment that in any well-ordered society we might very well change our priorities. I am certain that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence would agree with me.

I particularly welcome the reference in the Gracious Speech to the determination of the Government to advance the reorganisation of secondary education on comprehensive lines. As I said, I am a member of the Redbridge Borough Council and of its education committee, and I can inform the House that at present there is some dubiety in the minds of members of the committee as to the intentions of the Government in this respect. I certainly welcome the crystal-clear way in which the Secretary of State for Education and Science pointed out to local authorities last night that in no circumstances would he allow the situation of selection at 11-plus and the organisation of secondary education as it is today in its tripartite form.

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your indulgence and for allowing me to bring up matters which, as I said, hardly fit in with the subject which is being discussed this afternoon.

5.39 p.m.

Viscount Lambton (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I am sure I reflect the opinion of the House in congratulating the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Arnold Shaw) on his maiden speech. It is a very unpleasant ordeal which we all have to go through. I particularly remember my own experience not only because of the ordeal itself but because after I made my maiden speech I was congratulated by no less a person than the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) and, so far as I can recollect, that was the only time that he ever had anything nice to say to me. But I can assure the hon. Member that if he continues in the amenable way in which he has addressed the House today, he will surely have friends on both sides.

I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary is not now present because there were in his speech, to which I listened with great interest, two passages which so struck me that I hoped that he would be here later to explain them. However, I am sure that the Secretary of State for Defence will draw these questions to his attention.

The first was his expression of hope that China would contain itself. What precisely did he mean by that? Did he mean that there are expansionist elements or sections in China and that other sections will contain them, or did he mean that there is division in the political world of China? That sentence was so odd, so out of tone, and so contradictory of all that the right hon. Gentleman said otherwise, that we are entitled to an explanation. It seemed most curious to express the hope that China would contain itself while, at the same time, supporting America in containing China. If China will contain itself, what is the purpose of ensuring that America contains it as well, at great cost in money and in life?

The second passage of peculiar interest came when the right hon. Gentleman spoke about our entry into Europe. It would not be unpleasant to say that, on this subject, the Foreign Secretary was uncommonly coy. He seemed to skirt delicately round it without actually saying anything. What the House would like to have is an answer to this simple question: do the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister intend not to abide by the conditions of entry which they have laid down? Have they given up those conditions? As far as one could gather—as I said, the right hon. Gentleman coyly skirted round the subject—he seemed to suggest that these conditions of entry, mentioned so often during the election campaign, have already been discarded. If this is so, it would be of interest to the House, and of great interest to Europe, if we could be told.

I listened to the Foreign Secretary with close attention, and I approached his speech with anticipation, for I had wondered what the new theme of Labour Party policy was. Up to 18 months ago, it was fairly easy to know what was the governing theme of Labour Party policy. It was based upon economy and nuclear disarmament. How has this theme now been fulfilled or discarded east of Suez? To begin with, we have the maintenance of very large forces in Malaysia and we have adopted a Far Eastern policy of almost total support of our American allies.

The last thing we on this side of the House would wish to do would be to make the task of the Americans more difficult or to undermine their efforts in Vietnam, but it seems to me that, in the last 18 months, apparently in order, at almost any price, to appease American opinion, we have sacrificed our independent rôle in the Far East and we are now so totally associated with the American war and war effort that even the hon. Gentleman who went there as an emissary last year, despite his extreme leanings in the past, was not made welcome.

Have we, by this abandonment of independence and by our total support of the American effort, given up the opportunity to intervene which might have come later? We all remember how, in 1954, it was, basically, a British Foreign Secretary who prevented the outbreak of war between China and the United States, and that intervention was possible because we were not totally committed to the French and American war in the Far East. Most regrettably, that position of independence which we then held has been sacrificed, and it has been sacrificed, essentially, since right hon. and hon. Members opposite came to power. When my right hon. Friends were in power, we still maintained independence. The opportunity to intervene had not been totally cast aside. It is very regrettable that right hon. and hon. Members opposite have played their part so tactlessly that they have now discarded that card of intervention which we had always held hitherto. Also, plainly, the theme for economy in the Far East has gone and is no longer accepted by right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

If we turn to other physical economies, again we must have grave doubts about what part the F111 is to play. There is the further disturbing fact that the F111 is, basically, an aeroplane designed for carrying nuclear warheads. The situation is most curious. Within two years of the return to office of a party committed to nuclear disarmament, we have the replacement of what one might describe as a safe conventional weapon such as the aircraft carrier by a fleet of aircraft which have strategic value only if they can be used for the distribution of nuclear force. Therefore, I do not see how hon. Members opposite can say that they have carried out their theme of nuclear disarmament or of economy in the Far East in face of what they have actually done.

I turn now to another place where we shall soon see a further reversal of policies introduced during the past few months. In Aden, we made the singular mistake of announcing that it was our intention to withdraw within two or three years. It was quite unnecessary for us to do that, and, had we made plain that we would stay until the Egyptian threat to the Aden Protectorate had gone, we should have been able very soon to leave the Protectorate independent on its own as a viable State. But, as matters stand, since that statement of intended departure, there have been the inevitable repercussions. There have been explosions, there have been deaths, and there has been terrorism and gangsterism. Nasser has definitely decided to stay in the Yemen.

What do the Government intend to do about this? By an unwise statement they have prolonged a war and have made it almost impossible for them to fulfil what they promised. In view of the vast interests that we have in the Middle East and the value of the oil revenues to the sterling area, I think that some statement should be made about Aden—or are we prepared to go, throwing the whole of the Middle East into disturbance? There is very little doubt that, whatever the Government may be saying at present, it will be strategically impossible for them to withdraw from Aden within the next two or three years—and the ridiculous thing is that we shall be unable to withdraw simply because at the wrong time the Government made a rash statement which made it essential for us to stay.

I cannot see anywhere east of Suez any continuation of the theme which hon. Members opposite have regarded as the basis of their foreign policy. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite now have no theme and the Government are living from hand to mouth without consideration of the future, apparently guided only by what should satisfy the demands of tomorrow. There is no guiding policy, no clear intention, and no continuation of past idealism. All that is justified by the use of a new word "pragmatism". We are told that those who change their policies overnight are pragmatists. In the Oxford dictionary there are many definitions of a pragmatist. I believe that to these should be added "one who has given up the ideals of Socialism but has the tact not to admit it."

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Bob Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)

I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my first contribution to the House, on the Gracious Speech. I ask for the forbearance of the House in so far as I am leav- ing the subject of the foreign affairs debate.

I am conscious of the fact that I am succeeding a very illustrious Member of the House, and that I have extremely high standards to emulate. Indeed, I was the agent to Ernest Popplewell for 16 years, and no one knows better than myself the high regard which he built up among his constituents in Newcastle, West during almost 21 years as Member for that constituency. I am sure that the House will greatly miss Ernest and his long experience, particularly in transport, and that it will join me in wishing him and Mrs. Popplewell a long, healthy and happy retirement. No one deserves it more.

I congratulate the Government on their proposals to modernise Britain during this Session, and I wish to pay particular attention to policies concerning the regions and local government within the regions. I believe that the Government's regional policies are of the utmost importance and must be pursued in order to balance the economic position of the nation. The first priority in the North, in my opinion, must be to build up job opportunities. For too long the curse of the area has been its complete dependence on heavy industry, much of it well-nigh obsolete. In building up job opportunities we must seek to diversify the nature of industry. I have been impressed and delighted during the past 12 months to see new 21st century industries on the move into the northern region, and I look forward to the Regional Economic Planning Council having many more successes in this field. Indeed, as a new Member for a great industrial constituency, I feel that I have the right to make legitimate demands on the Government that they should speed up the process of encouraging tomorrow's industries into the northern region.

The second priority, I believe, must be to build up the population of the North. I completely reject the South-East Study, which accepts the continuance of the drift to the South. I am pleased that the policies pursued so far by the Government have started to bite and that already we have almost succeeded in stopping the drift of our population from the North. I look forward to a reversal of the drift when people from this very much underprivileged southern region realise the advantages which the North holds. I deliberately refer to the "under-privileged" South-East, because I firmly believe that people who have to suffer the overcrowding which exists in this area are very much under-privileged.

The northern region has very much to offer the nation. As surely as the prosperity of the nation was built on the skills of the industrial workers of the North following the Industrial Revolution, we are again in the position of being able greatly to enhance the national prospects with the contribution which we can offer in the years ahead—far more so than the rest of the country.

I look forward to rapid progress in the building-up of city regions in the North, particularly in the Northallerton and Carlisle areas. May I offer one word of warning—that the build-up of the city region in the Carlisle area must not be at the expense of West Cumberland which still has sizeable problems to tackle.

In my opinion, we ought to work towards an integrated transport system. It seems completely ludicrous to me that one day we should decide to build a new town at Washington and the following day we should decide to close the railway line to Newcastle where the majority of the new population will work. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will take note of that remark.

May I turn to the reference in the Gracious Speech to the reorganisation of Exchequer grants to local authorities. I have made a plea to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they should consider increasing the grants from 75 per cent. to 95 per cent. on urban motorways. We in Newcastle are about to start on the eastern motorway and the first mile of the scheme will cost about £10 million. In this mile of motorway we shall receive a grant of 75 per cent. This first mile of motorway is a continuation of the A1. It seems neither reasonable nor fair that the ratepayers of Newcastle have to meet 25 per cent. of the cost of what is, after all, a major trunk road which ranks for 100 per cent. grant in rural areas. I hope that the Government will also give sympathetic consideration to the cost of central area redevelopment when considering the reorganisation of Exchequer grants.

The Gracious Speech contains many proposals for modernisation. One of the most urgent needs for modernisation lies in local government. Coming as I do from the grass roots, as a member of Newcastle City Council, I want to address my remarks to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and to commend him for his decision to appoint a Royal Commission which, I am certain, will result in revolutionary proposals for local government. I urge him to go ahead with his proposals for the creation of a greater Tyneside county borough. He will hear rumbles from reactionary forces in the area but I hope that he will not be put off, because there cannot be any reasonable argument against the proposals he has offered.

Tyneside consists of a number of small communities, often based on old centres of settlement which began to coalesce in the 19th century. As a consequence, within the area, there are still a number of townships sharply conscious of their individuality. The pattern can best be illustrated by my own experience.

I was born in Scotswood, a village on the outskirts of the parish of Benwell and separated by green fields from the parish of Benwell and the rest of the city. The people of Scotswood fiercely resisted being incorporated in the City of Newcastle, but now it is fair to say that probably the proudest inhabitants of the city are the Scotswood people. With further development, Scotswood became merged physically with the Newburn urban district area and I am a member not only for part of Newcastle but also for the urban district of Newburn.

It is as well to point out that the Newburn Urban District Council is on record as having told my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government that it wants the status quo maintained but that if this is not possible, it wants to see his proposals implemented. I do not think that I am saying anything out of turn when I suggest that the council realises full well that it will not get the status quo.

Tyneside is a series of small communities which are all too small to be the foundation of local government and are all part of the wider community where unity exists in a different way. The unity of Tyneside is constantly being developed as greater mobility becomes available to more and more people and as a greater number of people are having, year by year, because of redevelopment, to move from the centre of the conurbation to the fringes.

The pattern of the journey to work clearly demonstrates this and increases the great emphasis on the central area of Newcastle. It is fair to say that many thousands of my constituents travel about Tyneside to work and pleasure without any thought of local boundaries. Any such boundaries are generally quite indistinguishable and are blurred to those who travel to work.

The people of Tyneside are regarded as Geordies the world over, not as people from Newcastle, Gateshead, South Shields or Tynemouth. "Geordie" is a regional term quite as specific as "cockney". The song "Blaydon Races" is almost regarded as a local national anthem. Is there any hon. Member who will confess his lack of culture by saying that he has not heard of "Blaydon Races"? The identification of people on both sides of the river with Newcastle United Football Club, of considerable former fame, is undeniable.

In view of all these things, it is clearly indicated that the people of Tyneside are already, by the way in which they work and play, part of one community and that this needs expression through one unit of local government. Vital and exciting changes are welcomed by most people, but there are changes in certain fields which are welcomed only by those not directly affected. Any changes that destroy important existing organisations and, what is more important, affect individuals, cannot easily be carried through.

The changes proposed by my right hon. Friend for Tyneside and supported by Newcastle City Council and other councils in the area affect every member in every council chamber in the special review area. Many council members will lose their seats as a result of the proposed reorganisation—will lose them whatever form the reorganisation may take. Reorganisation is justified in my view only if, as a consequence, Tyneside can play a leading part in the development of a prosperous and modern region.

If a major reorganisation fails to achieve this, there may as well be no reorganisation at all. If Tyneside, the northern region and the nation are to keep pace with the rest of the world it is vital for a striving, living democracy to ensure that its own institutions move forward in the vanguard of this thought.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) in his maiden speech. I remember not so very long ago making my own maiden speech and following the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Butler, and the right hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker), whom I am personally glad to see back in this House, although I cannot say that politically.

I understand that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West was the agent for his predecessor, Ernest Popplewell. He will, therefore, know that Mr. Popplewell spoke with great authority in this House on the subject of railways, having himself worked on the railways. I am sure that it is in keeping with the traditions of the House that I should say now that Mr. Popplewell is much missed, but evidently his successor speaks with equal authority as a "Geordie". As an East Anglian, I was particularly struck by the fact that he spoke of coming from the "grass roots" of Newcastle. We hope to hear the hon. Gentleman again.

I want to follow the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), who said at the beginning of his speech that it is in the interests of good debate that we should try to deal with foreign affairs in particular subjects, dealing with one region at a time. I agree with the view that, in the last Parliament, far too often foreign affairs debates became a rag bag of all the issues, so that each speech dealt perhaps with the whole waterfront of world affairs. It is a constructive suggestion that, so far as possible in the complexities of international affairs, we should try to deal with specific issues, debate by debate. I shall try to deal with just one subject today—Europe and, in particular. Germany.

I have just come back from a longish tour of West Germany—the twentieth since the war. I can speak perhaps with some small knowledge of Anglo-German relations, since I married a German and understand the language reasonably well. I saw a number of people both in the Government and in business in the Ruhr, North Germany and, of course, in Berlin, and spent most of my time with young people. Among many of the young people I met I was struck by a very new and most important mood. It was a mood of impatience, frustration and, I feel, exasperation towards the West. It was also a mood of new beginnings and fresh exploration as regards the Eastern world. Finally, it was a mood of uneasy questioning about the present state of German society itself.

I was struck by the feeling among many of these young Germans that in recent years their country had been "played for a sucker" by the West. I ask the House to accept that American expression because it defines very well the feeling which many young Germans expressed to me. For example, they referred to N.A.T.O. and the fact that the Germans had thrown in their resources, their 12 divisions, and were making a substantial contribution. Yet the alliance is in disarray, the French proposing to pull out, the Americans taking home 15,000 and perhaps 30,000 of their specialists to reinforce their Army in Vietnam, and the British Government, too, rightly anxious to reduce the costs and perhaps the size of our Army in Germany. All of these may be right and necessary moves for the Governments concerned. But the House should recognise that among many Germans they raise questions whether N.A.T.O. is as solid as they hoped and believed that it was.

Then, too, young Germans complain about the whole thorny question of nuclear sharing within the alliance. Nearly five or six years of discussion have taken place since the Americans first launched this novel idea on an unsuspecting Europe. Now, M.L.F. is dead. I suspect that the Government's A.N.F. is also dead. We have the McNarama Committee's proposals and there may be a fruitful possibility of associating the Germans in some form of control of the nuclear power of the alliance within these proposals. Nevertheless, the mood which I found in Germany was that the question of nuclear sharing had been fudged and the Germans apparently still are out in the cold.

Next there is the Common Market, where one is glad to see enormous pro- gress being made, especially with the reductions of tariffs and in agriculture. But when the Germans threw themselves into the Common Market, they did it as much as any people in Europe for supranational reasons. They felt that here was a new ideal. Yet as they look at that ideal today many of them feel that General de Gaulle has literally put his foot on it.

Above all, the mood of frustration I met in Germany focused on their disappointment over unification. Quite plainly, they rearmed in part for their own security and in part because they were pushed into it. But they also rearmed in part because they believed, as Mr. Dulles told them, that by building up a position of strength, somehow, some time, unification would be achieved. The word at the time was "roll-back"—and what a laugh that gives us now! Liberation has not happened. Reunification has not happened. As the Germans see it today, the Americans are preoccupied with Vietnam; the British are preoccupied with Rhodesia and the French are preoccupied with la gloire. The whole question of German reunification appears to them to have been put off indefinitely.

The reaction to these feelings in Germany, which I do not endorse but merely report, is one of disappointment. There is a feeling that their alliance with the West has not achieved for the Germans the goals they hoped to find. I would like to quote the remark of one quite prominent business man in Dusseldorf who said, "The road to the West is a dead end for us; we have, therefore, to open a door to the East". This is the other aspect of the new mood which I am describing.

