COUNCIL OF EUROPE

HC Deb 12 August 1966 vol 733 cc2015-31

11.10 a.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas (Kettering)

In raising the subject of the work of the Council of Europe, we should start with the realisation that our admission to the Common Market is most unlikely in the near future. But we must not confuse the Common Market with Europe and we must remember that we have an important stake in Europe as a founder member of the Council of Europe. Mr. Toncic, the Austrian Foreign Minister, who is the present Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, described the Council of Europe a month or so ago as … the only truly political European organisation. This is so.

The Council was set up in 1949, at a time when there was acute reaction in Western Europe against the nationalism responsible for two world wars. There was a general, if imprecise, feeling for European unity. Ernest Bevin signed for us on 5th May, 1949.

Its greatest early achievement was to enable Germany to be received as an equal partner into the European family of democratic nations. This paved the way for the more advanced experiments in integration, leading, first to the E.C.S.C. and then to the Common Market. The initiatives for all of these steps were born in the Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was also in Strasbourg that the machinery of the European Convention on Human Rights was elaborated.

It is with some pride that Her Majesty's Government can point to the acceptance, less than a year ago, of the full implication of that Convention, including the right of individual application to the International Commission and the recognition of the compulsory jurisdiction of the court. I have referred to 1949; the situation in Europe has changed enormously since then and there are different conditions today. We must take stock of the fact that the Council of Europe is operating in conditions which open up entirely new perspectives.

First, on the Parliamentary side we have the Common Market, on the one hand, and E.F.TA., on the other. At present, there is a complete stagnation in any movement towards integration. This has left the Assembly with a particularly important rôle, because it is the only forum in which Parliamentarians from all democratic countries in Europe meet and debate together. The Assembly includes Parliamentarians not only from the E.F.T.A. and Common Market countries, but also from countries belonging to neither group.

Although most of the member countries are members of N.A.T.O., there are quite a number which are not and there are important neutral countries, such as Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. In the conditions of today their political contribution is very great.

Mr. Gilbert Longden (Hertfordshire, South-West)

Is Spain a member?

Sir G. de Freitas

No, Spain is not a member and would not be eligible under the terms of the original Treaty, because of the nature of its Parliamentary system.

In addition to our debates on economic, social, cultural, legal and other matters, the Assembly is the only body to receive regular reports from a whole range of European and world organisations such as the Common Market, E.F.T.A., O.E.C.D. and various United Nations agencies.

The reports are first studied in Committee and then debated in the Assembly. In the case of the Common Market, we hold joint sessions once a year with the European Parliament, which is the Parliament of the Common Market. In that way we debate common problems. Sessions are presided over on alternate days by the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Assembly. The next session will be next month. The Assembly also receives yearly visits from a delegation from the United States. This gives us a full-scale confrontation with European Parliamentary opinion, including neutral opinion, and enables us to have valuable debates on relations between Europe and the United States of America.

I hope very much that Canadians will come in future, because not only will they contribute to our discussions and broaden it to North America, but because the very nature of their delegation would help to disprove the idea, so common on the Continent, that Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, are one solid Auglo-Saxon Protestant bloc. Our Assembly also receives visitors from other countries and Continents. In May, we had U Thant, the Foreign Minister of Chile, and the Foreign Minister of Senegal. Next month we shall have Mr. Tom Mboya, the distinguished African Minister, to see how our European problems look from an African point of view.

These visitors come to Strasbourg because they can explain their point of view to a widely representative European Parliamentary audience and meet a broad section of European parliamentary opinion, I have dealt with the Assembly side of the Council of Europe, but there is the inter-governmental side.

There are about 70 expert committees and sub-committees which meet periodically to harmonise the legislation and practice of the 18 member States in fields such as public health, social, labour, educational, cultural and legal matters. The method they work to chiefly is the drafting of international conventions. There are about 60 of those. The idea of these conventions in most cases originated in the Assembly, as Members of this House who helped to draft them will recall. I was particularly concerned in the early 1950s with the extradition convention which I helped to draft, and which is now the law in many Continental countries.

Over the years these expert activities have evolved in rather a haphazard fashion and it is no longer really certain how directly relevant some of the studies are to closer European unity, which is the ultimate aim. Therefore, last May, the Committee of Ministers took a major step by which it instructed the Secretariat to submit, annually, a draft programme of work. This programming procedure, with which the Assembly is closely associated, should enable the Governments to direct the experts along the lines which it desires and into areas of co-operation where the need is most urgent.

