RHODESIA (Hansard, 29 November 1966)

§ Q4. Mr. William Hamilton
asked the Prime Minister what plans he has to visit Rhodesia.

§ Q12. Mr. Fisher
asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about the Rhodesian talks.

§ Q15. Sir Knox Cunningham
asked the Prime Minister what further proposals he intends to make in order to bring about a solution of the present constitutional position in Rhodesia.

§ The Prime Minister
I have no present plans to visit Rhodesia, but the House will wish to know that Sir Morrice James left last night for Salisbury to see the Governor and, under his auspices, to clarify certain issues which have arisen from my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary's report to the Government on his recent discussions in Salisbury.
As to the other points, I would ask hon. Members to await the early statement I have promised to the House.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be very grave misgivings on this side of the House if he or any other Minister again travels to Salisbury to be merely an accessory to Mr. Smith's prolonged and rather cunning procrastination? Will he give a categorical assurance that the timetable agreed at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference will be strictly adhered to?

§ The Prime Minister
As for my hon. Friend's reference to procrastination, the timetable or programme was laid down in the communiqué following the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, where it was understood and agreed that we would make one final effort to try to reach a settlement within the terms of the six principles and that, failing that, certain action would be taken. We are adhering to that programme so that, therefore, even if anyone wanted to procrastinate, it would not be possible—and I readily give this assurance to the House —because of the fact that we are adhering to what was agreed at the Conference.

§ Mr. Fisher
Will the Prime Minister assure the House that there will be adequate time for hon. Members both to consider the documents before a debate and to debate the matter before there is any approach to the United Nations?

§ The Prime Minister
We will do our best in this matter. Certainly the discussion across the Floor of the House last Thursday was against a slightly different time-scale from what was then envisaged. It is very difficult to give categorical 208 assurances here, but certainly it would be my intention that no irrevocable commitment would have been made in this matter until the House had had a chance to debate the matter. This is what I very much hope we shall be able to achieve, but I would not want to give the assurance that there would not be the beginning of the activation of the machinery envisaged under the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' communiqué.

§ Sir Knox Cunningham
Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that great numbers of people in this country believe that this is a matter which should be settled between Rhodesia and ourselves and that they are firmly opposed to it going to the United Nations?

§ The Prime Minister
Of course, we have throughout said that this is a matter which we want to keep within our own control and to settle between Rhodesia and ourselves, but of course a situation arises if after prolonged discussion there is not an acceptance in Rhodesia of the only conditions which this House could possibly tolerate for its settlement—all parties in this House. So far as recourse to the United Nations is concerned. I think there has been some misunderstanding, inevitable perhaps, between a decision to hand over legal sovereignty of Rhodesia to the United Nations—which is not in contemplation—or to say that we cannot solve the problem, let the United Nations decide it—which again is not in contemplation—as compared with the action envisaged in the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' communiqué where, in order to make sanctions work as we are working them and some countries are not, it is desirable to have common United Nations action to make those sanctions effective.

§ Mr. Kelley
Will my right hon. Friend agree that there is now a possibility of approaching people in Rhodesia of alternative political ideals to those of the present régime to try to obtain a settlement by virtue of that approach?

§ The Prime Minister
When my right hon. Friend was in Salisbury early in October he had the opportunity of discussing with representatives of very wide-ranging political opinions in Rhodesia this possibility. He was not able to see Mr. Nkomo or Mr. Sithole but he spoke to a number of like-minded people. 209 I do not think those soundings suggested that there is any immediate settlement possible on the basis suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. Kelley).

§ Mr. Heath
Is the Prime Minister aware that he will have the support, certainly of everyone on this side of the House and I believe in the greater part of the House, so long as he continues efforts to reach agreement by negotiations, but that we shall certainly try to dissuade him from interfering with those efforts by any idea of a particular time or dateline?

§ The Prime Minister
In the first place, in depends on what the right hon. Gentleman means by negotiations. We have been over that argument before. So far as timing is concerned, in so far as there has been—and there has been—a small movement in the last few days I hope the right hon. Gentleman does not underrate the importance of having fixed a programme and a timetable in getting that degree of movement. We would require a good deal more movement yet before we saw the possibility of the kind of agreement envisaged in the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' communiqué. I am not sure that it was helpful to this when the right hon. Gentleman at the end of the Conference condemned the timetable and used words which may have been taken by some people in Rhodesia as an invitation to reject the propositions of the Conference.

§ Mr. Heath
There was certainly no invitation to anybody to reject the idea of a negotiated settlement, but is the Prime Minister aware that even those opposed to Mr. Smith, like Sir Roy Welensky, who was on television last night, say that any question of insistence on an ultimatum, programme, or dateline would certainly not produce an agreement? What we want the Prime Minister to do is to continue to work for a negotiated settlement.

§ The Prime Minister
I am quite sure that if there had been a timetable related to the end of December instead of the end of November, we would have got the movement we got last weekend round about Christmas-time. The right hon. Gentleman with his long experience 210 of negotiations should not under-rate the importance sometimes of helping to concentrate the mind of a person with whom one is negotiating. This I believe we have done. We have yet to see whether it will reap the results which I am sure so many of us in this House are hoping for.

§ Mr. Michael Foot
Does the Prime Minister think that it would assist the negotiations if the Leader of the Opposition would state without any equivocation whatever that his party stands absolutely by the six principles?

§ The Prime Minister
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman does stand by the six principles. He has stated this on a number of occasions, not on behalf of the whole of his party—he cannot—but certainly on behalf of the official leadership of the Opposition. What would help, I think, would be if he would continue to make clear that he would not envisage a settlement which did not fail to provide effective guarantees for the operation of these six principles and for a return to constitutional rule.