For, in addition to the disillusion with the West, there is also a new mood of fascination with the East. The old fascination of the Teuton with the Slav world has been a factor of European history for centuries; but today, as the Foreign Secretary touched on earlier, there is a new loosening-up in German relations with the East European satellite nations. There are prospects for Germany to open more trade and technical and cultural frontiers in that direction.

The West Germans I met also showed a strong feeling that the people of the Eastern Zone badly need help. It is not often realised that many of the young Germans to whom I was speaking have never lived in a world in which there was one Germany. A young man of 21, born in 1945, in either the Eastern Zone or West Germany, has never known a time when his country was reunited, and in West Germany today there is a very strong feeling that something needs to be done about reunification before a new generation grows up in the Eastern Zone which is totally incapable of ever coming together with its relatives and fellow citizens in the West.

I believe that the main reason for this new interest in the Ostpolitik is the example set by General de Gaulle. His projected visit to Russia was the talk of almost all the groups to whom I had the pleasure of speaking. They believe that perhaps he may be opening a door. Perhaps they felt some jealousy, a feeling that anything the French could do in Moscow or Eastern Europe, the Germans could do better. Once again, I do not attempt to endorse the mood, but merely to report it.

In the context of these new sentiments, the disillusion with the West and the new fascination with the East, there is a demand to improve West Germany's relations with the G.D.R., the East German Republic. Most Germans still recognise that this is a cruel police State. While I was in Berlin, yet another young man was shot at the Wall. All Germans know, too, that there can be no deal with East Germany unless the Soviet Union is convinced that Communism will be preserved and, quite rightly, the security position of the Soviets guaranteed.

But there is a profound change in the attitude of West Germany towards the East. Only a few years ago one could not talk in the Ruhr cities about Eastern Germany without finding a complete barrier to the conversation. Yet today we have the statement of the Evangelische Kirche proposing that the two groups of people should come closer together and, most important, the suggestion by the West German Socialist Party that it is time to meet and in some way talk with Herr Ulbricht and the other leaders of Eastern Germany. A year ago such a suggestion would have been howled down in Bonn, but today the fact of the matter is that, although the German Chancellor has found this a difficult political decision, it is the most popular single suggestion which has been made in Germany for a very long time.

I had the pleasure of talking to Herr Willy Brandt about his proposal. He convinced me that at the talks which he hopes to have both in Chemnitz, or as the Communists now have the crust to call it, Karl Marx Stadt, and later in Hanover, he would have his eyes very wide open indeed. For example, he is taking with him a list of the political prisoners, many of them his personal friends, whom he will ask the East Germans to release. He also pointed out the extraordinary difference in political language which now exists between the two halves of Germany. I was struck by a graphic example when he picked up an ashtray from his desk and said, "To you and me this is an ashtray, but to Herr Ulbricht it is probably a swimming pool." There is, indeed, a problem of this difference in political expression between the two halves of Germany. Nevertheless, Herr Brandt and his colleagues, and, I think, the great majority of young people in Germany, are anxious to see this new beginning succeed. The reason is that they feel that they must offer some hope to the younger people of the Eastern Zone.

Herr Brandt also suggested that there was a need for him, as a Socialist politician, to forestall any possible overtures from Ulbricht himself. As the House knows, it is not more than a few weeks since the Eastern Zone applied for membership of the United Nations—and I suspect that, being a politician, Herr Brandt sees the possible political advantage in himself taking the lead in this fashion. But, for all that, there is no doubt that what would have been impossible in Germany a year ago is now extremely popular. We must wait and see what these talks bring, but, in my view, this situation produces one or two anxieties for the Western Alliance.

There is always the possibility—a dim one perhaps, but never to be forgotten—that the Germans may well accept a degree of neutralism in return for unification. To my mind, that is a danger. I do not believe that it is a strong possibility at present because West Germany is so deeply committed, politically, economically and militarily, to the West. Nevertheless, the possibility exists, and I ask the Government to take note of it in their relations with Bonn.

As to what we should do about it, I propose three or four unspectacular things. First, we should demonstrate to the West Germans our continuing concern for unification to be achieved at some stage, and to be achieved in association with the West—as a united Western and European initiative and not by unilateral German dealings with the East. Secondly, it is important that we demonstrate to the Germans that we intend to, and can, reconstruct N.A.T.O. in a modern image, taking note of the changing character of the threat, the reduction of the Soviet posture of aggression. Thirdly, in company with the Germans, we must keep open the door to the East. This certainly carries the support of both sides of the House.

However, the last and most important thing which we can do to ensure that the powerful West Germans remain within the Western camp as loyal allies is for this country to join Europe. It is on this point that I want to consume the last few minutes that I have.

Earlier, an hon. Member opposite intervened in the Foreign Secretary's speech to ask him whether he was not expressing his European policy in too strictly an economic vein and whether the political and idealistic aspect of Europe was not more important. I believe that it is much more important, for there is more to Europe than just economics. While the Governments are in difficulty in Brussels, in N.A.T.O. and elsewhere, the people of Europe are coming closer together.

As one travels through Europe one sees being created a supranational economic context—the cross-frontier movement of investment, the emergence of common European products. One buys Euro matches, Euro raincoats; Euro cars are assembled from the bits and pieces of many countries. A supranational economic context is emerging in Europe.

At the same time, there is being created a common social and recreational environment which is larger than any single country. People in all lands watch the same Eurovision programmes, their foot- ball teams play for the same European Cup. Most important, there is emerging a new kind of European man. I met a young German X-ray technician in Aachen and asked her where she went for her holidays. She said that she went to the beach. When her father said he went to the beach, he meant that little bit of the North German shore which is all the beach that the old Germany had. But when this young woman spoke of the beach, she meant anywhere that the water lapped against the European Continent. To her, going to the beach meant going to Italy, France, or Holland—anywhere in Europe.

Europe, in fact, is growing hyphenated people. In the late 19th century the Americans had the experience of the hyphenated generation—the Italian-American, the German-American, the Irish-American. In two or three generations, they became just Americans. Something very similar is now happening in Europe. There are today—one can see them—German-Europeans, Italian-Europeans, and so on. I am proud to call myself an Anglo-European.

I end by saying, as so many in the House believe, that it is time for this country, too, to join Europe. Of course, the conditions must be negotiated; we understand that perfectly well. But I put this last point to the Government: it is not enough simply to keep on saying, "We are for Europe". It is a matter of doing it, and the sooner it is done, the better. Let us also accept that the object of joining Europe is not simply to create a greater economic wealth for all of us who live in the fortunate Continent of Europe. The issue is larger than that.

There is the possibility that one day a powerful Europe will be a bridge between the great Powers of the East and West. It can play its part in achieving world peace. There is also the fact that in the world there are great under-developed nations—about 2,000 million barefoot people who are seeing the prospect of a better life. This old Continent of Europe, with its experience of bridging the gap between the European world and the world of Africa and Asia, with its growing wealth and growing unity, can make a powerful contribution here. This is a task which we can be proud to tackle. That, too, is the goal of Europe.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker (Leyton)

I found very interesting the first-hand and very well observed report on Germany of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths). I did not altogether agree with some of his solutions, but I found them very interesting.

In the earlier part of his speech, when he was reporting the German mood, it struck me that perhaps the German people arc a touch too easily frustrated. Countries have to resist frustration in certain circumstances. Perhaps the Germans are not as good at that as some other people.

The hon. Gentleman is right that anyone speaking from the back benches should limit himself to one subject or region. I intend to do that and to discuss the matter on which the hon. Gentleman ended, namely, our relations with the Common Market which, I am glad to observe, have been a persistent theme throughout the debate.

Hon. Members may remember that at the time of the previous negotiations, 1962, I made a number of rather critical observations. I then thought, and, indeed, in retrospect I still think, that those negotiations were of the wrong kind, were conducted in the wrong way, and took place at the wrong time. But, since then, there have been extremely important developments within the Common Market which have tended to reduce many of the obstacles which weighed against our entry in the minds of many hon. Members on both sides.

There have been two developments in the Common Market, in particular, which are important in this respect. The drive to turn the Common Market prematurely into some kind of supranational State has been checked. It is clearly easier for Britain to enter—I will talk later about being in—a common market, which is what it is called, namely, a large market created by the removal of barriers of trade.

Whatever the Common Market may become, surely it must be easier for us to make active entry into a common market which is primarily an economic association which has given up the drive to creating rapidly and too quickly a supranational State. I do not doubt that political and other union and problems of that kind will arise again inside the Common Market, and we would have to face these when they arose. If we were within the Common Market, we could play a large influence on any such developments and help to guide them much more, I hope, in accord with our views.

The second development is that the excessive pretensions of the Commission at Brussels have been somewhat curtailed. One of the objections that I previously felt to our entry into the Common Market was a grave repugnance to placing a large part of our affairs under the control of bureaucrats who were not themselves responsible to elected Ministers.

I agree with those who say that the Commission must play an important and essential part in the evolution of the Common Market. It seems to me, however, to be of the utmost importance, in order to maintain true democracy in the Common Market, that the Commission should be, much more than it was in the early stages, under ultimate democratic control.

One day there may be a real Common Market Parliament that can achieve this—I do not know. In any event, it is a fairly distant prospect and one that is related to the possibility of building a supranational State in Europe. But we certainly cannot wait until that distant prospect to secure some kind of democratic control over the Commission.

In the meanwhile, there is only one way in which this can be done, and that is through a much sounder, healthier balance between the Council of Ministers and the Commission. That has been largely achieved through developments that have been going on inside the Common Market. It seems to me significant that on this point the stand taken by France found a great deal of sympathy among other Governments in the Common Market.

There seems to me to remain only one serious and grave problem, and that is the problem of adapting ourselves to the agricultural system in the Common Market, which raises the related problems of the effect upon our prices and the effect upon imports of food and raw materials from Commonwealth countries. This is a tough problem, and we have genuine national interests which have to be safeguarded. Given these new developments, however, and the consequent change which they have brought in opinion in this country, I cannot believe that with good will, and give and take, this problem is beyond solution. Special arrangements will have to be made and fair and adequate time must be allowed for adjustments.

I agree strongly with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary that it is not necessary that all the adjustments should be on our side. We should not take too defeatist a view about our negotiating position. If, as I believe, it would pay us to be in the Common Market, at the same time it would add greatly to the strength of the Common Market to have Britain within it.

We can enter into discussions only on a dignified basis. The whole essence of free negotiation—not simply acceptance of the situation, but free negotiation—is that it must proceed on double footing. This needs to be said clearly, but it has been rather obscured in the discussion of the Common Market in this debate. The double footing is that, first, at a pinch, both we and the Common Market could get on without the other, but that, secondly, it would be to the overwhelming advantage of both of us if Britain were in the Common Market. Unless it is done on that double footing, there cannot be free and real negotiation.

The question of high importance that arises is how one would proceed now. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, without answering the question himself, asked it. I will do my best to answer it. It seems that next time we must make a very different approach from the one we made last time, which led us nearly to grave disaster in our relations with Europe. Next time, before we attempt to get down to the details of veal and butter, and so on, important as those details are, we should first raise the great central issues of will and intent, and of attitude and concept of the Common Market, which will decide, as they did last time, our entry one way or the other. Probably the best course would be for us to initiate a series of bilateral talks and discussions with the various member Governments of the Common Market and, I hope, with the Council of Ministers.

We should make a vigorous effort to refurbish and make a reality of Western European Union. It is certainly the best forum in which to discuss, because it contains both Ministers and the Commission, but up till now it has been nothing but a façade. It would be no good starting talks there unless there was general agreement to make it into a reality.

It seems to me that in the course of those negotiations it should be our aim, among others, to inject into the general discussion our views about the nature of the future of the Common Market. This should enter as one of the factors into the general picture that is being built up in Europe. As a potential very great member of the Common Market we have that right that our views, too, should enter into the general consensus of view.

One of the major views that we should try to inject into those discussions is to place the whole question of the Common Market much more fully into its complete European background. Europe is something a great deal bigger than the Common Market. The two are often discussed as if they were identical, but they are not. There is, first of all, E.F.T.A. Next time, I hope that we will genuinely co-ordinate our interests with those of our E.F.T.A. partners and genuinely represent their views and interests during the course of the general discussions.

But the Eastern European nations are also a part of Europe. However important this matter is—and it is very important for us—we must never lose sight of the major objective of reunifying the whole of Europe, the old historical Europe, which has been artificially divided since the end of the Second World War, and of which the division of Germany is only one part. One must not consider the two as separate.

We ought, therefore, to consider making two simultaneous initiatives. One is in connection with entry into the Common Market, but the other, and simultaneously, should be to try to build more substantial bridges between East and West Europe. It is time that we should look again, with our allies, at the possibility of some freezing or thinning of forces and armaments in Central Europe. I was glad to hear what the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) said on this subject. I agreed very much with that part of his speech.

We have done a good deal, but we must push on much more vigorously with the development of trade relations. If we join the Common Market it is of vital Importance that the gulf between East and West Europe should not thereby be dug deeper, but that bridges should be built. The two things must go on together.

To summarise briefly what I have been trying to say, or to draw conclusions, I do not myself see how anything very sudden and dramatic can be done about the question of our relationship with the Common Market. A great deal of probing and talks on great issues have to go on. We should, however, make a new start, and I feel that it should now he our declared policy that we should do our utmost to make negotiations about the entry of Britain into the Common Market a success. No one knows how long this will take, nor can there be a categorical assurance of success. But I hope and trust and expect that the negotiations will he brought to a successful conclusion during the term of the present Parliament.

6.40 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

The right hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker) must have been gratified at the way the House filled during his speech. We know from past experience, when he was a Member of the House previously, that his speeches are worth listening to. I sympathise with him in that I have had several difficult seats like those that he has had to fight recently. As he said, the European problem is bigger than that of the Common Market, and I hope that his aspirations will eventually materialise. However, since we have been taking rather special points of view today, I am sure that he will not mind if I deal with the Far East, in which I am particularly interested.

The Foreign Secretary said that this country still had considerable power and great responsibilities. He referred to some of the responsibilities that we have in the Far East. I was glad when he said that the non-Communist countries of the Far East are worried about the position in Vietnam as, should Vietnam be a failure, it will make their position very perilous. I was also grateful to him for saying that he was willing to try to establish friendly relations with various countries, and that he thought that in many cases it was necessary to be patient, and try to persuade people.

I was rather disappointed, however, to hear him sweep over the question of the position between Malaysia and Indonesia in a few words. The Minister of Defence must realise that this problem is a great responsibility at present. We have over 50,000 troops there, and it is a major problem for us. To hear him pass over this subject in a few words was very disappointing.

I have had the opportunity of living and working in Malaysia and Indonesia, and I have been back several times, including last autumn. I have had a chance to discuss various points of view with many people there. During the last election I had four of the chief editors of Malaysian newspapers to lunch in Plymouth, and I was able to discuss the present situation with them. Therefore, when I read, in the Gracious Speech, that the Government will sustain efforts to achieve disarmament I was naturally pleased, because I am a supporter of the United Nations. But I was then disturbed to read that the Government will continue to work for peace and security in all parts of the world through support for the United Nations". That is to give up our responsibilities. We must take certain actions to encourage the United Nations to try to settle matters peaceably but, regrettably, this has not been very successful to date. One of the unfortunate things at present in the United Nations is the effort to encourage the use of force in Rhodesia. Therefore, we cannot only look to the United Nations to achieve settlements, and we must do all we can to bring them about, particularly in relation to Commonwealth countries.

The Gracious Speech also says that: A particular concern of My Ministers will be to use all available means to achieve a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Vietnam. Surely we ought also to be trying to get a settlement, with all that it means, in regard to Indonesia. This is the point that I want to draw particularly to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. Has any Minister in recent years ever visited Indonesia? Has any attempt been made to visit it? What action has been taken following the appointment of the new Foreign Secretary, Dr. Malik, who recently said that there was "possibly a peaceful solution" to the three-year war. We are apt to forget that this war has been dragging on for three years and that it might easily go on for another 30 if action is not taken.

When I was there in 1945 I was working among the internees, and I tried to persuade people in this country to take an interest in what was happening there. Regrettably, the then Socialist Administration took the view that they had other more important jobs to do in this country, and when Indonesia herself was desperately looking for the hand of friendship she got nothing from Great Britain. We had every opportunity to do something because we were then the controlling Power. We had the Indonesians' good will, which had been created by both Indian and British troops. Soetan Sjahrir, who regrettably died the other day, and who was then Prime Minister, said that he was very grateful for what we had done; we had come in to do a difficult job. We had had to kill some of the people there, but they had from us something that they had never had from any white race before—courtesy, and respect for their dignity. We had a really good chance to do something to create friendship, but we threw it away.