This new machinery offers immense possibilities for identifying the many subjects upon which agreement is possible and arriving at such agreements in due course. It offers an effective area of co-operation, notably with the Six and, in particular, with France. Governments can make far greater use of this instrument, particularly at a time when progress towards, European unity elsewhere is slow. Without being spectacular, it could prepare the way for a time when the enlargement of the Common Market becomes practicable.

There is another point. The non-political nature of many of these activities often renders them suitable for the association of experts from non-member countries, including, in certain instances, the States of Eastern Europe or Spain or Portugal. I wish that the Committee of Ministers would do more on these lines. So far as the Assembly is concerned, I hope that we shall have at our debates from time to time Ministers from these countries of Europe which are not in the Council of Europe and are ineligible for membership.

I have referred to the new horizons which the Assembly has and which are offered to the governmental side and I wish to refer, thirdly, to the Council of Europe in the world context. I have mentioned that U Thant visited the Assembly at Strasbourg in May. He spoke to the Assembly and he had a private meeting with the Committee of Ministers. It was an unprecedented event of undoubted political significance. By coming and speaking to us, the Secretary-General of the United Nations showed that he considered that the Council of Europe was no longer associated, as it had been in 1949 when it was born, with the cold war. On the contrary, U Thant welcomed the increasing contracts with countries of Eastern Europe and recognised that the Council of Europe was now firmly established as a regional organisation whose action was complementary to the world organisation.

U Thant went so far as to hope that in future regional organisations would more and more become the pillars on which the larger structure of world order could be firmly established. He particularly noticed the potential political importance of our Assembly and he appealed to us for help in concerting the action of both organisations, not only in the technical field, but also in the great political problems affecting peace and security.

The Assembly, next month, will be debating U Thant's speech. After the debate, we shall be making recommendations to the Committee of Ministers, who will decide in December what follow-up should be given to the Secretary-General's visit. There are unlikely to be any dramatic decisions—in fact, they are not necessary. The relationship between the Secretariat of the Council of Europe and the Secretariat of the United Nations has become very close under Mr. Peter Smithers' Secretary-Generalship. However, the activities of the Council of Europe will now be able to take on a new dimension. If they help to make the contribution of Europe to the United Nations and world affairs more coherent and responsible, they will have done a real service.

What do I want the Government to do? I want them, first, to work with the other member Governments and use the programme during the transitional phase of the next few years as an instrument for directing intergovernmental co-operation to those areas in which agreement is possible in present circumstances and where it will be most useful in furthering broader European unity. Secondly, I want the Government to support a more effective European presence in the United Nations and to recognise that Europe as such should contribute more consciously to U Thant's efforts to reduce the four main sources of tension in the world, which he analysed as rival political ideologies, the residual problems of colonialism, racial discrimination and, above all, the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor nations.

Thirdly, I want the Government to work for more technical activities in the work programme of the Council of Europe and to invite the non-member countries of Europe to work with us. We must recognise that these States are part of the European family. Poles, like Spaniards, do not cease to be Europeans merely because their political systems are abhorrent to most of us. In every way, I want the Government to use the Council of Europe as the link with our fellow Europeans. The Common Market is not Europe, E.F.T.A. is not Europe, but the Council of Europe could become Europe, Europe not only of North and South, but Europe of East and West.

My earliest memory is of a German bomb falling on London during the First World War. I see the last two wars in Europe as civil wars and they have convinced me of the stupidity of the nation-state. Before the First World War we were Europeans culturally, but I do not think that anyone here in Britain thought of Britain as part of Europe even geographically, certainly not politically. The First World War changed a lot of that and the Second World War continued the change. Culturally and geographically we are part of Europe, but not yet politically.

When I returned from Africa in 1964, I found Europe divided and I found that one great nation of Europe—France—had become reinfected with nationalism. What a dreadful example we set to the new nations in Africa if we allow ourselves to sink back into this form of tribalism. We are very fortunate in Europe. We have a long and rich civilisation. We have good land, good food, good people, good literature, good music and good laws. We have great advantages, and in return we have duties. One of these duties is to set an example in international co-operation and in learning to live together in peace. In the Council of Europe we have the instrument to achieve all this, and it is up to us to work that instrument.

