RHODESIA (Hansard, 27 January 1966)

§ Q1. Mr. William Hamilton
asked the Prime Minister if he will now make a further statement on progress towards international agreement on the imposition of an oil embargo on Southern Rhodesia; and whether, pending such an agreement, he will take steps to stop oil supplies to Rhodesia by the British Petroleum Company.

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)
I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made in this House on 20th December last.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Can my right hon. Friend say whether he is satisfied with the attitude of Portugal and South Africa in this matter? Will he care to voice any view as to the accuracy of Mr. Smith's claim that he is getting oil from elsewhere but from sources he did not himself reveal?

§ The Prime Minister
I dealt with this the other day. The answer is certainly yes, and I certainly can give no support to the statement made which my hon. Friend has quoted.

§ Q2. Mr. Wall
asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the situation in Rhodesia.

§ Q6. Mr. Rowland
asked the Prime Minister what further measures he proposed to take to bring the rebellion in Rhodesia to an end.

§ The Prime Minister
I would refer hon. Members to the statement I made to the House on Tuesday.

§ Mr. Wall
Is the Prime Minister aware that at present sanctions are having the opposite effect to those intended and are banding together white Rhodesians while causing black Rhodesians to blame him for loss of jobs and for hunger? Will he explain the difference between direct rule and Governor's rule, as the Governor is responsible to the Secretary of State?

§ The Prime Minister
The hon. Member is entitled to his opinions which were formed long before the facts were formed, but so far as the last question is concerned, this was fully explained on Tuesday.

§ Mr. Rowland
Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some business circles in Salisbury there are some people who believe that the tougher the sanctions the better because they will have the effect of bringing this affair to an end quicker?

§ The Prime Minister
I think it is generally agreed in the House that the policy we are pursuing is the right one for the results we are agreed upon.

§ Mr. Evelyn King
As one who has so far supported sanctions, may I ask the Prime Minister if he can confirm the impression I have recently derived from Mr. Smith and other de facto Ministers that up to last week Mr. Smith's Government were prepared to make substantial, very substantial, concessions to meet the will of this House? Is the Prime Minister further aware that the statement he made on 25th January not only would not be acceptable to Mr. Smith but to scarcely any responsible European in Rhodesia? Is he also aware that if this is his last word there will be many hon. Members on this side of the House who will be unable to support sanctions any longer?

§ The Prime Minister
Hon. Members will have to make up their minds and take responsibility for that when they have done so. As to the statements the hon. Member put in the question, I am not impressed by any of the views he 393 expressed. Certainly nothing said publicly or privately by Mr. Smith, as reported to me, suggests that he has any idea of concessions which would be remotely acceptable to the vast majority of hon. Members of this House.

§ Dame Irene Ward
May I ask the right. hon. Gentleman whether he does not think that in the British Parliament, irrespective of all others, the case for Mr. Smith ought to be stated, here in this House?

§ The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady very much underrates the contributions made by some of her hon. Friends. In case she thinks it has not been made, I shall be pleased to send her a copy of Punch.

§ Mr. Ennals
Is the Prime Minister aware that some of those who very recently spoke to Mr. Smith gained the impression that the only terms on which he wished to have discussions with the British Government were on the assumption that we already regarded his regime as an independent Government? Is he further aware that there are very many responsible people in Rhodesia who were waiting for just the sort of statesmanlike statement that he made on Tuesday, and can he tell us what steps are being taken to ensure that that statement is known and understood in Rhodesia?

§ The Prime Minister
With regard to the first part of the Question, of course I agree with my hon. Friend and I said so in my remarks on Tuesday. With regard to the point that he has just put, I understand that, perhaps unusually, the statement made in the House on Tuesday was, in fact, allowed to be published in the Rhodesia Herald.

§ Q3. Mr, Ian Lloyd
asked the Prime Minister what estimate he has made of the total cost to the British economy of the imposition of sanctions on Rhodesia.

§ Q5. Sir Ian Orr-Ewing
asked the Prime Minister what is the total cost to all Government departments to the latest convenient date of assistance to and operations in East and Central Africa since the unilateral declaration of independence on 11th November.