When one goes back through history one realises that at one time we owned Java. Raffles' wife is buried in Java. They still drive on the left-hand side of the road there, and still have our land laws. It therefore seems clear that we had every opportunity to do something to help the newly independent country, but we did not take advantage of it—and the vacuum was afterwards filled, first by the Russians and later by the Chinese.

We have seen that the Prime Minister has been anxious to get a settlement of the Vietnam problem. He suggested, first, sending a Commonwealth delegation to Hanoi, and then he sent the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies). There has been no attempt to send any form of Commonwealth delegation to help a Commonwealth country, Malaysia. In reply to my Question yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that there would have to be … proper consideration for the rights and interest of the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April. 1966; Vol. 727, c. 343.] Surely it is in the interests of both Malaysia and Singapore that there should be peace. If we can take action in regard to Vietnam, which is an America problem, I cannot see the logic of our not taking action in regard to Malaysia. Why do we not take action? Malaysia is quite willing to be protected by British troops, and we have a treaty, which we must honour, but it is in the interests of Singapore to have good relations with Indonesia, and the fact that they have been very anxious to get relations started has been shown by the wish to open up trade.

This has led to a worsening of its relationships with Malaysia. I am glad that Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, the Prime Minister, has recently been here, because he is one of the most able of our Commonwealth Prime Ministers and he is willing to face realities. He knows that it is essential for his economy to have a British base in Singapore. There is another reason why Mr. Lee Kwan Yew is at present anxious to have a British base in Singapore. We have heard the view of the Minister for Disarmament, who recently painted a very gloomy picture when he said that he thought the Chinese would have nuclear capabilities in the 1970s. So some action should be taken now in this area and this is the right moment, particularly when we know that the locally-born Chinese in Indonesia have been turning against the mainland Chinese, and have ransacked the Chinese Embassy. We must regret this, but it shows that they are being loyal to Indonesia. I believe this is the moment to try to start negotiations.

I have also been to New Zealand and, for a short time, to Australia. Both these countries are anxious for us to keep our base in Singapore, but I would have thought that although they have from time to time sent troops to Malaysia, and to the Commonwealth Brigade H.Q. at Fort George, they ought also to be able to contribute something financially towards the base. It would be very much better if Australia, which is very vulnerable to an attack launched from Indonesia, if it became a Communist country, were to support another Commonwealth country, namely, Malaysia, rather than send her troops to Vietnam. I should have thought that these were the negotiations which we should try to speed up.

If we are not to be indefinitely in the Far East, we must try to train the Malaysian troops themselves. Although I am not denigrating them or in any way suggesting that they are not trying to play their part, there are certainly not enough of them. If negotiations with Indonesia were successful, this would not be the end of the problem. I lived in Malaysia when the Communist Chinese were acting as terrorists in the jungle; now, the clandestine Chinese Communist organisations are quite strong in number, particularly in Sarawak, and there is a very large number of Indonesians, who are at the moment peaceful, living in Sabah.

So, when the confrontation ends, this will not be the end of the Malaysian problems. I should have thought that we should have special negotiations to train troops to take over when we have to leave, because of these problems. When the right hon. Gentleman knew that I was going overseas, he very kindly gave me special facilities to see the troops in action, for which I am grateful. It gave me the opportunity to go within five and a half miles of the border, to see the difficulties which many of the troops serve under. I saw particularly their lack, in some cases, of equipment, the need for more helicopters and—particularly important for the troops themselves—the fact that some of their equipment must be modernised.

In other words, as I have already written to the right hon. Gentleman, they should not have to carry 80 lb. of equipment through the jungle. Surely this is not necessary in these days, yet it is what most of our troops have to do. I should be very grateful to him also if he would stop calling British troops, "Malaysian security forces". They are British troops and surely we are proud of them. They are not just "Malaysian security forces"; they are British troops, doing a grand job.

I also had the opportunity of meeting many people in the Navy and going out on one or two of the minesweepers. We heard the other day that the "Punchestown" was fired upon. Fortunately, I was not hit. I also want to pay tribute to the men of the Royal Navy who patrol these straits day in and day out, doing what must be a very boring job.

The Foreign Secretary talked about not taking action until the incursions stop. I hope that he will not wait until they stop. He must realise—I am sure he does, better than I do perhaps—that a revolution is going on at present and it is not always possible, in this vast area of over 3,000 islands, to be certain what some people are doing. In fact, if he ever listened to the programme "The Man from the Ministry" he must realise just how one gun emplacement was left in Wales for nearly 20 years before it was discovered. I hope that it will be recognised that there are difficulties and that there should be full control over the troops. The troops have all types of weapons and are fighting a civil war and in a vast territory they may not be under control. I hope that he will think again about not starting any negotiations until the incursions stop.

I cannot end without saying one word of praise about the Gurkhas. All hon. Members will have noted that a Gurkha was recently awarded the Victoria Cross. The last man who received the Victoria Cross was a man from my constituency in 1953. Regrettably, this was a posthumous award and I hoped at that time—it was over-wishful, perhaps—that we should not have the opportunity of awarding the Victoria Cross again.

This should raise the question as to what we are doing about the payment and service of Gurkhas. I was horrified when I found that these very gallant men were earning half the money of the cook boy in the mess and half the money of the Kaduzan women mending the roads. I have brought this matter to the right hon. Gentleman's attention. I know that there is difficulty because of our agreement with India, but I suggest that Gurkhas might get some form of terminal grant when they go home so that they can set up their own homes when they get there, and live in some comfort.

In Singapore at the moment a Soviet trade delegation is promoting trade and looking into the possibility of setting up joint industrial ventures. Dutch-Indonesian relations are improving, and the Netherlands is likely to give technical aid to Malaysia—an "Aid Malaysia consortium", as they call it—which would be for five or six years' technical aid. With Malaysia and, if necessary, the Philippines, we might open talks again in order not only to get peace in that area but in order to make threats to peace very much less.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)

The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) said, in response to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker), that she had had some experience of election difficulties. I can understand what she means. No instrument is more merciless than the electoral guillotine and I am sure that the only reason that her head is still on her shoulders is due entirely to her personal qualities.

Many speakers have said during the debate that each of us should, if possible, confine himself to one subject, and I will do my best to follow that wise advice. On general matters, I am a supporter of the Government. I wish them well. I hope that they will carry through all their Measures—and some, in particular—with great speed. There are many items in the Gracious Speech which I welcome and I will do everything in my power to assist their progress. I recall that I also had the opportunity of speaking in the debate on the Queen's Speech at the beginning of the last Parliament, when I made some suggestions which I am very glad to see that the Government have followed.

When it was discovered in the last Parliament that we should not get through the House of Commons all the Measures which we desired, I made a practical suggestion—what might be called a "pragmatic" suggestion—for overcoming the difficulty. I said that we might have a General Election. I strongly urged this course last November. Many hon. Members in the House disagreed with me—some on that side of the House, for reasons we can understand, but some even on this side. Some of my closest friends on this side of the House criticised me and said that they did not think that it would be right to have an election. But everything has turned out all right, as you Mr. Speaker, would be the first to acknowledge, if you had the opportunity——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is an old Parliamentarian. He knows that he must not bring the Chair into the debate.

Mr. Foot

I was merely stressing that everything had turned out all right. There are no complaints. I am not saying that every prophecy and hope which I expressed will be so speedily fulfilled, but I mention the point to add a necessary piquancy to the further prophecies and hope which I will express on this occasion.

Speaking generally to the members of the Government, both on domestic and foreign matters, I believe that the main consideration which they should have in their minds if they are to fulfil the hopes of the people who elected them is that the tactics and strategy which were sufficient for a Parliament in which we had a precarious majority are not sufficient for a Parliament in which we have a much greater majority and a much firmer assurance of office.

Therefore, I urge on the Government, both in domestic and foreign affairs, to raise their sights, to lengthen their perspectives, to widen their strategy and to enlarge their vision. If they fail it will be through lack of boldness, not through excessive boldness. I therefore urge the Government to re-examine both their domestic policies and their foreign policies in the light of this consideration. I hope that they have already embarked upon it. We have not yet seen the results of that reconsideration. I understand that the Government have had many other matters to consider, but I hope that they will review the whole of their policy in that respect and make their plans on the most audacious scale.

Nowhere, in my opinion, does that recipe for success apply more than in foreign affairs. I do not propose to discuss them all today, although I believe that we must have very much fuller debates about our entry, for example, into the Common Market, than we have had so far. We shall also have to have very much wider debates about the measures which I hope will be taken for securing a settlement in Europe—a settlement which embraces the whole of Europe and not only a part of it.

I must confess that I do not believe that at the moment we shall make very great progress in the way which we should all like to see. Although my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary put forward many excellent propositions for advances towards disengagement and other measures, I fear that we shall not make a great advance towards those proposals while the Vietnam war continues. The Vietnam war makes it almost impossible for the Soviet Government to make any move towards a further settlement with the West. Every time the Soviet Government wish to make a move towards the kind of settlement which I believe they would like, they are held back by the consideration that their influence throughout Asia and in other parts of the world might be seriously injured if that occurred at a time when the Vietnam war were proceeding. Thus, the whole of our world is overclouded by this war.

My disagreement with Her Majesty's Government about their policy in Vietnam does not arise because I think that they have any less desire to see peace there than I have. I am sure that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are as passionately eager to see an end of war in Vietnam as I am. My quarrel with them is that I think they have gone the wrong way about it, and I wish to ask the Foreign Secretary today not simply about the past, but also about the future. What is the Government's policy? To what are they committed? During the election the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) suggested that the Government were preparing, or possibly might be preparing, or had contingency plans under consideration, for sending British troops to Vietnam. I am very glad that that has been completely repudiated both during the election and today.

But there is some logic in what the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said, because if the Government say, "We have full understanding of, and give full support to, United States policy", then it is possible for the United States at some point to say, "If you say that you support us fully, and if you think that the whole free world depends upon our policy in Vietnam, why will you not support us with troops?" It is possible for them to make that request.

That question was raised during the election. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary did not give the answer which I should have liked to hear him give. He said, "We shall not send troops to Vietnam, partly because we are co-chairmen with the Russians over Vietnam." I am, of course, glad about that, but that is not the only reason we should not send troops to Vietnam. The reason that I would not send troops to Vietnam is that I think it is a shameful war, a war which I believe is being fought for the wrong reasons and which can never be brought to a successful conclusion. Those, surely, are adequate reasons for not sending British troops there. I hope that it will be understood by a Government in this country that they cannot send British troops to Vietnam, not only on the diplomatic technical grounds which my right hon. Friend adduced but also because if the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, in response to an American request, were to attempt to send British troops to Vietnam they would tear to pieces even the secure majority which they now have in the House.

I ask the Foreign Secretary to tell us what are the commitments of this country. What is the policy which he supports? The latest statement which we had from the Government prior to the debate on the Queen's Speech was the statement made at the time of the resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam by the Americans. It was then said that we gave understanding and support to the Americans' resumption of the bombing. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said, "There is no change". Presumably, therefore, the Government's policy is to support this bombing—and to this I strongly object. Apparently, they support the bombing policy of the Americans.

This policy was stated by Mr. McNamara and reported in The Guardian of Thursday last week. What he said to the Senate Committee was, of course, reported in other newspapers, too. He said that 50,000 tons of bombs had been dropped during March and it was planned to drop 638,000 tons during 1966. He said that there were more than five weeks' supply of bombs "in inventory in South-East Asia". The Guardian report continued: Showing considerable emotion as he piled on the figures. he said bombs were being dropped in Vietnam at three times the monthly rate of the Korean War, and at a rate slightly higher than that reached by all American bomber aircraft operating in North Africa and Europe during the last three years of the Second World War. 'We are a very peculiar people', he said. 'We should be proud of what we are doing there in applying an unlimited military power in pursuit of a limited political objective'. Are the British Government in favour of the application of an unlimited military power in Vietnam? I am opposed to it. I should not have thought that Mr. McNamara, even under agreement with the British Government, would have the right to say that, because we know that there are some limitations—and I was glad that this was reaffirmed by the Foreign Secretary today. They are not limitations which we think are sufficient by any means, but at any rate they are better than nothing.

We have had a further reassurance from the Government that they are absolutely opposed to the bombing of Hanoi and Haipong. I was glad to hear that reiterated. But the American Defence Secretary has outlined what is to be the bombing policy for the next year. Are we committed to this policy? Do we think that this is the way to proceed? I want to know. Is that the Government's policy? We should be told. The American Defence Secretary has stated what is his policy, and apparently that is the policy to which we are committed.

There are many grounds for opposing this policy, which have been adduced in the debates, and I do not propose to go through them all. There are further arguments for opposing the policy owing to the political developments which have recently occurred in South Vietnam and about which I do not believe the Foreign Secretary gave a full account today. But there are growing numbers of people who oppose the policy. Right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench do not seem to realise that they are in a diminishing band of supporters of American policy.

Let us take the evidence given by Professor Galbraith, American Ambassador in India until recently, a man greatly respected on this side of the House, a man whose views on economic affairs have had a considerable influence on this party, a man who is regarded as a great American Liberal. He supported a motion of the Americans for Democratic Action, the most liberal group inside the American Democratic Party. Certainly, it is no Communist group; they would be surprised if anyone suggested that they were Communists. Only a few days ago they passed a motion opposed to what they call the "continuing intensification" by the United States of the war in Vietnam. That is what some of us say in our Amendment. we are opposed to the intensification of the war in Vietnam, primarily by American air power, and so are they. They call for the stopping of the bombing of Vietnam.

Professor Galbraith said—and I ask the Foreign Secretary to note it— Let us note well that the reputation of what would have been counted the most successful liberal Administration since Roosevelt"— he was doubtless thinking of President Johnson's measures about civil rights— is in danger of being ruined by a foreign policy of men who have never raised their hands on behalf of any liberal cause in their life. That is Professor Galbraith's account of those who are making the policy in Vietnam. We must remember that Professor Galbraith knows quite a lot about the State Department and the Pentagon.

When my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gets up in the House and speaks as if it is almost axiomatic that the present policy is the only one for sustaining the cause of freedom in Vietnam, he must take into account not only the growing numbers in the Labour Party but the growing masses of liberal opinion in the United States who take the contrary view. Every journalist who has been to America during the last two or three weeks, particularly since the political developments in Saigon, has reported that the atmosphere is changing fast indeed. It may be that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister will be almost the only people left on the burning deck if they do not re-examine their policy afresh.

I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary puts certain questions to himself. He makes the case extremely formidable, and it is a formidable case. "Look," he says, "consider all the initiatives we have been taking. Look how many times these initiatives have been rejected. Look how we tried, with the Commonwealth Peace Mission and every other means, to get through to Hanoi, to get them around the conference table. Look how we have been rejected all along and look how, nevertheless, we are prepared to go to any conferences that are arranged". Having said that, my right hon. Friend asks, "What is the answer?" It is, of course, a formidable case and many of us, particularly my hon. Friends and I, deeply deplore the fact that the Government of North Vietnam do not advise their people to go to the conference table. We are all in favour of such a conference; I certainly am.

The Foreign Secretary must remember that while we do not support the bestial measures of the Vietcong, he expresses open, continuous and public support for the bestial methods of the other side. Let him consider this and apply his imagination to the problem. Why is it that the people of Vietnam who are ranged against the Americans do not give in, do not go to the conference table? They certainly do not like having their country bombed and devastated. They can read what Mr. McNamara proposes. My right hon. Friend can give the kind of explanation which, I think, he was hinting in his speech, that it is all ordered from Peking; but I do not believe that there is any evidence of that. I do not believe that everything that happens in South Vietnam is ordered from Hanoi One of the keys to the problem of why it is difficult for Hanoi to settle the question is that they cannot give absolute orders to guerillas in the field. Anyone who has studied similar situations during the last war will understand how this arises.

Despite all the obstacles, we should try to see how we can somehow get through and change the present situation. I believe that Senator Fulbright, Mr. Walter Lippmann, Professor Galbraith—indeed, the growing mass of liberal opinion in the United States—are more and more suggesting the remedies by which, if American policy were altered and if its course were directed away from the present path, we might have a chance of getting a different response. It is there that Her Majesty's Government have failed. They have abjectly failed to consider how we should devise wiser courses to deal with these problems.

Naturally, the question of what we are to do about Vietnam is related to the whole question raised by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)—how we are to deal with China. Many people claim to know how the Chinese mind works and how the Chinese leaders direct their policies. I do not claim to know, although I make this guess. If the Chinese—and, more particularly, the most belligerent section of the Chinese—could have their way, there is nothing they would love better than to see the resources, wealth and reputation of the United States sunk deeper and deeper into the squalor of Vietnam.

The present American policy is, therefore, not very clever; and if we are to be more closely allied to the Americans in this matter, as I fear the policy of Her Majesty's Government is leading us, we should discover a wiser policy. The policy of the United States for dealing with the growing problem of China has been deeply wrong since the beginning—since they rejected the first proposals that China should be brought into the United Nations. All through this period, when British Governments of both complexions have been advocating that China should be brought in, the Americans rejected the proposal.