11.26 a.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

The House, however thin, will be grateful to the hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) for introducing this subject today, not least because it is a very long time since we have had a debate on the work of the Council of Europe. I have never been a member of it, although I have had three opportunities of joining in on the Koenigswinter conferences arranged under the auspices of the Englische-Deutsche Gesellschaft, two in Germany and one at Christ Church, Oxford. There is immense value in European politicians of all countries mingling with those who are not politicians, getting together and talking over common problems.

Sometimes, however, we ought to ask ourselves exactly what is the status of those who go out from this House representing the United Kingdom at Strasbourg. I have never been quite clear as to the procedure whereby these hon.

Members are selected, or whom they represent when they go. I hope that they represent themselves and nobody else and I hope that in selecting them a fair crack is given to all those who wish to go and that the selection is not made solely because the "usual channels" happen to regard them as "safe". The more provocative the speaking at these international gatherings can be, the better.

The hon. Member for Kettering referred to his first memory of a German bomb dropping on London. One of my very earliest memories was on 11th November, 1918, when I happened to be walking with my young sister, who was being pushed in a pram, outside Hyde Park Barracks, in which I was due to serve many years later. As I was walking along, a maroon went across the sky and was followed by a deafening explosion. People started to run because we thought that there would be an air raid. By the time we got down to Woolland's, we found that London had gone mad with joy that the First World War was over.

We all know what happened between the two wars. Those of us who were Regular Service men at that time know the appalling neglect of our defences and we all know what ghastly horrors followed as a result of that attempt to get peace on the cheap. I cannot help feeling, however, that had there been a Council of Europe between the two wars, had there been Koenigswinter conferences regularly taking place, we might have avoided some of the awful things that followed from thinking that we could get by too easily and cheaply between the wars.

I am reminded very much of a quotation from an essay by E. M. Forster, in 1935, under the title, "The Menace to Freedom". These are some of the words he used in that essay: Politics are based on human nature—even a tyrant is a man, and our freedom is really menaced today because a million years ago Man was born in chains". He went on to say: He has been a coward for centuries, afraid of the universe outside him and of the herd wherein he took refuge. So he cannot, even if he wishes it, be free today. Forster then refers to the Grecian attempt at individualism, which he dismisses as abortive morally because of the primaeval chains, and says: More recently still, Man has dallied with the idea of social conscience, and has disguised the fear of the herd as loyalty towards the group. Only Heaven knows what Man might accomplish alone. That service is perfect freedom, perhaps. I sometimes think that those words have an application to Britain's approach to international co-operation. I have long believed that politics, above all other things, is about sovereignty, be it individual sovereignty, national sovereignty, or the sovereignty which can be achieved by international co-operation.

I have yet to believe that it has been totally disproved that Britain, as a separate sovereignty, cannot prevail and do great things. That does not mean that we must not co-operate. The existence of the Council of Europe promotes better understanding between nations and I wish it well, but I have always been opposed to any federal concept, even since the days, soon after I first came to the House and when the Labour Party was in power, of the Schuman Plan issue. I have always felt that Lord Attlee, who was then Prime Minister, was perfectly right to set his face against giving carte blanche to a political supranationality; and on a three-line whip on that issue I abstained, and there are still four other Members in the House who did so.

In the endeavour to get into Europe since then I have noticed that there is something of a dichotomy. I have noticed it at Koenigswinter and coming out of the proceedings of the Council of Europe. Some seem more in favour of federation and some more in favour of a looser association, on the de Gaulle design or some other. I have had to take note of the pressures brought by the United States over the years to promote the Federation of Europe immediately after the war. I have never thought that it was wrong for the United States to assume that federation was an excellent plan, because, after all, federation has worked reasonably successfully in the United States, and I suppose that it is understandable that the Americans will automatically think that what goes for the United States would go for other countries. Although I have never accepted that proposition, I have understood why the Americans have made it.

But, moving as we are into very intricate trade agreements with the Kennedy Round—and there is a very discouraging article on this subject in the Financial Times today—the prospects do not seem very happy. They indicate that while we have to keep a close association with our European and our American friends, we must make it clear both in the Council of Europe and in the House that there are still considerable differences about exactly how we should go about making a closer association with Europe.