§ Q13. Brigadier Clarke
asked the Prime Minister if he will give an estimate of 394 the cost to this country of sanctions against Rhodesia to date, including the loss of trade incurred by British firms.

§ The Prime Minister
As to the cost to the economy as a whole, I have nothing to add to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to a Question by the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) on 3rd December; the additional costs to Government Departments up to 31st December, 1965, however, amount to just over £1 million.

§ Mr. Lloyd
Since the major cost is not the cost to Government Departments but the cost to the country as a whole, will the Prime Minister not enlist the assistance of institutions such as the Confederation of British Industries, the Electrical Manufacturers' Association and many hundreds of others who could canvass their members and give him a clear, precise and, possibly, dramatic idea of what the cost is?

§ The Prime Minister
They might not be able to calculate the even more dramatic costs of what would have happened if we had pursued a different policy, and what the cost would have been to this country if we were to have lost the very important copper supplies from areas to the north.

§ Brigadier Clarke
Does the Prime Minister realise that the costs cannot be measured in pounds, shillings and pence? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Does he further realise that it will be entirely his responsibility if we have a lot of starving Africans on our hands and chaos in that country brought about by his own actions?

§ The Prime Minister
On the first point made by the hon. and gallant Member, the Question that he put down, Question No. 13, did seem to imply that he wanted an answer in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. But I very much agree that one cannot evaluate these things purely in terms of money.

§ Mr. Heath
This is a constitutional, economic, human and, indeed, a moral problem. Ought not the Government to make an attempt to present the economic cost, because surely that will strengthen the Prime Minister's hand in impressing other countries with the length of the 395 steps that we have been prepared to take in order to try and secure a solution to the problem? I should have thought that it was a serious matter with which the Government ought to attempt to deal.

§ The Prime Minister
I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman says that this is a moral problem. He will remember that I tried to tell him that in the debate just before Christmas. I certainly agree that in these discussions with other countries, many of which are making a contribution proportionately just as great as our own, it is important to make clear to them as far as we can exactly what is involved for all of us. We have done that, but it is very difficult to measure in exact terms what the cost is outside the cost which falls on Government Departments.

§ Mr. Shinwell
Does my right hon. Friend not appreciate that there appears to be an assumption on the opposite benches that we started the trouble? Can he clarify the position? Was it not Mr. Smith?

§ The Prime Minister
It was fairly generally recognised that we did everything in our power to avoid this situation, and many facts that have come to light since have underlined that, not the least the fact that the petrol rationing documents were dated 25th October, the day before I arrived in Salisbury.

§ Q4. Mr. Ian Lloyd
asked the Prime Minister what representations he has received from the oil industry on the implementation of oil sanctions against Rhodesia; and what reply he has sent.

§ The Prime Minister
None, Sir, but Departments are in constant touch with the oil companies, who are of course complying with the Order-in-Council and co-operating in the air and surface lifts for Zambia.

§ Mr. Lloyd
Was the Prime Minister advised that before he imposed oil sanctions at least two of the oil companies with major responsibilities for oil supplies in Southern Africa were South African registered companies which then and now would be bound to take their instructions from Cape Town rather than Whitehall?

§ The Prime Minister
There were rather broader considerations to take into 396 account than that in the particular week in which the oil sanctions were imposed. May I say that we have had the very fullest support from oil companies in touch with the British Government, and the same is true of those in touch with the American Government. With regard to the difficult problem of those companies registered in South Africa, it is very much in our minds and we are in constant touch with their associates in this country on those problems. In view of the attitude of the South African Government, I am bound to say that the difficulties have been much less, thanks to the attitude of South Africa, than the hon. Gentleman might have expected.

§ Sir D. Walker-Smith
Is the position still the same as we were told it was on 21st December, that is to say, that Britain is the only country in which the imposition of oil sanctions has the force of law and that in every other country it is buttressed only by exhortation?

§ The Prime Minister
The law is that no one can import oil into Rhodesia and that has the force of law on supplies from all parts of the world. It is the case that no other country has placed an export ban on oil, but most of the problems here are affected by the fact that most oil supplying countries have themselves placed a ban on the export of their oil to Rhodesia. What I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind is those oil companies who do not come from oil supplying countries but act as distributors. In most of those cases there is no such law binding on them in their own countries, but they are following the law that we made.