Her Majesty's Government say, "We made formal proposals and we have differed from the Americans on this issue", but we are still tied to their policies. As long as Her Majesty's Government show their allegiance to American policy in the abject manner we have seen over the last 18 months, I do not believe that we will have much influence on the major policies of the United States, an influence which we must have if the world is to be saved. For American policy towards China must be changed if the world is to be saved, and apparently a great number of Americans now take this view, too.

Let us consider what has happened. We are told that China is the enemy. Personally, I do not believe that in the sense that people use the term. But even if it were true, it must be admitted that China has had only one success in the past year, and that was in Pakistan, in the Pakistan-Indian quarrel. If anyone wants to know why the Chinese had that success they should read Professor Galbraith's comments on the subject, remembering that he is an expert. He spent many years in India.

The Times today states: American arms shipments caused the war bentween India and Pakistan last autumn … Professor John Galbraith, former United States Ambassador to India, urged that military aid to developing countries should be cut drastically. 'There is something intrinsically obscene in the combination of ill-fed people and well-fed armies deploying the most modern equipment', he said. If the United States had not supplied arms, Pakistan would not have sought a military solution, he added. Many of us in the Labour Party pleaded with the previous Government over the years to stop the supply of arms to Pakistan. We said that it was creating an arms race and we also urged the present Government not to do it. We stated that we should use our influence to prevent this from happening. Nevertheless, it went ahead, with the Americans the chief suppliers. Now we have the evidence, not from my mouth but from that of a most eminent American citizen, an expert on the subject. With this dangerous situation in the world, we must remember that China had its greatest success due not to Chinese machinations, but to American policy.

What are we doing to change that policy? I am not saying that it can all be done by public declaration. Some of it could be. One can oppose such bombing projects as the Americans propose for Vietnam in a public declaration, but I think that more can be done by private representation. I am not saying that Her Majesty's Government can now suddenly be converted to a new policy. That will take a few weeks. Certainly, there are better prospects and methods now of securing such a change. One of the good reasons for the General Election is that pressure on the Government can effectively be exercised to secure such a change of policy.

I hope that when this House discusses these matters we will not be caught in the web of American theories and policies, The Americans have made many mistakes about the world. They have contributed much, but they have also made many mistakes since this huge, almighty nuclear power about which the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire spoke came into possession. I quote the words of the greatest of Americans, Abraham Lincoln, who said: We must dis-enthrall ourselves. Her Majesty's Government, and, in particular, the Foreign Secretary, must disenthrall themselves from their acceptance of American policy.

7.19 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart (Beckenham)

There are many points on which I disagree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), who spoke extremely powerfully. However, there is one argument, in particular, which he used in the closing stages of his remarks which puzzled me. It is that Great Britain must dissociate herself from America to make her voice heard clearly within American councils as well as within the councils of the world.

I believe that it is part of the Labour Party's mythology that the peace of the Far East was saved in the early 'fifties by the flight of the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, to Washington to dissuade the Americans from extending their bombing and military activities beyond the Yalu River, but at that time not only were we the philosophical allies of the United States of America but were far more deeply involved in that conflict, and had our own forces in the field.

Again, it is argued that in 1954 Great Britain saved the peace of the Far East because she was able to dissuade Admiral Radford and the then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles from using force on behalf of the French at Dien Bien Phu. If we had not been the allies of the United States at that point, we should never have been in the discussion at all.

The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale made one point with which I find myself in some agreement when he argued that the old excuse put forward by the Government as to why they are not more heavily involved in South Vietnam than they are at the moment—namely, our co-chairmanship with Russia of the Standing Committee—will not wash much longer. What is the other co-chairman country doing at the moment? Certainly, there are Russian technicians, if not troops, working on the S.A.M. sites in North Vietnam. We know that the North Vietnamese now have MiG21s, and the chances are that Russian pilots are flying them. Therefore, if the other co-chairman country is heavily occupied in North Vietnam, it seems that the argument that we cannot proffer support to the United States of America because of our special position will go by the board. The Foreign Secretary had better look a bit more closely at that one.

One of the hon. Gentleman's prime targets in past days was a man who has been in politics even longer than he has—Dr. Konrad Adenauer. It was Dr. Adenauer who said that an infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured by it. I know that many hon. Members opposite wish to disprove all the words that Dr. Adenauer has ever uttered, but what we are now doing in Aden is going a long way to proving that Dr. Adenauer was wrong. There, we have said to the tiger, "Come and devour us", yet the tiger does not appear to be conciliated at all. Since we announced our intention to leave the Aden base in 1968, far from the number of terrorist acts sinking, they have increased, and there has been a regrettable and substantial rise in the casualty rate amongst British soldiers.

I do not necessarily argue that a retreat from Aden will jeopardise our oil supplies from the Persian Gulf, but I believe that the way in which it has been done, and the way in which the announcement has been made, has given Nasser a boost in an area in which he was facing a very substantial military and political setback. It means that those who, in the past, looked to us for protection in their part of the world must, if they are to get protection against Nasser after our withdrawal, seek to draw the Saudi Arabians into the political struggle. I fear that the way in which the announcement was made is likely to increase the tension between Saudi Arabia and Nasser, and sharply to enhance the danger of a major war in an oil-rich area.

Many of those who, like myself, have been to this area, believe that the immediate fate of Aden will be settled not so much by the politicians as by the Federal Army—a force which we have taken a hand in creating, and which we are now deeply subsidising. It is perfectly plain that when Aden becomes independent in 1968 she cannot possibly herself pay for the Federal forces. Yet we have heard nothing from the Government as to what will happen to those Federal forces, and who will foot the bill for them after independence. Whoever does foot the bill, whether it be Nasser or the Saudi Arabians, will control a large part of that area. The Government's withdrawal will certainly lead to bloodshed.

I congratulate the Government on standing firm in the Far East. I am delighted with the philosophical defence of the position in South Vietnam that has been given by the Foreign Secretary in a powerful speech this afternoon, and on other occasions by the Prime Minister—although when I listen to the Prime Minister discussing this point I suspect, perhaps like a number of other hon. Members, that were he on this side of the House he would at this moment be saying precisely the opposite thing. Anyhow, I support the Government's philosophical defence of the position in South-East Asia. I believe that it has produced one major dividend for the whole free world, and for us in particular.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) was right when he said: However much we may do to safeguard and reassure the new independent countries in Asia and Africa the eventual limits of Russian and Chinese advance in those directions will be fixed by a balance of force which will itself be Asian and African. This will eventually be true, although I do not believe that it can be true at the present time.

I have always believed that if a true balance of force in the Far East was to be created it had to be created on Indonesia—the most powerful non-Chinese State in the whole of South-East Asia. Yet for years one saw Indonesia drifting through chaos towards Communism—or, after it had gone so far, one might argue that it was drifting from Communism into chaos. It certainly seemed that a large part of the political forces there had lost the political will to resist the drift of events.

Then came the P.K.I. coup. I believe one of the reasons why the Indonesian Communist powers launched that abortive coup was the determination with which our men had stood up to confrontation. It was also because the Americans in South Vietnam had shown that they did not intend to see those who were prepared to resist Communist aggression swept underfoot in a flood of terrorism. It was the determination of our forces in Borneo, where young men from the streets of London and Liverpool have quickly become some of the best jungle fighters in the world, and the determination also in South Vietnam which inspired forces hostile to the Communists in Indonesia to take a stand when the coup came. As a result of their stand there is now a prospect, such as there has not been for many years, of stability and sensible government arising in Indonesia.

Of course, the way ahead will not be easy. Only yesterday a British warship was fired on by the Indonesians. That goes to show how far we have yet to move along this road, but I think that we are at the beginning of the journey and that in a few years to come we shall see the creation of a Maphilindo bloc, a loose alignment linking Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. That could be a natural barrier to Chinese expansion in South-East Asia. It is one of the dividends which has come from the military help we have given in Malaysia.

When a Government are threatened with attack or subversion, military help is of the highest importance, but as well as military assistance we have to look for financial assistance from this country for the developing nations overseas. Before the 1964 General Election this was one of the principal messages which came forward from the party opposite, that we ought to be doing more for the under-developed world. In fact, last year the amount of aid which we gave to the under-developed Commonwealth actually sank. I do not believe that it can be argued that this was merely a setback before the great surge forward. We have heard a lot from the teachers in recent weeks about the niggardly amount which they consider has been devoted to education in the National Plan, but if we look at the section of the plan which refers to the amount of overseas aid that is to be given by this Government, there is ground for greater pessimism.

Of course, trade is more important than aid. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perth (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) referred earlier this even- ing to the protest that was roused within the E.F.T.A. countries about the way in which we have put on the import surcharge. Although the political protest came from them, the real pressure of the import surcharge is actually falling on the newly industrialising nations of the developing Commonwealth. What is the point of talking about increased aid to India while at the same time, last year, because of the import surcharge we reduced the amount which India could earn in this country by £13 million?

When I first heard the Gracious Speech I was surprised that there was no reference of any sort in it to financial or economic help to the under-developed world, but on second thoughts and after greater reflection I think that perhaps even this Government thought it would be too hypocritical to put that in the Speech.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Richard (Barons Court)

My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) made a plea that the Government should re-examine certain aspects of their foreign policy. The precise aspect of foreign policy on which I desire to speak is one on which I think the Government have done this.

I desire to talk about the relationship of Britain with the European Economic Community. It is right that at this stage the Government should have appointed two Ministers with responsibility for Europe. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs together bring the combined weight of their experience, which is for-midable, to the task of discovering the precise difficulties in the way of Britain joining in a closer association with the Community.

It is clearly right, also, that at this stage the task should be an exploratory one. Neither the Six nor this country can risk the possibility of another breakdown on anything like the scale of that which took place in January, 1963. What the Government should be and are carrying out, therefore, is a probing operation designed to discover primarily what the temperature and the atmosphere in Europe are.

It is probably right, also, that the best way of doing this is by way of bilateral talks between the British Government and the individual nations of the Six and possibly with the Council of Ministers. I am sure it is desirable, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker) said in what I thought was an extremely perceptive speech, that these talks should not be institutionalised or formalised at this stage. We are in the very early stages of this probing operation, and not in negotiations. I should not wish them to break down because someone somewhere tried to force them into a particular institutional form right at the outset.

It is, however, necessary that Britain should recognise, and that the House of Commons should declare, that, although the difficulties of association are great, we now have the political will and the national intention to join the Community. This is necessary if negotiations are to start, let alone if those negotiations are to succeed.

There now seems to be on both sides, here and in Europe, a much greater degree of receptivity to the idea of British association with the Community. Therefore, it is in this spirit of watchful and hopeful concern that the Government have started this process of sounding out. It is far too early to spell out our precise bargaining position. Nevertheless, already certain principles are beginning to emerge in the British attitude towards joining Europe which I think are probably basic to our whole approach to the Six.

First, we are obviously entitled to a reasonable amount of protection for peculiarly British interests. This is a right which the Six themselves had. It is a right which should not now be denied to us. It would be as well if even at this early stage we were to examine what the peculiar British interests which need protection or consideration might be. This brings me to the five conditions which the Labour Party laid down at the time of the last negotiations. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) asked, in an intervention to the Foreign Secretary: what are the five conditions now? My answer is: what indeed?

It is worth while looking at the five conditions and re-examining them in the light of the present situation, to see pre- cisely how they are relevant to Britain's position today and to the possibility of our association. If I ask myself: are they essential, are they relevant?, I come to the conclusion that two of them probably still are essential and two of them probably still are relevant. Certainly, in the negotiations we must be very concerned about the legitimate protection of Commonwealth interests and, certainly, we are concerned about the effect of association with the Community on internal food prices. Of the two I should have thought that the second—the effect upon internal food prices—is probably more difficult than the first. I see little difficulty in the remaining three of the five conditions. I should have thought that they could now be overcome.

I want, however, to examine for a few moments the food price question, not in any great economic detail, but merely to see whether it is the sort of issue which is likely to bring failure. I do not think that we shall be able to come out of that discussion with our present access to our traditional markets, at prices based on our existing pricing system, unimpaired and intact. I do not think that that can be the result of such negotiations as will eventually take place.

Clearly, there must be give and take on both sides. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leyton said, what is required here is not a detailed examination of the food pricing system but a firm declaration on both sides that there is a genuine willingness to get over this particular economic hurdle. It is worth recalling that we were virtually over this particular economic difficulty at the time in 1963 when General de Gaulle saw fit to impose his veto and bring the negotiations to an end. Therefore, although this is a difficult problem, I believe that it is one which can be overcome, provided that there is good will on both sides and that there is the necessary intent to get over the difficulty.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the food price question, would he take pains to tell his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that this is a housewife's problem and not a farmer's problem? During the election the Government tried to do both things—frighten the housewives and the farmers.

Mr. Richard

My right hon. Friend will no doubt read HANSARD tomorrow and see the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made.

The second basic principle, as I see it, which we have to try to ensure when we go into these negotiations is that the supranational character of the Commission is maintained. I entirely agree with those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who say that it would be wrong were responsibility for British internal economic affairs merely to be handed over to a bureaucracy in Brussels. I entirely accept that argument. I see the strength of it.

But this is surely a question of balance. One has to decide whether or not, on balance, it is worth while maintaining a supranational type of Commission with certain supranational powers, or whether it is worth while going back to the system which has prevailed hitherto. Where I think that hon. Members opposite went wrong at the time of the last negotiations was that they were far too ready to concede the supranational principle and far less ready to appreciate the difficulties of adapting that principle to our peculiar British circumstances.

However, although it is a question of balance, I do believe that because the Commission is a supranational type of body it is one which might be the beginning of some common European political institutions which one hopes would eventually emerge from the development of the Market. Therefore, I personally would like to see in any negotiations which take place the British position being firmly stated, that we would like to maintain the supranational character of the Commission itself.

The third of the principles is that the enlarged Community must be outward looking and not closed. I do not wish—I am sure my party would not wish—Britain to join a tightly closed, economic European unit. This is not how I see the future pattern of development in Europe at all. If this were the proposition, it would be wrong for us even to try to join, but I do not believe that this is, in fact, the proposition which will eventually be presented to us.

In view of the way in which the Six have dealt with their problems of overseas trade and overseas aid—indeed, one might even point to the individualistic nature of the foreign policy being pursued by France at present—it seems to me that the danger of the Community becoming a closed, inward looking, purely domestic, type of Community can be exaggerated. In any negotiations which take place it is up to the British Government to insist upon the outward looking nature of the enlarged Community.

The fourth principle which I think is important is that the enlarged Community must be flexible and adaptable. I do not foresee that a future Europe should merely be the existing Six plus Britain plus whoever else chooses to come in with us at this particular time. If the political character of the eastern part of Europe were to change in the next decade or so, those nations might wish to join some kind of enlarged Community and might wish to be associated in one way or another. Therefore, such institutions as may be established within the Community must themselves be flexible and adaptable. They must be ready to receive other nations which may wish to join.

My conclusion from this is that more and more do I now feel that Britain's future lies in Europe. More and more do I now feel that the European Economic Community offers Britain the only feasible and only available economic, and, in the future, political, grouping which it is open to us to be associated with. It seems to me to be the most hopeful form of association which is available to Britain. It is one that I hope the Government will take. It seems to me to be in the interests of Britain, of the Six and of Europe itself that the difficulties that exist and the obstacles which there are in the way of Britain's joining the Community should be resolved and removed so soon as might be practicable and possible. I hope and expect that this may be done within the lifetime of the present Parliament.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale (Harwich)

If the speeches of the ex-Foreign Secretary and the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) had been made just a few weeks ago, my task, and I am sure that of many of my hon. Friends, would have been much easier at the election. However, I welcome their conversion and their more forthright talk about entry to E.E.C. now since the election than that which went before the election. It is good to hear these views being advanced now, because undoubtedly they will have a very important significance for the future, not only for our country but for Europe.

As much of my personal experience in foreign affairs has been in dealing with the Far East and Far Eastern problems, either in London, in Tokio or in Washington, I find it difficult to look through European eyes alone at some of the problems of world affairs at present—especially, if I may say so, the very depressing and almost defeatist eyes of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot).

That is why I put the preservation of N.A.T.O. and the creation of a North Atlantic Community on an equal priority with any closer unity which we may be able to reach in Europe. Equally, I am sure that it is wrong just to think in terms of N.A.T.O. alone, for in this decade of supersonic and space aircraft and the nuclear bomb, and in an age when millions of Asians are on the march, how can we divorce what is happening in the Far East from N.A.T.O. and the European sphere? It is equally important in this day when China is emerging as a world Power for us to make Japan and some of the other Asiatic Powers feel able to play their part in free world affairs as partners and not just as neutral observers. That is why, when I talk about the development of a North Atlantic Community we must think in terms of a Pacific Community as well, in which Japan and other Asiatic Powers, Australia and New Zealand, must play a special part in conjunction with the United States and N.A.T.O.