I hope that the new Foreign Secretary, to whom I wish all possible good fortune in his high office, will give Europe the opportunity of fully digesting, if I may so describe it, the "Brown Windsor soup" which is the first dish of his term of office before he makes too many overtures to Europe. The Foreign Secretary should play himself in before taking any major initiative to take association with Europe a step further. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady will bear in mind that the original Treaty of Rome had built into it——

Mr. Speaker

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not widen the debate too far.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

I have assumed, I hope not wrongly, that the Council of Europe is yet another means of bringing about the European co-operation which some would like to see ending in or developing into Britain's joining the Common Market, and it is only to that extent that I wish to refer to it and I hope that I shall be in order in doing so.

I hope that it will always be borne in mind that the Treaty of Rome contains an article which makes it quite clear that if any other country joins, not only would it be by the unanimous decision of those already members, but it would also mean that amendments to the Treaty would automatically be assumed to be necessary. Article 237 is the article in question. There has been a good deal of misrepresentation in the past about what the Conservative Party wanted to do on this matter and there is a considerable division of opinion even in the Labour Party, and much of that division of opinion could be avoided if Article 237 were better understood.

I hope that there will be a bigger changeover of the members attending the meetings of the Council of Europe. It tends to become rather too much a closed club. Not only in international dealings of this kind, but in our own country there is a disease which all too easily overtakes those who indulge in these practices. I call the disease "delegationitis". I have always felt that when men and women are delegated to serve on a body, they should always remember that priority must always be given to those who sent them.

The tendency all too often is, be it the National Farmers' Union or a European organisation, for what the delegation has been sent to to become more important than the people who sent the delegates. I have noticed this among European enthusiasts. I hope that we shall get a lot of new blood into these delegations and always keep the closest contact with the people at home whom the delegates are supposed to represent.

I thank the hon. Member for Kettering very much for introducing this subject. I believe him to be quite right to say that the prospects of our joining the Common Market are still comparatively remote and I believe that many changes will have to be made in Europe before it will be safe for us to join.

11.37 a.m.

Mr John Peel (Leicester, South-East)

I thank the hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) for raising this subject. There is nobody in the House better able to initiate such a debate. As the House knows, he has recently been elected President of the Assembly of the Council of Europe, to which he will bring great distinction, and his speech was fully up to the great office which he now fills.

I was also very interested by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke). As I have been a Whip on the Council of Europe delegation for some time, I assure my hon. Friend that all delegates represent themselves. I would also like to say, and I am sure that I shall get an echo of sympathy from the other side of the House, that a Whip on the Council of Europe has even less authority over the delegates than a Whip has over hon. Members in the House of Commons. In view of what has happened over the last week or two, I am sure that any Whips who are present on the other side of the House will have sympathy with that statement.

Sir G. de Freitas

And abstentions are recorded at the Council of Europe, according to the procedure there.

Mr. Peel

The hon. Gentleman is quite correct, of course.

Today, one hears many suggestions, much advice and many recommendations coming from us and our European friends, but perhaps more from us, to say that many parts of the world would be more stable and better off if they could get together and co-operate more. Many hon. Members constantly suggest that there should be federation, confederation or union of some sort in one or other part of the world and that that would be beneficial for that area.

That seems to be slightly hypocritical on our part since federation, confederation, or some other form of union in Europe seems, from our point of view, as far away as ever, and this is tragic. I cannot help feeling that unless Europe can co-operate much more closely than it is the peace of the world will not be safe,. Only when Europe really buries her ancient feuds and pulls together will we see a more stable, peaceful, happier and more prosperous world. I am, therefore, unashamedly pro-European. Britain is part of Europe and it is absurd to talk about Britain in any other way. As part of Europe, we must help Europe and Europe must help us to forge much closer ties as quickly as possible.

I very much welcome the new Foreign Secretary, because I believe him to be a good European. I trust that, in his new, onerous and responsible office, he will continue to speak loud and clear of the necessity for the closer co-operation of Europe and for Europe to get together through the Common Market. I hope that in his new office he will not become just a rather pale reflection of his master's double-talk voice on the subject of Europe and that——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I hope that the hon. Member will confine his remarks to the subject of the debate, which is the Council of Europe.

