HC Deb 22 July 1969 vol 787 cc1493-501

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Q19. Mr. SHINWELL

To ask the Prime Minister whether the public statement by the Foreign Secretary in Brussels on 15th July, concerning a supranational system governing the Common Market, represents the policy of the Government.

Q20. Mr. RAPHAEL TUCK

To ask the Prime Minister if the public statement of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Brussels on 15th July on the Common Market represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Q21. Mrs. RENÉE SHORT

To ask the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 15th July in Brussels on the Common Market represents Government policy.

Q22. Mr. MILNE

To ask the Prime Minister whether the public statement by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on 15th July in Brussels, on the subject of the Common Market, represents Government policy.

Q24. Mr. ORME

To ask the Prime Minister whether the public statement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Brussels on 15th July on the Common Market represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Shinwell

On a point of order. With great respect, this concerns the Prime Minister and perhaps he would be kind enough to remain while I am putting the point of order. I apologise for putting the matter in that way.

Mr. Speaker, you may have observed a series of Questions at the end of the section dealing with Questions to the Prime Minister. Those Questions refer to what appears to be a conflict of opinion as between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. Some of us are anxious to obtain clarification on this issue before the Recess, since we shall have no opportunity to have the matter clarified in the House until we return some time in October.

In the circumstances, I am wondering whether, since the Prime Minister has remained to hear my point of order, he would care to clear up this apparent confusion in statements made by himself and the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Speaker

I have had no request from the Prime Minister to answer any of the later Questions except Q26, which I hope he will soon be answering.

The Prime Minister

Further to that point of order. I was not aware of any confusion. I did not know what anxieties lay behind Questions Nos. Q19 to 22 and 24. Since the answer is short, I would be happy to alleviate these anxieties by giving the answer that I would have given, that my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary made no public statement during his visit to Brussels on 15th July.

Mr. Shinwell

Further to that point of order. I am sorry to hear the Prime Minister say that the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary made no public statement. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was present at a meeting in Brussels last week, of the Monnet Group. The Monnet Group has nothing official about it; it is not related to the British Government or any other Government. The Foreign Secretary attended that meeting and made an unequivocal statement relating to our attitude on the Common Market. As this statement obviously conflicts with statements which have been repeatedly made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, surely we are entitled to some clarification.

Mr. Speaker

Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are entitled to put Questions at the appropriate place. We have not reached those Questions on the Order Paper. The right hon. Gentleman's point is not a matter for the Chair and it is not a point of order.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I would remind the House that the habit of raising points of order is growing and that points of order, genuine or not, cut into the business of the day.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

My point of order is as follows. Whether accidentally or deliberately, we have had the Answer to Questions by the Prime Minister, and it is the normal practice in Parliament that when an answer is given to a Question on the Order Paper, supplementary questions are then allowed. Here is a situation in which the House has had an answer and we are not allowed to cross-examine upon it, which is the only way Parliament can fulfil its proper rôle.

Mr. Speaker

Order. It cannot be done by points of order.

Mr. Orme

On a point of order.

Dame Irene Ward

On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Speaker can take only one point of order at a time. Dame Irene Ward.

Dame Irene Ward

I will not refer to the point of order I wanted to raise after Question Time, as you, Mr. Speaker, requested me, except to say that I did not put my question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power because in your wisdom Mr. Speaker, you did not call me to put the question.

May I raise this point of order? Would you kindly advise the House why, at this late stage, we have not yet seen the list following the ballot for those selected to raise subjects on the Consolidated Fund Bill. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, what recent practice has been. I think that you referred to this matter last week.

Mr. Speaker

I will deal with the point briefly. When I came to the Chair the ballot had been completed and my staff were typing out the result of the ballot. It happened to be rather longer because this year we have broken all records. There are 65 debates tomorrow night on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I think that the list will be up by now.

Mr. Orme

Further to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), the Prime Minister in his reply said that this was a private meeting, attended by the Foreign Secretary. I understood that the Prime Minister had given a direction that all Ministers were to follow out Government policy wherever they might be, whether it be at Brussels or at the National Executive of the Labour Party. How is it that the Foreign Secretary could make a statement in Brussels which was in contradiction of what the Prime Minister had said in the House of Commons?