Nevertheless, I welcome the priority that the Government have given to solving the present stalemate that has been reached in Europe in our relations with the European Economic Community. But whether we are going to join the European Economic Community or not—personally, I hope we shall find reasonable terms, and very soon as well—it is clear that the real danger to world peace is coming from Peking and not from Moscow. Lately it seems that even the U.S.S.R. is becoming anxious at the growing strength and military might of China led by the Communist generals in Peking. I do not believe that the recently announced 5 per cent. increase in defence spending was necessarily directed against the West. I think it was directed against the ruthless men, steeled by a generation of war, who now rule in Peking.

This is the fundamental problem which I believe we face in world affairs today—the emergence of a new China—imperialist, disciplined and ambitious, which Dean Rusk said will have the capability of a nuclear strike against either Europe or America by 1975. In the 1930's we knew how very lonely and exacting it was being the sole policeman against Nazism. Now the powerful United States must feel the same, maintaining as she is the nuclear defence of the free world and containing the Communist threat, particularly in South-East Asia. At this time she does not want a great deal of physical support, but how important it is to give her at this very difficult time all the moral support we can. To their credit, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and indeed the Government as a whole, have done this over Vietnam, where the United States has more troops operating than the whole of our Regular Army and, indeed, more than the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1939. Failure at least to give moral support in Vietnam would have been taken by our enemies as weakness and our action would have been misunderstood by our friends.

Why should we expect appeasement to pay in the East when it has had such fatal consequences in Europe? If it had not been for the United States' stand in Vietnam and ours in Malaysia, does anyone really believe that the change would have taken place in Indonesia so quickly as it has? I am sure that leaving a vacuum of power can lead only to wide-spread conquest, with severe consequences to our friends and allies. For this reason we must never allow our natural pre-occupation with our own vexed European problems to hide from us the importance at this difficult time of preserving our Anglo-American partnership and friendship which means far more in Eastern eyes than many realise—far more than the actual physical help that may be given.

But whilst the United States holds the present difficult military position, I am sure that we are right to work all we can for a settlement. It was as far back as December, 1964, that I put down a Question to the Prime Minister calling for a conference on Vietnam. Indeed, I believe it was the first Question that was put down on this point in the last Parliament. At present our position as co-chairman of the Geneva Agreement with the Russians on Vietnam does not seem to be paying many dividends. But let us persevere, for we have one other vital asset—our growing friendship with Japan. Russia with her interests in industrialised Siberia, and Japan with her vital interests in South-East Asia and in trading with industrialised Siberia and China, must have in common a desire to preserve a balance of power against the growing strength of Peking. I feel even at this seemingly late hour that we may well find not only the key to a peaceful and just settlement in Vietnam through Moscow, Tokyo and London but also that we may find the key to peace with China through strength and trade.

It is against this worldwide background that I view the problem of our approach to E.E.C. If it means joining an inward-looking community which wishes to develop into a fortress Europe, then I am against it. I am sure that such a course would in the end lead across the water to the recreation of a fortress America outlook, an isolationist feeling in America, and indeed would alter the whole balance of forces and power in the world today. If, on the other hand, it means joining an outward-looking community, as the hon. Member for Barons Court said, willing to shoulder its responsibilities in Africa and Asia and working alongside our American ally and partner, I am for it.

The ultimate goal of such a policy must be towards greater Atlantic unity in the economic, nuclear and defence fields. That is why I regard the disruption of N.A.T.O. caused by the withdrawal of France as so serious. I am sure it is vital, especially at this time, to keep N.A.T.O. thinking in worldwide and not just European terms. If we want to do this, the right place for a new headquarters should be London, although I must admit that I regret very much the fact that we may have to move it from Paris. It is not enough for N.A.T.O. to think in terms of Europe alone, as the choice of another Continental headquarters might persuade it to do.

Finally, from the nuclear aspect I am sure that it is only through Atlantic unity that we can hope to obtain our objective of promoting and, indeed, widening the détente with Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe about which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) spoke so pointedly. Is it not of paramount importance if and when Russia turns westward—and who knows how soon it may be for Chinese pressure to bring that about?—that she does not find two great nuclear Powers who can be played off one against the other, but one integrated free world? If we want one integrated free world, should not we be working for one nuclear deterrent and not two? I am sure that the way is to work for an Atlantic nuclear unity but with appropriate voices in the planning of the free world nuclear defence so as to stop any desire for nuclear proliferation. That is my answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds. If we cannot let the young Germans and young Japanese and others see that we are working for one world, we shall not get the peace which we all so earnestly desire in the world.

The aeroplane and the nuclear bomb have destroyed Kipling's maxim, Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. They have destroyed, too, our insularity. Peace and security can be found only in unity. The broader based that unity, the more secure the peace. I am certain that there is no escape in fortress Europe from playing our part in the free world's defence. In an Atlantic and a Pacific community of the N.A.T.O. countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, we would have the greatest productive power and, indeed, the greatest destructive power the world has ever known.

It is only by cementing these wider ties in an Atlantic and a Pacific community, and bringing in the Asiatic Powers as our partners, not just as neutral observers, that we shall find the key not only to peace but to our security and to our economic prosperity as well.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone)

The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), in the interesting contribution he has just made, closed on a note of great concern to all hon. Members. He referred to the widening of relations between all parts of Europe and this country. While I want to concentrate mainly on the tragic war in Vietnam, I wish to say a few words on the subject raised by the hon. Gentleman in his closing sentences.

It is precisely because we want to keep the door open for a wider East-West agreement that the Government's policy of not giving priority to a nuclear rearrangement in N.A.T.O. over an agreement on non-proliferation with the Soviet Union is the correct one. I begin by encouraging my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to continue this policy. Any attempt to introduce a new system of nuclear control in N.A.T.O. or in any other set-up in Europe among the Western Powers and any attempt to associate the Federal Republic of Germany with a system of nuclear control would be an insuperable hindrance to that wider East-West agreement of which the hon. Gentleman spoke.

Experience has shown that one of the reasons why all the proposals put forward by various Governments on this matter—the M.L.F. proposal put forward by the United States Government, which received at least half-hearted support from the Government led by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the A.N.F. proposal put forward by the Labour Government—have failed has been the decisive objection on the part of the Soviet Government that they had within them a serious element of associating the Federal Republic of Germany with the control and strategy of the use of nuclear arms. Any such plan which might be put forward in the future which contained such an element would equally be doomed to failure.

The Government's attitude at present is not to give priority to either concept, not to give priority to a rearrangement of nuclear control in N.A.T.O., including Western Germany, over the attempt to reach agreement on a treaty of nonproliferation; nor to discontinue all attempts within N.A.T.O. to find an arrangement satisfactory to all its members at a time when we are negotiating with the Soviet Government. These are very difficult negotiations. I think it essential that we go on negotiating seriously with the Soviet Government on this subject, and I particularly welcome the Prime Minister's initiative in sending the Minister of Disarmament to Moscow again recently to continue his earlier discussions.

In the discussions in Geneva, the Minister for Disarmament has already gained a good reputation. I had occasion in Paris last week to talk to Jules Moch and other French experts in this field who had met the Minister for Disarmament, and I know that they have, in this very short time, acquired a very high opinion of him. He deserves the support of the House in all quarters in the work which he has been asked to do.

Nevertheless, however one might desire these discussions to reach a successful and fruitful outcome in the near future, I am convinced—every conversation which anyone has recently had with Soviet political leaders will go to confirm this—that no agreement will be concluded so long as the tragic war in Vietnam continues. Of that there can be no doubt whatever. I say in passing that I, for my part—I know this will be said by every hon. Member—would wish to urge the Soviet Government to continue seriously negotiating on this matter with the British Government. Time lost on this most serious of all questions facing mankind, that is, the reaching of an agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear arms between Eastern and Western countries, is time which we may never be able to retrieve. My own opinion, therefore, which I know will be widely shared, is that it would be in the best interests of everyone concerned for these negotiations to go on with all possible speed. But we must face facts, and I believe it to be politically impossible for the Soviet Government to conclude a major Treaty of this kind while the war in Vietnam continues.

They could be accused by many other Communist countries of entering into a major new agreement with the Western Powers, and with the United States in particular, while the people of Vietnam were subjected to daily bombing operations and while they were involved in a life and death struggle. This could be the accusation levelled at the leading Communist Power, the Soviet Union, and it would at once become the subject of all the propaganda of the Chinese Republic against the Soviet Government and Communist Party. The Chinese leaders are always casting about to find evidence to throw at the Russians, accusing them of betraying the Revolution and of betraying other revolutionary countries. There would here be an element to fasten on, and all the evidence from the recent Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow shows that this difficulty is fully realised by the Soviet leaders, and there can be no major advance in other fields until we have brought the war in Vietnam to an end.

But, if this reason did not exist, even on its own ground and on grounds of common humanity, the war in Vietnam ought to stop. Anyone who does not immediately realise that the continuance of this war is maintaining an impossible situation for all the countries concerned can only be blind to a reality which is so tragic that it is now beginning to turn the opinion of the majority of people in this country and of the majority of people in the United States, too. Of that there can be no doubt.

It is clear that this cannot be an argument in our debate. Obviously we are at one, my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defence and all of us, in regarding this as one of the most tragic events in the recent history of mankind. There is no competition between those of us who take one view as to a peaceful solution and those on the Government Front Bench who take a different view as to who feels most strongly about it. But if that is so—if that is agreed in advance—I hope that we shall not have a repetition from the Front Bench of the opinion that those of us who are proposing a different solution should not strike a different attitude as if we were the only people who cared about the tragedy of the war in Vietnam. I admit for my part that there is nothing between us on this, and, therefore, it should not be used as a propaganda argument in future debates.

The seriousness of the situation in Vietnam is now fully realised in the United States. I will come to public opinion in this country in a moment. In the United States, it is beginning to change the minds of many of the leading people in public life. We have had quoted to us in this debate the attitudes of A.D.A.—Americans For Democratic Action—but I should like to concentrate on the effects of events in Saigon upon American public opinion, because after the situation has been described, after we come to the conclusion that the policies put forward by the American Government—which our Government have supported bit by bit and tragic step by tragic step—have failed, we still have to answer the question as to what alternative policy should be pursued here and now.

First of all, we must establish the fact that these policies have failed, and the final evidence of failure was shown in the demonstrations in South Vietnam in the last few weeks. This is new evidence which has come to us since the dissolution of Parliament and since we last debated these matters in the House. It is now clear that the overwhelming majority of the people of South Vietnam are demanding that the war should be brought to an immediate end. In all the demonstrations as reported by reputable American correspondents in South Vietnam, in all the demonstrations in Hue, Da Nang and Saigon, there was not merely a demand for a constituent assembly, for a new parliament and for general elections, but there was equally a demand at all the demonstrations that the war should be brought to an end. It was expressed by one of the leading Buddhists in a recent speech in Hue, when he said, "We do not want the Communists, on the one hand, and the American military forces, on the other, to fight it out on our soil." That is the true expression of opinion of the overwhelming majority of the people of South Vietnam.

The policy of the United States Government, including the bombing operations against North Vietnam, has been based upon the assumption, stated and restated by the President of the United States, that they are doing all this in Vietnam because the people of South Vietnam want them to do it. That has been the only justification for this attitude. At no time has the President of the United States said that he is doing it so as to establish a strategic position against China. When this has been suggested by critics of the United States policy it has been officially repudiated time and again by the President of the United States. By the same token, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have always justified the support of our Government for American policy by a reference to the defence of the people of South Vietnam.

This American policy now lies in ruins, and so does the policy of Her Majesty's Government in supporting it. There is no evidence that could justify the operations that are taking place in Vietnam, and the catastrophic bombing operations in North Vietnam in particular. There is no evidence that could justify this kind of military operation by reference to the expressed desires of the people of South Vietnam.

South Vietnam is now governed by a committee of 11 generals, and it was only after the demonstrations had shown clearly that they were on the eve of a major revolution that a meeting was hurriedly called to agree to and call a constituent assembly and elections. Some doubt has already been expressed about the advisability of calling such elections by Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, one of the official representatives of the United States in Vietnam.

What we have to realise is that there is now a situation in Vietnam—this is the major point that I wish to establish in my contribution to the debate—in which the overwhelming majority of the people of South Vietnam want the war to be brought to an immediate end. The only reply that the American Government have given to this demand is to increase the scale of the bombing operations against North Vietnam. The more the people of South Vietnam say that they want immediate peace, the more bombs are being dropped on the people of North Vietnam.

I wish to take up my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on a point on which I interrupted him this afternoon. I asked him whether he had given due weight to the view expressed in South Vietnam that the war should be brought to an immediate end. He said that he did not agree with my reading of the situation. But the point is that there are many people in the United States of America who agree with my interpretation of the situation. Senator Russell, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the American Senate, has now publicly demanded that there should be a survey made in all the towns and cities of South Vietnam to ascertain whether the people of South Vietnam are really in favour, as they seem to be, of an immediate end to the war. He used to be one of the American politicians urging on the President to increase the scale of operations, and he is now changing his mind.

There are many other people in the United States who take a similar view. It would, indeed, be tragic if our Foreign Secretary were to be the last statesman in the world to accept the evidence before his eyes of the freely expressed opinion of the people of South Vietnam, and the demonstratively expressed opinion where they cannot do so freely.

In fact, there are now new decisions which must be taken. Those have regard to the scale of operations proposed by Mr. McNamara the other day to show that, however much there is a changed political situation in South Vietnam, more and more bombs will be dropped on North Vietnam. The reason for that is, again, political. I have never accepted the statement, often repeated, that the bombing of North Vietnam was started for military reasons. That was never true. A similar situation produced the first large-scale bombing operations when there was a Government in Saigon in which there were three members in the cabinet who wanted to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese Government. To boost the morale of the generals the original bombing operations were started. Now that there is fresh evidence that the people of South Vietnam want the war brought to an end, the order again is to support the morale of a clique of generals who call themselves the Government in South Vietnam, and the order is to increase bombing operations again.

I turn to the problems inside Vietnam itself. We must face the fact that there is a need for a new approach in Saigon if peace is to be made. The first proposal that I wish to make is that there can be no hope of getting negotiations started as long as the bombing of North Vietnam continues. It is no answer that the North Vietnamese Government have not yet positively replied to the recent exchanges. It is virtually impossible for the Government of North Vietnam, in the present situation, as Mr. Ho Chi Minh said in his last communication, to agree to come to serious negotiations without the military operations against them being stopped. He does not believe that these are serious negotiations.

I very much deplore the fact that the Government of Ho Chi Minh did not agree to come to the negotiating table during the lull in the bombing. Many of us have deplored this fact and given public expression to it. But at present, when every military operation against North Vietnam is being stepped up, it cannot be expected that a country suffering such operations could agree to begin negotiations.

Thus, the first demand must be an end to the bombing and the British Government should say publicly tonight that they do not support the military programme and, in particular, the bombing operations against North Vietnam foreshadowed in Mr. McNamara's speech the other day. That declaration should be made tonight and it would be the beginning of a new contribution by Her Majesty's Government to making peace in Vietnam.

Secondly, there should he an attempt to set up a new provisional Government in South Vietnam. I do not believe that it will be fruitful merely to go ahead, with the present military clique of generals in power, preparing for a general election. An attempt should be made, after the bombing has been stopped, to invite all those concerned in Saigon to come together for a preliminary discussion.

The next step should be to propose to the United States Government that there should be no further increase in American military build-up in South Vietnam. There is the deepest suspicion on the part of the Government of North Vietnam that at the Geneva Conference they were put in a position where many of the agreements they hoped would result from the conference were not achieved. That suspicion has to be overcome. The best way to overcome it would be for Her Majesty's Government to propose to the American President that after the fighting has been stopped there should be no further build-up of American forces in South Vietnam.

Then an attempt should be made to create a provisional Government in Saigon. There are many groups there prepared to take part in such an attempt and there should be no exclusion of any of the people involved. I was very disturbed to hear that in the proposals now being made to get the North Vietnamese Government to the negotiating table, there has been no offer whatever of a reduction of the military build-up while the conference or negotiations began. This is going the wrong way about it.

It is the absence of any such specific new proposals in the Gracious Speech, and the absence of any such new concrete proposals in my right hon. Friend's speech today that those of us who have put down an Amendment to the Address, deeply deplore; and we wish to highlight that it is this absence of fresh thinking or of any taking note of the recent expressions of political opinion in South Vietnam which is at fault in the Government's approach to this problem.

I said earlier that I wanted to say something about the state of public opinion on this matter. In this country we have many expressions of public opinion demanding a new approach. This is the time when trade unions hold their conferences and today at the conference of one of the great unions—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—a resolution was passed overwhelmingly opposing the Government's policy of continuing support for American policy in Vietnam. The resolution is in line with the policy we have put forward in our amendment.