Mr. Peel

With respect, I suggest that Britain's rôle in the Council of Europe will be greatly assisted and that we will find much greater co-operation coming from our friends in that organisation if Her Majesty's Government speak clearly about the desire of Britain to get closer to Europe. That is what I hope the new Foreign Secretary will do and will persuade his boss to do.

I come to a bread and butter point of considerable importance. It is right and proper that Parliamentary delegations to the Assembly should, from time to time, want to entertain each other, and this does happen. The British delegation was recently entertained by the French and German delegations. It would be right and proper for a great country like Britain to return that hospitality in a proper way. However, I have seen signs of a niggling meanness in the attitude of Her Majesty's Government in this respect.

I am not making a party point because this has applied to Governments of both complexions in this country. It is partly due to bureaucracy and to the fact that this House, in certain directions, does not control as much as it should of its own representations. For example, it is not satisfactory that Parliamentarians, should have to turn to Government Departments for a vote for entertainment. It would be more appropriate for there to be a Parliamentary vote, under the control of this sovereign House, for what we, as a body of Parliamentarians, do in entertaining our Parliamentary friends abroad.

I am glad to say that I see signs of Parliament having its own secretariat. It is starting in a very small way and I would like to see it go further, with a Parliamentary vote which would be entirely within the control of Parliament for the use of entertaining and returning the hospitality of our friends abroad. We should not have time-wasting, niggling arguments going on between the leader of our delegation and a Whitehall Department about whether or not we can afford to entertain. This would greatly help both our prestige and our work, not only in the Council of Europe but in Western European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Parliamentarians' Conference.

11.45 a.m.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams (Hornchurch)

My qualification for speaking in this de-Abate is that until two months ago I was vice-chairman of the Council of European National Youth Committees, a body which is composed of 17 national youth committees from Europe and which has very close and successful relations with the Council of Europe. Without wishing to involve Mr. Speaker in the debate, I hope that he will permit me to mention that he was very active in this sphere. This co-operation was brought about by the magnificent work which the Council of Europe has been doing in the Experimental Youth Centre and its out-of-school work and activities. Mr. Speaker knows something of this work.

This side of the work of the Council of Europe is little appreciated or understood in the United Kingdom. I therefore welcome this debate so that attention may be drawn to this aspect. This approach by the Council of Europe, in conjunction with the Senate, is encouraging and is incalcating the right attitudes among young people. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give every support to the Experimental Youth Centre in Strasbourg. I have been there on two occasions and can vouch for its good work.

An aspect which has aroused considerable concern in the Council of European National Youth Committees is the fact that whatever happens on the other side of European co-operation—in relation to the Common Market, and so on—there will always be a need for a body like the Council of Europe. It is wrong to look upon it as a white elephant, because the Council of Europe can, and, I hope, in time will, speak for the whole of Europe.

One of the most interesting things we have been trying to do through the Central Youth Centre and the Council of Europe is to make contact with Eastern and Central Europe on the youth, juridical and trade levels. Already, the Council of Europe has built up impressive contacts and I pay tribute to its General Secretary, a former Member of this House, Mr. Peter Smithers, and to the hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas). We certainly have a British presence in the Council of Europe and we should take advantage of this unique position.

In many other spheres the Council of Europe has made a firm impression, but no more firm than in its activities for youth. I pay tribute to the organisation for the lead it has taken in this sphere and urge Her Majesty's Government to give every support to this side of the Council's work, which is most positive work for the future.

11.49 a.m.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mrs. Eirene White)

It is significant that the first public statement made by my right hon. Friend the new Foreign Secretary was his declaration before the British public on television last night that he was a good European, as the hon. Member for Leicester, South-East (Mr. Peel) said.

We are particularly fortunate that this brief debate was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Fretias,) because we wish to extend our hearty congratulations to him on his election as President—I understand that this office carries a three-year term—of the Consultative Assembly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Gordon Walker) is now to lead the United Kingdom Delegation.

