§ Q12. Mr. Raphael Tuckasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the present situation regarding Great Britain's entry into the Common Market.
§ The Prime MinisterI have nothing to add to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on 1st June to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick).—[Vol. 747, c. 253.]
§ Mr. Raphael TuckWould my right hon. Friend consider conferring the Order of the Garter upon President de Gaulle for having saved Britain from herself?
§ The Prime MinisterAs my hon. Friend will know, recommendations to Her Majesty about the Order of the Garter do not lie in the hands of the Prime Minister.
Mr. Edward M. TaylorDoes not the Prime Minister regard it as regrettable, if not intolerable, that we should have made application without giving any indication to the people of Scotland of how membership of the Common Market would affect them? Will he direct the Secretary of State for Scotland to issue a White Paper giving the information?
§ The Prime MinisterMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was involved in the issuance of the White Paper jointly laid before the House by himself and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In the three days' debate all relevant considerations were capable of being debated and the House made its decision.
§ Mr. EnglishIn his forthcoming discussions with the President of France on the Common Market, will my right hon. Friend raise the issue of what would happen if we ceded a portion of our sovereignty to an international institution whose composition may be determined in part by Governments who have come into power unlawfully according to their own law, such as the President's?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, I was not proposing to raise such questions with the President of France. On the question of sovereignty and the legal and juridical implications in relation to the proposal, fairly lengthy statements have been made to the House. No doubt my hon. Friend will have seen the White Paper recently laid by Her Majesty's Government.
§ Mr. HeathIf negotiations begin in Brussels, which Minister taking part in them will report directly to the House of Commons?
§ The Prime MinisterReports to the House of Commons will be made by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
§ Mr. HeathWill it not be very unsatisfactory that there will be no Minister taking part giving a personal report to the House of Commons? The Foreign Secretary, under the announcement made by the Prime Minister, will not be handling the day-to-day negotiations and, therefore, will be giving an indirect report to the House of Commons. Ought 794 not the Minister to be in the House of Commons instead of in the House of Lords?
§ The Prime MinisterI must say that I like that coming from the Chief Whip of a Government whose Foreign Secretary was in the House of Lords for three years. The answer to this question is that, having considered very carefully the experience to be learned from the last occasion in the Brussels negotiations, we felt it right to have a resident Minister in Brussels—a resident Minister who happens to be a member of another place. It is our hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary himself will be able to take part in the periodic discussions and to report to the House; but we believe that there should be a Minister resident there. I think that the failure to have one there on previous occasions was one of the difficulties we had.
§ Mr. HeathAs the Prime Minister prides himself on accuracy, I am sure he will recall that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alex Douglas-Home) was Foreign Secretary in the Lords I was Lord Privy Seal with him at the Foreign Office carrying out negotiations in Brussels and, therefore, able to report to the House of Commons directly about the negotiations. That is surely the method which ought to have been employed this time.
§ The Prime MinisterCertainly the right hon. Gentleman was Lord Privy Seal, but even he will concede that even in those days there were very many wide issues on foreign affairs on which it would have been right to have had a Foreign Secretary reporting to the House, going right outside those negotiations.
§ Mr. SpeakerMr. Maxwell.
§ Mr. ShinwellCould I ask my right hon. Friend a serious question?
§ Mr. SpeakerI have great admiration for the right hon. Gentleman, but I did not call him. Mr. Maxwell.
§ Mr. MaxwellWould my right hon. Friend tell the House what news he has as to when our application to enter the Common Market will be considered, having regard to the fact that the Foreign Ministers of the E.E.C., because of the grave situation in the Middle East, had 795 to postpone consideration of our application?
§ The Prime MinisterMy hon. Friend will know about the difficulties which arose yesterday because of the bursting of the Middle East crisis. There are hopes, I think, that the Foreign Ministers will be getting together in the very near future when our application will arise.
§ Mr. HastingsIn view of the Prime Minister's long reconnaissance around Europe, can he say whether he fully anticipated General de Gaulle's reaction to our application?
§ The Prime MinisterThe hon. Gentleman must realise that it was not possible to get any clear answer out of General de Gaulle on this question until we made an application. That was his attitude. It was the attitude of the Six. If we had said that we were not going to make an application until he said that we would be accepted in, there would never have been an application. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] There would never have been an application, because he and the rest of the Six were unwilling to rule on it until there was an application. That was the advice we had from the Leader of the Opposition, and it was sound advice for a very long period of time. I certainly have not accepted that we have been turned down by the President of France, which is what seems to underly the hon. Gentleman's question.
§ Mr. ShinwellCould I ask my right hon. Friend a serious question? Can he explain why, in these important negotiations which are about to take place and which fundamentally concern the interests of our Commonwealth, with which we are closely associated, no Minister from the Commonwealth Relations Office is to take part in the negotiations?
§ The Prime MinisterI think that my right hon. Friend is misinformed about this. When formal negotiations take place my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be accompanied by whatever Ministers are necessary for the particular subject under discussion, whether it happens to be agriculture, including Scottish agriculture or other Scottish questions, or whether it happens to be Commonwealth matters. Whatever Ministers are relevant will be accompanying my right hon. Friend.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We are past Question Time.