This sort of thing will continue as the summer goes on and, pari passu, there will be the development of public opinion in this country and the United States. But this matter is far too serious to wait for the development of a wave of public opinion overwhelming the point of view of the Government. Our purpose is to urge the Government now whilst there is still time to say firmly and publicly, "So far and no further", and that this new proposed extension to the bombing, the new build-up to perhaps 300,000 troops regardless of the expressed opinion of the people of South Vietnam, must stop.

I urge the Government to take note of the movement of opinion in the trade union movement and in the Labour movement which is also being expressed in this House. If they do not they will not be expressing the feelings and opinions of the people they represent. There is a growing feeling among the British people, by no means represented on this side of the House alone.

I have yet to find any assembly in the country where there is not a majority of people, whatever their political views, who say that the American policy in Vietnam cannot continue and that our support for it cannot continue. It is a diplomatic political fiction across the Floor of the House to applaud my right hon. Friend and tell him that his philosophy in describing why he supports what the Americans are doing in Vietnam is such a fine one.

In fact, hon. Members know very well that many of their constituents have the gravest doubts about American policy and no one will be able to contradict me on that. There is not only the growing opinion in the trade union and Labour movement that the Government would not be representing them if they did not call a halt and change their policy. In pursuing their present course they would find, in the not very distant future, that they were opposing the majority opinion of the people of this country. Now is the time for a change of policy. Let there be an announcement of change at the end of this debate tonight.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. Percy Grieve (Solihull)

I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene in the debate even at this late hour. I am aware that many hon. Members are still waiting to speak. I shall, therefore, try to make the point of my speech as quickly and succinctly as possible.

My plea—and it is a plea—is to the Government to be positive and not negative in their approach to the question of joining the European Economic Community. The impression which has prevailed, not only in this House but in the country ever since the Prime Minister's speech at Bristol in the election campaign, is that the attitude of the Government and of the Labour Party, although there are many honourable exceptions, is not a very wholehearted attitude—and if confirmation of that were wanted it is to be found in the very short passage in the Gracious Speech dealing with this matter. It says: My Government will continue to promote the economic unity of Europe and to strengthen the links between the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Community. Then there is the only semi-positive passage about joining the E.E.C.: They would be ready to enter the European Economic Community provided essential British and Commonwealth interests were safeguarded. The whole approach of Britain to the question of joining the E.E.C., from the moment of the making of the Rome Treaty, has been bedevilled by lack of faith in the future of Europe. Only the other day, in a Left-wing weekly paper, I read with some astonishment the statement that there was no ideal behind the E.E.C. If there is one thing which is plain it is that, of all the movements in the world since the war, the movement of European unity—first, economic, and later, I hope, in some measure political—is the greatest ideal the world has seen in those years.

Yet what attitude did the Government take up in the speech of the Foreign Secretary today? In his speech and in the speech of the right hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker), to whom I listened with interest, one heard again and again criticism and a web of reservations and conditions. It is not in this attitude that we shall go into Europe. We must make the act of faith of saying that we want to be part of this great ideal, which is the new Europe and this new Community. We must make conditions but our approach must be positive. It must not be negative.

If we have a negative approach and if we spin this web of criticism of the E.E.C. bureaucracy in Brussels, which in fact is doing a splendid job—this web of conditions and fears—then no attempt which we make in the new circumstances which are open to us to go into Europe can succeed. What is wanted is a positive attitude.

One cannot blind one's eyes to the fact that this is not only an economic, but a political move. I hope that we are not going into Europe only for the sake of what we can get out of it. We shall have a positive contribution to make to Europe and in the end I hope that we will form some sort of union with Europe which will be more than economic. At this stage it is impossible to say what form it will take, for that lies in the future. It may be a Europe des parries, a loose not even federation of members economically bound by economic ties, or something closer and stronger than that, as most of the architects of the Treaty of Rome hoped at the time. I hope that it will be the latter, but this cannot be foreseen.

But if there is one thing which is clear and which I was happy to hear echoed in the speech of the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) it is that we have a new rôle to make for ourselves in the world today. There is only one place now where we can make that new rôle, positively and actively making a contribution jointly with our European brothers, because we are the heirs to a common civilisation, and it is in economic union with Europe. That is why I make this plea for a positive approach now.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Leyton that we must by all means foster our relations with the individual members of the Community to whom we are tied by ties of friendship and treaty. He said that it should be done bilaterally, but I do not like the word, because it appears to mean to the exclusion of others.

I listened with admiration and respect to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) who put the case for our going into Europe as clearly as it has been put in any speech in this debate or in any other, if I may say so without disrespect to other hon. Members. He said that he had just returned from Germany and he gave many accounts of the attitude of mind prevailing there and of the new Europeanism to be found throughout Europe.

I have just returned from France. It would be idle at the moment to disguise that there are troubles and difficulties with the French Government over N.A.T.O. and other matters, but in France there is a great fund of good will towards this country, as there is in all the other countries of the European Economic Community. We must not let that go by the board but must approach France with friendship and with co-operation where we can co-operate in technical and other matters. I make a plea for an approach of understanding on matters where we differ. Let us, therefore, keep our friendship with the individual countries, but let us go forward, I hope soon, in a positive approach towards entering Europe.

It was suggested by the right hon. Member for Leyton that for some reason the Community was less desirable than it might otherwise be because it was not composed of all the States of Europe. Let us, for one, go in, taking one step at a time. Can there be any doubt that if we go into the Community and it increases in wealth and power and unity as it will, it will act as a magnet to the other States of Europe? I am bound to say that I look forward to the day, although it may not come in the time of many of us here, when that magnet will attract the States of Eastern Europe into one great economic union.

I fear that I have wearied the House by reiterating, "Let us have a positive approach", but, nevertheless, I beg that our approach to this great question, perhaps the greatest question which the country faces today, will be positive.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)

It has been reported that the President of the United States of America has made a statement suggesting that the victory of the Labour Party in this country is an endorsement by the British electorate of the Prime Minister's support for American policies in Vietnam. I certainly hope that what has already been said and what will still be said in the debate will disabuse the United States, if not the President, of such an illusion. No greater disservice could be given to the American people than that it should appear that approval and condonation are coming from this country for the policy which has been adopted in Vietnam. I am convinced that it must be no part of our policies to conduct ourselves in a way which will stir up yet still further the intense racial feelings which envelop the particular brands of nationalism and Communism in Asia.

I want to say a few words to direct attention to the dynamic of racialism which for many historical reasons is undervalued in this country. It is a lamentable fact, but it is a fact, that confidence, springing no doubt from past military and economic success in the Anglo-Saxon world, can sometimes lapse into well-nigh disastrous arrogance. We had an echo of it earlier in this debate when we heard of some events in Ireland, and we can recall the brutal insensitivity to Ireland which was characteristic of past English policy. We may see if we read, as those of us who come from Wales do, the comments made on the Welsh in the 19th century and we are astonished by the incredible condescension contained within the English ethos of the times. Those are certainly not the most repulsive instances of overweaning pride which can be cited from past British Empire building.

We know that all habits die very hard and we witnessed that in the controversy over the immigration policy in the last Parliament when we saw embedded within that policy some of the hang-overs of Empire building, even although it was a time when the Empire was lost. We all know the well-worn story of the difference between the Englishman and the German—the German believes that he belongs to the most superior race in the world; the Englishman knows that he does. This is a view of England which is widely held abroad. It is self-deception to believe that because England has exercised tolerance, because it has not done as Spain did—have blood laws for centuries and inquisitions—or that it has not done what Germany did—feel so uncertain of its own superiority that it has noisily and sadistically to proclaim its race superiority—that because England has not behaved in this manner, racial superiority is not sometimes felt and, what is even worse, conveyed.

We can try to blot out much of English colonial history. We can dismiss, for example, the Seretse Khama incident. We can blind ourselves to the established taboo, always part of English colonial history, on miscegenation, unlike the French and Dutch. We can dub present African and Asian accusations against England as paranoia. But it would be better, knowing the strength of the virtues of this country, to acknowledge the faults as well which spring from 1,000 years of insular history. One legacy which we have clearly given to the United States is not only our great common law but, undoubtedly, the white man's excessive pride; and, indeed, the enormous economic achievement of the United States seems to have reinforced it.

Therefore, if we enter into a complete identification with the United States in Asia it will mean that not only will de Gaulle he talking about Anglo-Saxon hegemony but that Asia, too, will be looking with distaste and hostility towards us. I know that it is not popular to use the phrases of de Gaulle, particularly in view of some comments being made today about his attitude to N.A.T.O. However, I sometimes think that he is one of the few men who are carrying out Labour's foreign policy in opposition. Therefore, I do not think that we should be so diffident sometimes in adopting some of the wisdom contained in his comments.

If we lack the insight to acknowledge our own racial prejudices we can blind ourselves to the force of the racial dynamic behind Asiatic opinion. Race may be scientific nonsense, but people live and are influenced by myths as well as by facts. All the past interventions of Western Europe in and around China fed and now feed the myths of racialism. One day, perhaps, tolerance will grow in Asia which will permit the white man to have a place there. But I am certain that it will never be a place for a white man in uniform.

We have only to gaze back at the history of China to realise that here was a land with a civilisation right up to the 18th century superior to the whole of Europe. Yet all the 19th century behaviour of Europe towards China only confirmed their belief that the Europeans were barbarians, a belief founded in their contact with and knowledge of the violent uncouth Portuguese adventurers and the missionaries who preached a religious intolerance unknown to the China of the Three Ways, unknown to a land which never believed that any one religion had the monopoly of truth.

The 19th century humiliations of China are bound to engender an attitude which we should do everything possible to avoid reinforcing. The Chinese were forced by arms to admit traders to most of their ports. There were intolerable treaties imposed on them by coercion. There was compulsion to get Catholic and Protestant missionaries there. They had to endure all the horrors of the opium trade. Coming to more recent times, can we forget the United States support of Chiang Kai-shek against what none can deny was a popular, not a minority, revolution, aimed at and indeed achieving a transformation in the standard of life of hundreds of millions of people in China?

When we are told by Ministers that we should address our remarks not only to the United States and should demonstrate not only outside the United States Embassy but that we should demonstrate outside the Chinese Legation, I ask: have they any sense of history? What we should be engaged on is a policy of reparation and bridge-building and not aligning ourselves with those who preach containment of China and deny reality by pretending that the Government of China does not exist.

The policy of the United States is wholly misconceived. It provokes what it seeks to avoid—Chinese expansionism. The tradition of China is not expansionist. We find ourselves burdened by our history when we talk about going into the Common Market and Europe. Is it thought that the Chinese can suddenly exempt themselves from their history? There is no tradition of expansionism in China. As has been indicated, it may well be that all that China wishes to do is to reaffirm its historic boundaries and no more.

I was brought up to believe that the Great Wall of China was built to keep the barbarians out and the Chinese in. I could understand—and I do understand—that in the United States of America, and in this country perhaps, people could have become uneasy as they listened to the Malthusian debate in China in 1958, when it seemed as if China was ignoring the realities and, therefore, could be a menace because it was ignoring the danger of population explosion. Hence as a result, a belief could have been nourished in the West that China was expansionist. That type of lack of realism in China appears, however, to have gone.

We know that contraceptives are on sale in the stores of every big city in China. We know that there is a deliberate policy there to postpone marriages. I am sure that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) would be pleased to know that no country in the world which is having a propaganda campaign to prevent premarital relations is having more success than the Chinese Communists.

That is important, because it shows that China understands that it has a population explosion, is attempting to deal with it and is not attempting, as one might expect, to look for other lands and other territories to expand. China understands its own population difficulties already, and one should appreciate this fact.

People, however, often get frightened because, when they travel through Asia, they see the Chinese outside China; but we should remember that it was vigorous Western capitalisms that sucked the Chinese out of China and brought them as workers, because of the ability and their industrious nature, to many other parts of Asia. We should not believe that, because we see the Chinese scattered throughout Asiatic territories, they are a revolutionary expansionist people necessarily on the march outside their own land.

But it is provocative to talk in terms of containment policies. It is provocative because it acts on the assumption that we can get static Asiatic States that will ally themselves with us to contain China. But is that the fact? Are we not at present being provocative to Japan? It is not someone in this country, but George Kennan in the United States of America, who has been emphasising that by our policy in Vietnam we are estranging ourselves from the greatest industrial complex in the Far East and that we are forfeiting the confidence and good will of the Japanese nation, who, let it not be forgotten, endured Hiroshima. When they see the bombs dropping on North Vietnam, memories are evoked among this other Asiatic people, who do not forget that white men dropped the atom bomb on them. Let it be remembered that the Japanese Government have already nearly fallen on this issue.

Let those who glibly talk of being able to have Asiatic countries as our allies remember that Asia is on the march. Great changes are taking place. We cannot think of these Asiatic countries as feudal States which can form alliances without regard to the changing social conditions of Asia. It has already been emphasised in the United States that trouble may come about in Thailand because the Americans are using Thailand as a base for flights over Vietnam. I have read in American papers that there is apprehension that if Asia is bombed from the Philippines, the Filippinos could rise in arms. Is this the way to hold the line for democracy in Asia, by stirring up the people of Asia against us? The policy is thoroughly misconceived.

United States policy in Vietnam is wholly misconceived because it fails to distinguish between aggression and revolution. If the war continues, such an error can only lead Ho Chi Minh to his knees, not before Saigon, but before Peking. The United States of America is surely powerful enough to be able to withdraw from the present untenable position. In the end, the United States of America, spitting in the face of history, is bound to lose the war after terrible losses of young American lives. They cannot drive the Vietcong, who are Vietnamese, out of Vietnam. One cannot manipulate a whole nation as a doubtful means of containing China. We, in our great maturity as a country, should not incite or condone actions which allow this war to continue. Psychologists say that defeat is analogous to death; and the great American people appear to have a flaw, which expresses itself in gardens of rest. morticians and embalmers—a whole funeral industry. They appear to find great difficulty—like the Pharoahs—in accepting the fact of death and hence, perhaps, difficulty in accepting defeat. We should seek to tell them from our experience that anyone can gain from a victory; the great art is to turn a defeat into a triumph, as Dunkirk is now remembered and as de Gaulle achieved for France out of the total loss of Algeria.

We should comfort America with such advice, and not sycophantically and with disgusting hypocrisy approve with words and never deeds their actions. Indeed, the very idea of deeds following our words, as queried by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), frightened the leaders of the Labour Party out of their wits as they hurled denials with one eye looking over their shoulders at their United States allies. But even the words that we speak do not go unnoticed in Africa and Asia. A thousand reasons are found why we should use force against millions of Asiatics in Vietnam, and a thousand reasons are found why we should not use force against a handful of vulgar white rebels in Rhodesia.

My time to speak has come to an end, but the fear that comes out of the Vietnam war is that we are delaying the possibility of putting an end to the proliferation of nuclear arms. This is not a far-distant war, in a country of which we know little. It is a war that, unless we begin to take an initiative and a lead to stop it, may well lead not only to the postponement of nuclear disarmament but, perhaps, ultimately, to the failure of that goal. Unless war, in such dangerous times, is arrested it can lead, lamentably, to Nemesis for mankind.

8.54 p.m.

Sir George Sinclair (Dorking)

In the two or three minutes left to me I want to draw the attention of the House to the current needs of Ghana, which for some time has been under a cloud.

I welcome the evidence, shown throughout the debate today, of Britain's growing determination to get into Europe. I mention this because I think that it will have two solid results in aid to developing countries. There are many stronger reasons for Britain's going into Europe, but this also is important, that Britain herself will be stronger, and the European Economic Community will be stronger, to help the developing countries.

At this stage the new Government in Ghana, who have gained wide acceptance throughout their own country and have been recognised by Her Majesty's Government, have made a special appeal to this country for help. I believe that we can give this help within our present resources. In the past, Ghana has not taken a lot of aid from this country. Her economy was broadly based; she was financially fairly well-established, and, until recently, she more or less paid her own way. Now, through waste, unbelievable extravagance, great corruption and the suppression of personal liberty, the country has been brought to a sorry pass. Now she is asking for aid. She wants aid quickly, and I believe that we have a real opportunity of helping people who are friendly to this country.

I was recently on a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation to Ghana. Every one of the six members of that delegation came back feeling that the people of Ghana themselves were most friendly to this country, that Ghana had wonderful resources of trained manpower and that, if those resources could be properly harnessed to the well-developed economy in Ghana, the result would be rising standards of living and one African State going forward rapidly towards the point of economic take-off.

I believe that there is opportunity today for Britain to come to the aid of Ghana, which has re-established the rule of law and has gone a long way towards re-establishing personal liberty. I hope that the Government will take an early opportunity of meeting the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to decide how best that country, by its own efforts and with external help, can again be put on the path to rapid economic progress.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

My first duty in bringing this debate to a conclusion is to congratulate the two new hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today—the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Arnold Shaw) and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown). They availed themselves lavishly of the privilege of hon. Members to speak on the subject of their heart's desire in the debate upon the Address. Nevertheless, the House will be glad, as they are, that they have so successfully crossed the bar and are launched upon their parliamentary careers.