The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) asked about the status of those who go to the Council of Europe, and was perfectly correctly informed by his hon. Friend that those going there speak for themselves. They do not speak for the Government of their country nor, directly, for the Parliament of their country, but as members of the Parliament of their country. It is true that they are chosen through the usual channels, but I have just been looking at the list of our present representation and find that we have 18 full representatives and 17 substitute representatives. They are a fairly broadly-based selection. When I say that from our side we have the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short), I am sure that the hon. Member will agree that it is a wide and representative group. I would not care to say anything about the representation on the other side, but I have every reason to suppose that it is equally broadly based. I should also like to pay my tribute to our hon. Friends on both sides who work very hard on the Council of Europe—some of whom are present now. They are represented on 11 committees and 21 sub-committees or working parties. We have a number of rapporteurs from the United Kingdom from time to time; in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) is especially active as rapporteur of the very important Political Committee.

Those who go to the Council of Europe speak for themselves, but they give advice to the Council of Ministers—the inter-governmental body—which, in turn makes recommendations to Governments, mostly in the form of international conventions to which Governments are asked to subscribe. The Council also sponsors special meetings of European Ministers concerned with special spheres of activity. For example, Ministers of Justice, or their equivalent, have just been meeting, and we hope that they will come to London in 1968. Ministers of Education and Ministers of Transport all meet together in the general committees of the Council, and I am sure that their deliberations are helpful. I believe that we are also to act as hosts in the very near future to a meeting of local authorities of Europe in October. The representatives meet in a room in this Palace of Westminster.

The main instruments for putting into effect the results of the deliberations of the Council are the conventions. Since the Council's inauguration, some 50 conventions have been adopted, and the United Kingdom has quite a good record in adhering to them and endeavouring to put them into effect. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has mentioned one that is especially valuable—the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the United Kingdom was the first signatory, in 1951. Very recently we have accepted the optional clauses which, among other things, give petitioners the right of individual direct access. This is rather interesting, perhaps, in relation to our own concern here with a Parliamentary Commissioner or ombudsman for the United Kingdom. When we think of his functions we might look at the other possibilities open to petitioners to the European organisation. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security has recently decided that we should ratify the European Act of Social Security. We have one slight minor reservation but, otherwise, we can be in full compliance with that measure.

Others we find a little more difficult. There is, for instance, the European agreement for the abolition of visas for refugees. We cannot go all the way there, but we have decided to waive visa charges for refugees resident in European countries. Another topical matter is that in January, 1965 we signed the European agreement for the prevention of broadcasts from stations outside national territories. My right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General has now brought forward his Marine &c. Broadcasting (Offences) Bill which, when it is passed into law will mean that we shall be able to ratify yet another conventional agreement. All this goes to show that the lengthy deliverations in the Council of Europe—sometimes those who attend feel that they are a little too lengthy—can emerge into conventions which are of real use in drawing the attention of Governments to things that need to be done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has drawn attention to the new arrangements that have been made for drawing up a specific work programme to try to bring greater order into the labours of the Council of Europe. I am sure that we would all like to acknowledge the hard work done by a former Member of the House, Mr. Peter Smithers, in trying to make certain that the work of the Council of Europe is effective. We welcome this move to a work programme as a real effort to set up priorities, to define areas where agreement is likely, and to prune activities that are less essential or are being undertaken by other bodies.

If we have any complaint at all it is, perhaps, that the work programme does not go quite far enough. There is always a danger in these organisations of proliferation of committees and diffusion of energy. It means that one must constantly be on guard, and Members themselves should exercise self-discipline, otherwise there can be very grave waste of time and effort—and of expense, I might add, because a very large staff is employed by these bodies, and paid for, of course, by the taxpayers of the various countries concerned.

One has also to guard against the danger of overlapping. There are many international organisations now and, especially in the economic field, there is some slight possibility, to put it no higher, that the Council of Europe may be trying to do things that other bodies are there to do, and can more effectively. Similarly, in the cultural field, one must be on one's guard to keep in mind that admirable as are many of the cultural activities of the Council of Europe, there are other bodies in this sector, such as U.N.E.S.C.O. We must make sure that there is no duplication of activity. The Government therefore warmly welcome the effort to look at this work rationally and constructively by means of a work programme, which is to be debated annually, I understand, at the same time as the Budget.

My hon. Friend spoke of a more effective European presence in the United Nations. I am not quite clear what he meant by that. The United Nations is a very much larger world family, and although the United Kingdom is co-chairman with the French of a group of West Europeans, and others, one should be careful about being too exclusively European in the society of the United Nations——

Sir G. de Freitas

I was referring to that fact in the context in which we tend to be the rich countries——