Mr. Speaker

Order. It is an interesting point, but it is not a point of order. Mr. Thorpe.

Mr. Thorpe

On a point of order.

Dame Irene Ward

rose—

Mr. Speaker

I thought that I had satisfied the hon. Lady.

Dame Irene Ward

I merely wanted to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your courteous reply, which the House will be very glad to hear.

Mr. Speaker

I am so grateful.

Mr. Heath

On a point of order. Would I be right—

Hon. Members

Sit down.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The right hon. Gentleman has the right, like anyone else, to put a point of order.

Mr. Thorpe

Did I hear you correctly, Mr. Speaker, to call me on a point of order just before the hon. Lady rose?

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman has reminded me that I did. I interrupted the proceedings to have a gracious conversation with the hon. Lady. Mr. Thorpe.

Mr. Thorpe

On a point of order. Could you help us, Mr. Speaker, on your Ruling? When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) made certain representations the Prime Minister got up and, as far as some of us could see, was asking permission to answer some Questions. If that is so, can we take it that they then become normal Questions, subject to the normal rights to ask supplementary questions.

Mr. Speaker

Two of the points of order which have since emerged were disguised supplementary questions. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. Mr. Heath.

Mr. Heath

I wished to raise the same point of order, Sir. The House is in the position that the Prime Minister has been allowed to answer Questions and there have been no supplementary questions presumably because they were interrupted by the points of order which then arose. I wish to inquire when the opportunity for supplementaries will arise.

Mr. Speaker

The House will be able to help if it refrains from putting any more points of order.

Mr. Jennings

May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, and, at the same time, make a request, following what was said by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? The Prime Minister has answered a number of Questions. In view of that, may I be allowed to ask a supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member may ask one.

Mr. Jennings

Last week, in answer to a supplementary question of mine, the Prime Minister stated that I had no need to worry about the prospects of this country being committed by him to joining a federal Europe. In view of the statement by the Foreign Secretary in Brussels, who is answering for the Government—the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary?

The Prime Minister

Nothing the Foreign Secretary has said has departed in the slightest from the line taken at this Box by himself and by myself. I think that perhaps I might have misunderstood what my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington had in mind, because my information has been that such anxiety as has arisen has emanated from reports, which I do not consider to be accurate, of an unattributable Press conference and not to reports of the meeting of the Monnet Committee. That perhaps explains the misunderstanding and the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) a moment ago.

That is all I know as to what was said there. I have checked on the matter. The position is exactly as it has been in relation to any federal or political commitments in Europe. There is no change in what I have previously stated in the House is the position of the Government.

The only political implications that we are asked to assume by joining the Treaty of Rome are those structural and other provisions within the treaty itself. It carries with it no implications for other forms. On my return from Sweden I quoted with warm approval what Herr Brandt said, that if there were further moves towards political unity they would have to be done by an entirely separate organisation.

Mr. Raphael Tuck

How does my right hon. Friend reconcile the assurance which he gave me on 10th June, that as far as Great Britain was concerned a federal Europe was just "not on", with the continued membership of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary of the Monnet Committee for a United States of Europe, which has as its avowed objective a federal Europe?

The Prime Minister

There is nothing inconsistent. I have said repeatedly that there is no immediate proposal by us or by other Governments for any federal get-together or structure in Europe, and it is not involved in any way by our application to join the Treaty of Rome. Some right hon. and hon. Members look forward to a federal Europe very many years from now. I believe that to be very hypothetical. It does not fit in with the general opinion of this House or the country as an immediate proposition. I have often quoted the late Hugh Gaitskell on that point. On the other hand, it may come in the much more distant future, and there is nothing inconsistent between the present position and the work of the Monnet Committee.

Mrs. Renée Short

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the concern of many right hon. and hon. Members about the alleged statement of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in Brussels stems from the fact that my right hon. Friend consistently refuses to give us information which we ask for consistenly, namely, the cost to this country of entry into the Common Market?