It was not only their use of that privilege which gave a certain dispersion to today's debate, divided, as it was, between the cognate subjects of foreign affairs and defence, and diffuse, as all foreign affairs debates tend to be. I fear that, as a result, in my own speech, I shall not be able to refer to many of the important topics which were raised, notably to the recurrent theme of Europe and Britain's relations with the European Economic Community, to which a number of hon. Members—perhaps most remarkably my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)—made contributions.

One reason why I ask the permission of the House to limit myself to a certain number of specific points on defence is that the almost unprecedented interruption of the Parliamentary and financial year by the recent General Election has had the effect that the normal sequence of opportunities for debating defence has been severely cur- tailed. We had the opening of the usual series of debates on that subject on 7th and 8th March, but it will only be on occasions such as this that the House will have the opportunity—at any rate during the rest of this calendar year—to pursue the topics which were then opened.

I believe it is important that the themes in the Government's Defence Review should be followed up and examined with remorseless care and detail. The Nemesis of the Government's Defence Review was their resolve, taken about a year ago and announced in the White Paper of 1965, to stake everything upon a defence Budget of £2,000 million in the financial year 1969-1970, and to that end to compile, by good means or bad, by fair means or foul, a list of £400 million worth of economies as against a projected budget of £2,400 million for that year.

The accomplishment, if it was an accomplishment, of that objective fell into two very contrasting elements. The first was the announcement made to the public and then to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Defence in August last, when he listed in considerable detail £220 million of economies which, as he said, brought him more than half-way to his target, though the details which he gave showed that a considerable part of that £220 million, namely, the £20 million which represented the mere deferment of payments and the £35 million which, in his words, was only "the sort of thing that happens in any year", did not represent in any real sense the result of a serious review either of commitments or the means of meeting them.

But then, as he said, there remained the second half of the task, and he was quite candid in stating that the whole, or almost the whole, of the remaining reduction of £180 million could be achieved only by a reduction of commitments and, consequently, as he told the House on 5th August "a smaller total of manpower in the Services".

When, in February, the House and the country received the Defence White Paper which explained how the trick had, after all, been successfully accomplished, we were surprised to find that, in contrast to the explicit revelations of the right hon. Gentleman six months earlier, we were given no explanation at all of how this all-important remaining £180 million, which arose from the review of commitments, the long-heralded deep thinking, was made up. We were not told what it consisted of. It was only during the course of the two-day debate of 7th and 8th March that we extracted from the Government that there were only two magnitudes involved. One was £80 million—all these figures are as at 1969-70—saved by not building the new carrier; the other was £100 million saved by reductions of manpower and equipment following upon the assumed cessation of confrontation in Malaysia. I will come to that latter element in a moment.

First, I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman to help not only myself and my hon. Friends but, I think, many others who try to study and follow these matters by explaining a little more closely how his major figure relating to the non-building of the new carrier is arrived at. The position as I see it is this—and it is based upon the right hon. Gentleman's own statement. The carrier force as projected would have cost £1,400 million over the next 10 years. Since a new carrier is not to be built, it will now cost only £750 million over that period, a saving of £650 million, reduced, however, to a net saving of £500 million by certain additional expenditures in consequence, which he estimates will add up to £150 million. This gives him a net saving of £500 million over the next 10 years, of which £80 million, strangely, will fall in the year 1969-70.

The difficulty which I and many people find in understanding this is as follows. There is, I think, no disagreement that the prospect on any policy was of the present five carriers reducing to three in service over a few years; the new carrier, had the Government gone ahead with it, would not have been in service before 1973; and on both policies, with or without a new carrier, the three-carrier force would run through to about 1975, that is, over the next 10 years.

I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would explain how, in these circumstances, the reduction of so large a sum as £650 million over the next 10 years can be achieved simply by not constructing the new carrier and, in particular, the reason so large a part of that as £80 million happens to fall in the, for his and the Treasury's purposes, all-important financial year 1969-70.

As I leave that question with him, I express the hope that there is no double thinking or double counting here and that the Government are not really cherishing the expectation, which for many of us is a fear, that it will not be possible to maintain the three-carrier force to anything like the period up to 1975—a fear which, I am afraid, has been greatly reinforced by the fall-off of recruitment for the Fleet Air Arm in the very recent past, of which the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. I therefore hope that he will be able to show his figuring on this subject and that no consideration will deter him.

I come now to the much more significant figure—the only other element in the remaining saving of £180 million—which the right hon. Gentleman revealed at the end of the defence debate. This is so important that I will quote his words: … we plan, when confrontation is brought to an end … that it must be a major objective to reduce the level of our forces in the Far East to that once planned by the previous Government before confrontation began; when we are able to reduce our deployment in the Far East to that level—we shall make further reductions in equipment and manpower which will save the additional £100 million."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT. 8th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 2045-6.] This must, of course, mean not just that confrontation is hoped to end by about the year 1969. It means much more than that, if it means anything at all. If £100 million worth of saving in manpower and equipment is to be envisaged for the financial year 1969-70, then that rundown in manpower and equipment must have been largely effected well before the beginning of 1969. It follows further from that that the date upon which the Government are anticipating an end of confrontation must fall very considerably before the year 1969. Otherwise, it is just impossible to imagine that savings of this magnitude could be obtained by that means.

At this point I observe that the biggest single element in the whole of the Government's operation on defence expenditure—the biggest single outcome of this vaunted review of commitments and efficiency, a figure representing no less than a quarter of the whole—rests upon a mere speculation, that by a certain date something which they hope for might have happened and that certain results might have flowed from it. So bogus, we already learn, is a great part of the operation which has been paraded before us.

When we reflect further upon the nature of this 25 per cent. of the total achievement of the Government's Defence Review we begin to perceive the explanation of what puzzled many of us—the reason for the extraordinary reticence in explaining the nature of these later savings, on the part of the same right hon. Gentleman who had been so pressing to give us the details of his earlier savings.

This figure, this fact, let out in the last minute of a two-day debate in March, showed not only that confrontation was expected, counted upon, to have ended well before 1969, to put it at the very lowest, but that we were not going to do anything else in the Far East with those troops, either; that we intended well before 1969 to run down our forces there to the levels before confrontation which means before everything else now going on in the Far East. One can well understand why the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary were unwilling to write a statement with such implications into the Defence Review they had been touting round Washington and other capitals before some weeks before it was brought to this House.

The right hon. Gentleman and other members of the Government declared during the election, as explicitly as they are capable of declaring, that they had no intention of sending British troops to Vietnam. So be it. But before that declaration, simultaneously with that declaration, and subsequently to that declaration, as they know perfectly well, dispatches were coming out of Washington which showed that they, at any rate, had not succeeded either before or after in disabusing the American Administration of the idea that troops released from confrontation would be put to some other use.

I will not burden the House with many quotations, but there was the dispatch of The Times from Washington on 16th March: The White House would be very suspicious of the east of Suez policy if some battalions were not transferred to Vietnam. There was the dispatch on the very day I challenged the right hon Gentleman—the Saturday before polling day—in the Sunday Telegraph which said: British officials in Washington deny there has ever been a formal American request to supply forces for Vietnam. 'They just let us know they would like it, of course', one said. But at the same time they admit they can 'see it coming' when the Indonesian affair blows over. Then, on 2nd April, after the election, a dispatch in the Observer said: … sooner or later—almost certainly sooner than Mr. Wilson would like—the new Labour Government is clearly going to be asked to come through"— that is, apparently, an Americanism— on what in the State Department at least is regarded as its plain duty to start deploying troops into Vietnam from Malaysia, once the confrontation there is over. Significantly, and ominously, Mr. Michael Stewart's firm statement that Britain's position as co-chairman under the Geneva agreements presents an insuperable barrier to military participation is brushed firmly aside by all State Department officials. It is not, one is given to understand, the excuse that Britain has been making, at least until now. If that was the state of opinion in Washington about the intentions of the British Government which had been allowed to exist—I put it no higher; I can put it no lower—it becomes entirely intelligible why the Government were so reticent about the background and assumptions of the major element in their Defence Review.

But I come to the question which intimately concerns this country, and the people of this country, and the Services of this country——

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, what is his authority for saying that those were the assumptions in Washington? Where is he looking?

Mr. Healey

The right hon. Gentleman should look behind him.

Mr. Powell

I am willing to look in any direction, and whichever branch of the Press I look at I find that what they report from Washington is an impression of views held by the American Administration which are irreconcilable with what we understand they have been being told by Her Majesty's Government—[Interruption.] Very well, it is a mere misunderstanding; but it was a misunderstanding that the Government were most anxious to do nothing to remove until the moment when they were driven and forced into doing so.

But we who are concerned with the Services want to know what is implicit in this £100 million saving from the rundown in manpower and equipment. If the Government have got it calculated out to that point, they must have a general idea what reduction in manpower is represented by this saving of £100 million following the run-down of forces after confrontation ends in the Far East.

Is it a reduction of 5,000 in the Army or a reduction of 16,000? Both figures have at various times been ventilated, but even the higher of these figures seems much too small, with whatever allowance one makes for overheads and equipment, to account for so massive a saving as £100 million in the single financial year 1969-70. So, for the sake of those who are expected to maintain the morale of the Services, particularly of the Army, we demand to be told what are the intentions regarding the rundown of manpower.

The Government are meaning to have a rundown of manpower which will save £100 million a year by March, 1969. We want to know, broadly speaking, how many men this represents. From what Services they are to be drawn? What sort of reorganisation is involved in the structure of the Army? Does it involve dispensing partly, or altogether, with the Gurkha Brigade? This must be made to add up, because it is something which concerns the lives, the future, the morale and maintenance of all our forces, particularly the Army. Having brought us so far, the right hon. Gentleman is under a duty to stand to that question and to answer it, not just to me, but to the country.

Now I come to another element in the decisions embodied in the Defence Review, the celebrated, or infamous. purchase of the 50 F111A aircraft. I wish, first, to speak of the financial arrangements and the equally celebrated or infamous dollar offset. Many people read in the Defence Review the sentence in paragraph 11 on page 11: We have taken steps to ensure that the foreign exchange cost of the Fl11A"— that, we understand, is £260 million— will be fully offset by sales of British equipment. Those people were extremely surprised and very anxious to learn what it was which could enable the Government to use so definite a word as, "ensure": the Government said they had "ensured" that this cost would be offset. When people read further they discovered in the Defence Review only a reference to British firms being given the opportunity to tender for certain purchases by the United States.

This was bad enough, but it was nothing to what we were to learn in the course of the defence debate. In that debate, in which the Government were so injudicious as to put up the Minister of Aviation to speak, that Minister explained that it was not that way at all. Most of the offset was, he told us, as reported in column 1861 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 7th March, not to be in the form of American purchases anyhow. The greater part of the total 725 million dollars—400 million dollars—was to be in sales to third countries in which the Americans were to co-operate with us. So we learned that it was not even a question of the American Government allowing us to tender for 725 million dollars' worth, but only 325 million dollars' worth. We would have to tender for the remaining 400 million dollars' worth to third countries.

But there was worse still to come. There had been such a deal—a sale—on the part of this country to a third party in the previous December which was announced to the House—it was a rather unlucky day for the Government—on 21st December.

Mr. M. Stewart

Not so unlucky as 31st March was for the Tory Party.

Mr. Powell

It remains to be seen whether 31st March, 1966, will prove to have been more unlucky for the Tory Party than 21st December, 1965, for the Prime Minister.

However, I am not for the moment concerned with what the Prime Minister said on that day and un-said afterwards. I am concerned with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation said when he announced this deal representing 210 million dollars of exports for this country—the deal with Saudi Arabia. In reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), the Parliamentary Secretary said this: There is no question of the agreement with the Americans to co-operate … in this proposed deal being in any way linked with a commitment concerning the F.111. That subject did not come up in my discussions in the United States."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 1875.] That is what the hon. Gentleman said.

When the Minister of Aviation referred to this second and larger element in the offset—the sales to third countries—he described them as being of a kind similar to that we have recently arranged with Saudi Arabia, to the value of 400 million dollars."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1861.] Now, it is strongly reported—I understand this has not been repudiated officially—that the value of the sale to Saudi Arabia is to be counted against the 400 million dollars sales to third parties.

Hon. Members

Shame.

Mr. Powell

If so, then certain consequences follow. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation said that there was no connection between the two, that it was not part of the commitment. In that case it was a sale which we had made anyhow on our own merits and which is now being counted as an offset for something which occurred afterwards. That is the most charitable explanation of what the Parliamentary Secretary said. But it is impossible, if that be the case, to reconcile the facts with the natural plain meaning of the words of the Minister of Aviation, who sought to treat as an example from the past for what would happen in the future something which was already being counted in the reckoning with the Americans as a future offset against future expenditure.

This whole business illustrates many things, but one thing of lasting importance which it illustrates is the lubricity of this whole idea of offsets—the impossibility of ever establishing that a particular sale, a particular contract, has been got only because we purchased the F111A and is thus an offset. We have no protection. I am not accusing the Americans of any intention of ill faith; but in the nature of things we have no means of ensuring that the offset is actually enjoyed. We must take the consequences of this decision, financial as well as military, as they stand.

I want to come to those consequences and the function of these F111A aircraft. By dint of interrogation, on 7th and 8th March, the House at last established the meaning of paragraph 8 on page 11 of the Defence Review. It means—at least this is the best of my belief now—that the rôle of reconnaissance and strike hitherto performed by the Canberra aircraft is to be performed in the first half of the 1970s by the F111A supplemented in the strike rôle by the V-bombers and in the second half of the 1970s by the F111A supplemented by the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft. As the Minister of Aviation again said: the VG aircraft is complementary to the F111A and is in no sense a replacement"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1862]. Let us now look a little more closely at the rôle. This strike and reconnaissance rôle was defined for us in the debate by the right hon. Gentleman. It was to give early warning of an enemy's intentions"— that is, of course, the reconnaissance rôle—and it was to ensure that he knows we have the power … to destroy his offensive forces."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 2040-1.] The overall object was to have the capacity for military action "on our own"—those were the right hon. Gentleman's own words on 13th April, 1965, at column 1198.

Let us consider how these portentous results, to discover the enemy's intentions and to destroy his offensive forces at the great range of which the F111A is capable and to do this as an independent military capability, are likely to be discharged by means of the 50 F111A aircraft. We are told that most of them will be stationed in the Far East. Let us suppose that represents 35. Of those 35 I am advised that at any given time it is likely that 25 at most would be operational.

But, of course, that is the maximum before any wastage has occurred. The Minister, perhaps for good security reasons, would not give me any help on his anticipated rate of wastage, but I am assuming that the rate of wastage is not so high, for example, as that of the Starfighter supplied to the Germans. I will assume that only one or two aircraft may be wasted per annum.

Even so, by the middle of the 1970s the force will have diminished to negligible proportions. It will have dwindled by the middle of the 1970s to an almost negligible force. So, in the middle of the 1970s—indeed, throughout the 1970s—by means of these aircraft, by means of such a force, we are to deploy the power "to destroy the enemy's offensive forces" on the ground at extreme range and against sophisticated opposition.

This is the decision on which the Foreign Secretary, that great military expert, in the debate on 8th March, said that it depended whether or not Britain was to be "a considerable power". Could there be a more miserable hallucination? The F111A deal is hollow. It is hollow in its financial arrangements. It is hollow in its military reasoning.

When the Defence Review was first produced in February by the right hon. Gentleman I told him that the nature of some of the decisions and the timing of others has been forced upon the Government by their own absurd preoccupation with fudging a figure of £2,000 million in 1969-70 regardless of the consequences for the morale of the Services or the defence of the country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February. 1966; Vol. 724, c. 241-2.] So it was. So, more and more, it will be seen that it is. Those words will be the epitaph of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman and of the defence policy of the Government.

9.29 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey)

This has been a thoughtful debate and it was distinguished by two maiden speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Ilford, South (Mr. Arnold Shaw) and for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown). They both showed a genuine devotion to the welfare of their constituents which I am sure will distinguish all their speeches in this House.

I am sure all of us on both sides of the House welcomed, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) said, at any rate on a personal level, the reappearance of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker). I shall not say more about what he had to say on the Common Market or, indeed, about what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) on the Common Market because I agree almost totally with everything they said. I shall concentrate on the defence policy issues, particularly those raised by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) and by his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell).

I found the speech of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire refreshingly stimulating. I cannot help feeling that opposition powerfully fortifies the imagination. One thing at least we got from him, and that was the ceremonial burial of Powellism as it was defined in a famous speech at Brighton not so long ago. I am not surprised that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, after getting such a powerful and well considered rebuff from his leader in this matter, should have chosen to dodge all the policy issues in his own speech and to confine himself to a stale rehash of the academic arguments we got from him before the election not very long ago.

Mr. Powell

I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman——

Mr. Healey

Perhaps, if he sits down, the right hon. Gentleman will succeed in not interrupting me.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The right hon. Gentleman must not interrupt unless the Minister gives way.

Mr. Healey

As the right hon. Gentleman announced that he did not want to interrupt me, I felt it wrong to give way. [HON. MEMBERS: Give way.] I hope that right hon. and hon. Members opposite—[Interruption.].

Mr. Speaker

Order. Let us get back to orderly debate.

Mr. Healey

I hope that hon and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will behave slightly better in this Parliament on these serious issues than they did in the last.

Mr. Heath

The right hon. Gentleman's behaviour is setting a bad example. He should give way to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Healey

If he wishes to intervene, I readily give way to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Powell

I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. Before there appears on the record what he has just said about the relationship between my right hon. Friend's speech and that which I made at Brighton last October, may I tell the Secretary of State that if he, or any other person, will read the text of my speech at Brighton and what my right hon. Friend said today, he will find that they are wholly and completely in agreement.

Mr. Healey

Well, I must say that I am glad that I gave way.

The only complaint I make about the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire is that he went rather to the other extreme. He seemed to be arguing—I hope I do not misrepresent him in saying this—that we should seek to create a situation in which we are required to make a smaller military contribution to the defence of Western Europe and we should concentrate essentially on the containment of China in the Far East. If I misrepresent him, I apologise, but I shall deal with the points he raised in these respects in his own speech.

I entirely agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman said about the nature of the Soviet threat in Europe. He will know that I have been saying it myself for many years. I said it in almost the same terms as he himself this evening when I spoke in the first foreign affairs and defence debate of the previous Parliament in December, 1964. I have, as he asked me to, been arguing along these lines at every meeting of the N.A.T.O. Council and its committees since I took office as Secretary of State for Defence, and, I may say, not entirely without effect. As I have told the House, N.A.T.O. has already dropped the more extreme force goals which it was pursuing a year ago, and I hope that we shall make further progress towards a more rational strategy at the force goals meeting this summer.

I have also taken the right hon. Gentleman's advice and argued the virtues of integration with members of the French Government, but I have had less success there, as have the members of the Common Market who have argued the virtues of integration in another context with the French Government. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should not delude themselves into thinking that President de Gaulle's position on integration is one which can be shifted by argument. It cannot. He has made this repeatedly clear. I believe that the beginning of wisdom in dealing with the problems created by the current policy of the French Government is to accept that President de Gaulle really means what he says about integration. This must be the beginning of policy.

However, what I would say on this is that the public position which President de Gaulle has taken towards N.A.T.O. in recent weeks creates a great opportunity as well as some serious dangers for the alliance. It gives us a new opportunity, for example, to streamline the N.A.T.O. headquarters, which undoubtedly have become overblown in recent years. It also gives a new opportunity to consider collectively the appropriate strategy and force structure for the changed nature of the military threat in Western Europe.

I agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say on that. I would offer only one caution, if I can be so impertinent as to do so to one of his experience. He would agree, I think, that the key to N.A.T.O.'s success in stabilising the military situation in Western Europe is essentially its political solidarity. It is the certainty in the minds of potential enemies that an attack on one member of the alliance would be treated as an attack on all. It is vitally important, particularly at this moment when the alliance is having its solidarity deliberately challenged by one of its members, that the loyal members of the alliance should try to keep in step. This is not a time for bold new initiatives in some of the directions which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and particularly if it remains our purpose, as it does, to negotiate for entry into the Common Market at the earliest favourable opportunity. In fact, I think that there has already been a very substantial movement of opinion in Germany in a favourable direction—favourable, that is to say, to the analysis of the situation which the right hon. Gentleman and I share—in recent months. I think that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds made an extremely wise and well-informed speech about the remarkable shift in German political attitudes on many European problems in recent months. The only thing that I wuold say to him is that I believe that we should welcome rather than fear the new flexibility of German policy towards Eastern Europe. I do not think that it represents any dangers for us whatsoever. On the contrary, I believe that, rightly encouraged and guided, it may show the way not only to a revision of alliance policy in the direction which we both want but towards a settlement of the major political problems which have divided Europe for the last 20 years.

But the changed situation really highlights the major strategic problem of the alliance, which is that as the détente with the Soviet Union develops and as strategy in the Alliance begins to adapt itself to the détente, the alliance's dependence on nuclear weapons as the final deterrent and as the guarantee of the détente tends to increase, and with it the legitimate concern of the non-nuclear members of the alliance that the nuclear strategy of the alliance should be consistent with their own needs and interests. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that the non-nuclear members of the alliance have so far had far too little appreciation of the physical facts concerned with N.A.T.O.'s nuclear posture and far too little consultation on N.A.T.O.'s policies. Indeed, I have found that the nuclear powers themselves—this goes, I think, for the British as well as the American Government—have done far too little thinking about the rôle of nuclear weapons in deterrence, because I think it is at last now clear to all of us that the rôle of nuclear weapons in defence, whatever it may have been at the time when the Soviet Union could not match the West in nuclear power, is very, very different today.

As the House will know, the main purpose of the special committee of N.A.T.O. defence Ministers set up last year is to try to reach more effective agreement between the nuclear and non-nuclear countries on how nuclear weapons should be or would be used, and how the threat to use them would be employed, in a crisis. I believe that we have made very substantial progress in the first meetings we have had on this subject and that, in the next few days, when my four colleagues on the Nuclear Planning Working Group of the special committee meet in London, we shall start for the first time in 20 years to make some real progress on the most difficult question of all—the rôle of so-called tactical nuclear weapons, if the word "tactical" is not absurd as applied to any nuclear weapons, in the strategy of the alliance.

Now I turn to what the right hon. Gentleman and others have to say on the Far East. With respect to the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, he gave the appearance of rather over-simplifying the problem facing this country and, indeed, the world when he suggested that, apart from the Soviet threat in Europe, changed as it is, the only other serious problem we face is that of China in the Far East, and that China represents a problem to which containment is the appropriate response. He seemed to say that containment is primarily a military business, as, indeed, it was in Europe in the early years after the Second World War.

I think that we must all confess to being very uncertain in our minds here, because the evidence is so scanty—I myself still feel very uncertain—about what sort of problem China will pose to the world over the next 5, 10 and 15 years. We must not surrender to the temptation to interpret Chinese policy over the next 15 years as we tended to interpret Soviet policy in the years immediately following the war when, I think, many of us who studied these problems fell prey to a sort of Orwellian pessimism about the way in which the world was moving.

I do not believe that it is yet clear that China is going to present the same sort of problem as Russia presented in Europe after the war, still less that she will continue to present that sort of problem for an indefinite future. I believe that trees do not grow up to the sky and that some of the tendencies that we see now may not continue indefinitely.

I believe that polycentrism in the Communist movement has as much reality in Asia as in Western Europe, and above all I believe, as my right hon. Friend suggested, that, in trying to make up our minds about China's policy, we must look at least as carefully at what the Chinese do as at what they say. To quote a popular phrase, "action, not words", must be the key to our interpretation.

The really striking thing about Chinese behaviour is that, during recent years, they have been infinitely more cautious in the military field than the Soviet Union. The major threat to peace presented by a Communist Power in recent years was the inexplicable behaviour of the Soviet Government under Mr. Khrushchev in putting missiles into Cuba, directly threatening with atomic weapons the American heartland. But as far as China is concerned, we have not even seen a repetition of the attempt to recover Quemoy and Matsu by force.

I think that we must bear all these things in mind before we jump too easily to the conclusion that the Chinese problem in the Far East will simply be a repetition of the Soviet problem in Europe as we saw it 20 years ago. What I think is clear already and does not need further demonstration, is that the Chinese Government will exploit instability and local conflict anywhere round China's borders in order to promote their influence. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that local conflict still is a major problem, if not the major problem, in Southern Asia as it is in the Middle East and in Africa.

Whatever may be the case in 10 or 15 years' time, India and Pakistan are still more concerned with their struggle with one another than with the potential threat from the North, and similarly there is the concern of Malaysia with Indonesia and even, I am sorry to say, Malaysia with Singapore.

I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was being just a little extravagant when he foresaw, at any rate in anything like the immediate or near future, a sort of alliance against China led by India, the Soviet Union and Japan. I suppose that it might be very convenient if something like that came about, but I honestly see very little sign of it, at any rate on the basis of existing trends.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

I think that the right hon. Gentleman is getting me a little wrong.

Mr. Healey

I am sorry.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Not deliberately, of course. I said that China might have to be contained and that we must face up to this possibility, and that if it had to be contained, then the way it would happen would be through a coalition of Asian countries, with Russia and India as the base. This was in the fairly remote future, I agree, but in the meantime the security of those countries would have to be underwritten in one way or another by Western power.

Mr. Healey

I will certainly consider what the right hon. Gentleman has just had to say about that.

The only general point I have to make before leaving this problem of China is that to apply European analogies to what is now happening in the Far East can be very misleading, not only on our side, in imagining that a Far East N.A.T.O. can or should come about, or, equally, that an expansion of Chinese influence will in any sense follow the European pattern. We must never forget that Communism was not spread in Eastern Europe by subversion. It was imposed by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War. It was the physical occupation of Eastern Europe by the Red Army which made it possible for the Communist Parties to come to power, and they were guided every step of the way by the Soviet Government with assistance when required, as in Czechoslovakia in 1947, by Soviet officials.

I do not myself foresee the expansion of Chinese military power in this sense into South-East Asia which would enable the same type of development to be repeated. But, having said all that, I must insist that fear of China is real and is growing throughout South Asia. There is no doubt whatever and I say this to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends that—[Interruption.]—hon. Friends, that a Communist victory, or an American defeat, in Vietnam would bring a surge of anxiety and instability throughout South-East Asia. We must never forget that when we consider what to do in this tragic situation.

It is against this background, confused and uncertain as it is, that we must make up our minds what sort of rôle we have in Asia and whether it requires support by British military power, and what sort of British military power is appropriate for that rôle. I believe, as does the right hon. Gentleman, that we have a rôle and undoubtedly we have responsibilities. I believe that we shall have no influence on affairs in what, whatever their nature, is likely to be the most critical area to the future development of humanity, unless we are prepared to make a physical contribution to the stability of this part of the world, until, as the right hon. Gentleman hopes, it is able to stand one way or another on its own feet.

There is no doubt whatever that, for example, for Britain to leave Malaysia and Singapore now would plunge the whole of South-East Asia into chaos, and into bloody chaos. Let us not forget what appalling things have happened inside Indonesia in recent weeks, however much we may welcome some of the political consequences of them—the massacre of tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.

Viscount Lambton

What about Aden?

Mr. Healey

If the noble Lord really believes that there is any analogy whatever between the type of massacres which have been carried out in the Indonesian islands in recent weeks and the sort of problems, serious and worrying as they are, which we face in Aden, he should do his homework.

The question is: what sort of military contribution should we plan on making when the immediate problem between Malaysia and Indonesia is ended, as I hope it will be ended, and as we intend to see that it is ended, with our allies, during the next few years? I think that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is behaving a little oddly when he suggests that it is improper for the Government to set themselves an objective in policy, like the ending of confrontation, and then to make provisional plans on the assumption that they may achieve their objective. This is what we are in fact doing. This is the necessary beginning of any sense in our foreign policy. We must first set ourselves an objective. But we must also be cautious to ensure that we do not take irreversible decisions on forces before we have achieved the objective.

May I comment on that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech? We have studied a very large number of ways in which we could reduce the size and equipment of our forces on various assumptions about the rate of progress and the way in which we progress in reducing and changing our commitments, as we plan to do. But we cannot announce what particular mixture of those methods we propose to adopt before we know how things will turn out. Even with the best Government in the world, even with the right hon. Gentleman as Foreign Secretary, we could not guarantee that every objective we set ourselves would be achieved on time and exactly in the way we intended. We must leave ourselves some latitude about how we close the remaining gap. All that I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that I satisfied the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I had a very realistic mixture of alternative ways of closing the gap. If I can satisfy my right hon. Friend, I am not so worried about whether I can satisfy the right hon. Gentleman.

The question of the precise size and composition of the forces which Britain maintains in the Far East in the 1970s must wait until we have more clarity on what exactly will be the situation, and what is their appropriate rôle in that situation. However, we must take certain decisions now. The most critical decisions we have taken concern the amount of money we can afford to allot to that part of our military policy—it is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, substantially less than the amount we are now spending—and, secondly. we must take certain decisions on weapons now, because decisions on weapons must be taken up to 10 years before we can hope to have the weapons in service.

We decided, as the previous Government decided, that whatever else we need, we must have some tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft capable of penetrating the sort of defences which potential enemies may have on at least part of their territory in 10 years' time. The previous Government chose the TSR2. We gave it up because we decided that it would be far beyond our means. We decided to buy the F111A instead.

I point out to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lamb-ton) that we are buying the F111A, as the previous Government said that they were buying the TSR2, not as a strategic: nuclear aircraft, but as a tactical strike reconnaissance aircraft. If we wanted an aircraft for dropping nuclear bombs, we would not need the very sophisticated type of avionics which the F111A, like the TSR2, must have, to be able to deliver with extreme accuracy, within yards, on point tactical targets.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire that essentially our contribution in the Far East should be air and sea. The precise nature and size of our land contribution is one of the most difficult things to decide. On the maritime side, we shall have a powerful force of frigates, submarines and amphibious vessels, for an amphibious task force in the Far East. The big question which we had to ask ourselves was whether to have aircraft carriers, too.

There is not time in the remaining five minutes—I want to deal with one or two of the right hon. Gentleman's questions—to go over all the arguments which have been put before the House on the carrier problem. All I say to the right hon. Gentleman is that if he sees our rôle in the Far East as containing China, we are certainly not going to do that on our own. It is surely inconceivable that we should accept that type of responsibility, if we did at all, except in co-operation with the United States, which already has a force of 15 carriers.

The basic problem about a British carrier in the Far East in the 1970s is that we have to pay for three carriers to have one permanently on station, that one of the carriers would have had only seven strike aircraft aboard, equivalent in destructive power to only four F111As; and that such a force would have cost us £1,400 million.

I emphasise that carriers at present are an essential and indispensable part of our Armed Forces. Nothing shows that better than the operations carried out by carriers recently, in conjunction with Royal Air Force Shackleton aircraft, in the Mozambique Straits. The House may be interested to know that "Eagle" has today flown her thousandth sortie in the Mozambique Straits.

We are discussing now, however, what weapons we should have in 10 years' time. The simple point concerning the carrier has always been that we cannot afford to pay for, and we are not able to man, more than one new carrier. That would prolong the life of our carrier force for only five years, from 1975 to 1980. If there was a cheaper way of meeting the tasks now carried out by the carrier during those five years, we should take it. There is.

By that time, the performance of land-based aircraft, in radius, action, capability and endurance, will be far beyond anything we know today. By that time, we shall be able to carry out the carrier's rôle by other means at a saving to the country over the next 10 years alone of, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, £500 million. I do not think that any right hon. or hon. Member opposite who had had the responsibility that I have had during the last 18 months in trying to decide what is the best and cheapest way of doing the job in 10 years' time would have come to a different conclusion than the one to which I have come.

In the last minute or two, I will deal with a point raised by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, who was as painstaking and as perverse as usual, and whose speech was distinguished by a bitter distrust of our major ally which amounts, in my view, almost to mania. I appeal to hon. Members opposite to beware of the road down which the right hon. Gentleman is leading them, because that type of attitude to a country which has been our staunchest ally for the last 30 years can lead to disaster for this country and for the world.

I was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman returned tonight to an issue which he raised as an election stunt not long ago and on which he was disavowed by the Leader of his party. Let me tell him, the House and the country this. The only plan for British military intervention in Vietnam which exists or has existed the whole time that we have been in power was one made by the previous Government in 1962 under S.E.A.T.O. At least three members of the Opposition Front Bench should know this. That was a plan which was made before America had assumed the present type of commitment in Vietnam and against a totally different background and situation.

There is only one leading politician in this country who has ever, to my knowledge, proposed direct British military intervention in Vietnam, and that is the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, who in 1954 proposed that we should cut completely our contribution to the defence of Europe and concentrate all our military effort on helping to restore French colonial rule in Indo-China. I hope that as this Parliament proceeds, right hon. and hon. Members opposite will free themselves of the obsessions of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and will come to approach these vital problems of defence and foreign policy, not on a party basis.

I do not object to the most rigorous scrutiny. I hope that hon. Members opposite will employ Question Time and every other opportunity to test what we are doing and to question us. [Interruption.] I ask, however, that——

Mr. Speaker

Order.

Mr. Healey

—when they do that——

Mr. Speaker

Order. Even the Front Bench must obey the Chair.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.