Is my right hon. Friend aware that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary told me on 23rd June that it would do a disservice to the House to give a detailed calculation on the cost of entry; yet, a few days afterwards, we read in the Press that a Government survey is carrying out a statistical investigation and that the estimate of agricultural costs alone to this country is between £400 and £500 million a year—

Mr. Speaker

Order. We cannot have a speech disguised as a supplementary question.

Mrs. Short

Is it surprising, therefore, that we are very concerned about the whole question?

The Prime Minister

My hon. Friend is being less than fair to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I myself have answered many questions about the cost and the impossibility in present circumstances of making an accurate estimate of costs, particularly since we cannot forecast what changes there will be in the Common Agricultural Policy.

I have already informed the House that references to a certain article in a newspaper about a fortnight ago as being a Government document are without foundation. There has been no Government document giving that information.

Mr. Maudling

Is it not a fact that the Foreign Secretary attended this meeting not as Foreign Secretary, but as a representative of the Labour Party? Would the Prime Minister confirm that the views both of the Labour Party and of the Government not only on federation, but on the supranational powers of any institution, are no more than anything that he has said in the House?

The Prime Minister

That is the position of the Government and of my right hon. Friend. Every Foreign Minister and other Ministers from a number of countries who attend the Monnet Committee do so in a personal capacity or representing their parties and not representing their Governments. This has been the position for very many years.

As for that meeting, my right hon. Friend answer a Question about it on 21st July, put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). But I thought that the anxiety—this is why I sought to answer the Questions; I was concerned about what my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said—arose not from what was said in that confidential meeting, but from what was said and, I think, unfairly reported as a result of an unattributable Press conference. I thought it right to put the record straight so that my hon. Friends should feel less anxious about what they read.

Mr. Peyton

Since when have Ministers had anything other than an official capacity? How can it be that the Foreign Secretary can attend the meeting in a purely personal capacity? This arises directly out of what the Prime Minister has just said. I had no intention of intervening in these exchanges until he made that extraordinary remark.

The Prime Minister

There are abundant precedents for that kind of meeting. But, as the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said, although it was a confidential meeting, I know that my right hon. Friend did not at that meeting or any other attempt in any capacity to go beyond what has been said repeatedly by me in this House, or beyond the policy of the Government. I have that from my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Molloy

Now that we seem to be getting into all sorts of difficulties with regard to the nuclear deterrent and to being part of a federated Europe, does not my right hon. Friend consider that we ought to make a clean break and a fresh start? Does not my right hon. Friend consider, further, that he ought to make a public statement to the effect that we will have nothing to do with the Common Market and that we will look again at our position vis-à-vis Europe?

Mr. Maudling

This meeting was confidential. I was there, and I do not intend to reveal what happened. But is it right for the Prime Minister to say what was the attitude taken by his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary at a confidential meeting?

The Prime Minister

I thought that I was repeating what the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said. If I had misunderstood him, I regret it. I thought that he said that my right hon. Friend stuck throughout to the line adopted by the Government. If he excluded the confidential meeting from that, which is quite fair, I regret the misunderstanding.

Mr. Thorpe

Whatever one's views for or against the Common Market, would the Prime Minister agree that nothing would be more disastrous than for us to be thought to take one view in Europe and a different one in this House and the country? Is he aware that during the meeting of the Monnet Committee there was a discussion on the Hallstein proposals for political integration? Since the Prime Minister has mentioned the nature of the discussions which took place in those talks, is he aware that the Foreign Secretary, as a result of close questioning, led all those present to believe that the Government had no reservations upon that matter?

The Prime Minister

All I know is that my right hon. Friend at all times has stood firmly on the line that we have taken as a Government in all these matters.

Mr. English

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that when he says he does not wish to go into the federal Europe he means that he does not wish to see the E.E.C. structure democratised, for example, in the way that Dr. Hallstein has suggested?

The Prime Minister

The only commitments of my right hon. Friend and myself on the question of entering the Common Market is that we accept the political institutions included in the Treaty of Rome. I have heard Professor Hallstein seek to make proposals going beyond the Treaty of Rome. That is a matter for him. He is free to do so. But it is not what we are committed to in our application.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The Prime Minister to answer Question No. Q26.