§ Mr. Ronald King MurrayI beg to move, Amendment No. 450, in page 20, line 1, leave out from 'means' to end of line 2 and insert:
'a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers'.
The Temporary ChairmanIt would be for the convenience of the Committee if with Amendment No. 450 we discussed Amendment No. 451, in line 3, leave out from first 'obligation' to the end of line 5 and insert:
'includes enforceable Community obligations within the meaning of section 2(1) of this Act, obligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community law, and other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties which are enforceable in law'.and Amendment No. 54, in line 4, leave out:'whether an enforceable Community obligation or not'.
§ Mr. MurrayIt might be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to indicate the object of these Amendments, as I see it. First, Amendment No. 451 is similar in objective to Amendment No. 450, which seeks to change the definition of a phrase outlined in this part of the Schedule. Both of these Amendments have it in mind to criticise existing definitions. The first definition, dealt with by Amendment No. 450, is the definition of "Community instrument". The second definition, the subject of Amendment No. 451, is the definition of "Community obligation".
This objective is shared with Amendment No. 54. The drafter of these Amendments undoubtedly intended that Amendment No. 133 should be taken with Amendment No. 54. Unfortunately, it has not been selected, but in order to 278 see the sense of Amendment No. 54, one has to refer to Amendment No. 133 along with it. It also have the objective of Amendment No. 451, in so far as it is seeking to change the definition of "Community obligation".
5.30 p.m.
It might be convenient if I start at the end and refer to Amendments Nos. 133 and 54. If they were given effect to, it would mean that "Community obligation" was re-defined so that it would read:
'Community obligation' means any enforceable obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties".
The Temporary ChairmanOrder. I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that Amendment No. 133 was not called; nor was it suggested that it should be discussed with Amendment No. 450, the Chairman's reason being that it is out of order.
§ Mr. MurrayThank you for your guidance, Sir Alfred. I am not concerned to dispute any of that. I merely wanted to show the sense of the Amendment. Whether the Amendment is in order or out of order, we must consider the sense of it and then consider whether the jurisdiction that we can apply as a Committee is to be exercised for or against the Amendment selected. The sense of the Amendment is to seek to redefine "Community obligation" so as to make it clear that it applies only to enforceable Community obligations. That we are not allowed to do, for reasons of order. It is not for me to discuss the propriety of that or the desirability of our debate being restricted in that way. As matters stand, therefore, when we come to make an executive decision on the Amendment, the only choice we have is to decide for or against Amendment No. 54, bearing in mind that it was part of a process of trying to narrow the description of "Community obligation" so as to make it restricted to obligations which are enforceable and to exclude all others.
279 I will turn now to Amendment No. 451 and say how that is distinct from the objective of Amendment No. 54. The main point of Amendment No. 451, which I think is in order—I am happy that it is—is to seek to give a definition which is instructive and informative and which gives guidance as to what "Community obligation" means. It takes up within it the point that Amendment No. 54 seeks to bring out with the difference that, whereas Amendment No. 54 seeks to narrow the definition, Amendment No. 51 simply seeks to make the definition one that is comprehensible and that can be applied. Underlying it is the criticism that "Community obligation" as at present defined is unilluminating and gives no guidance.
With that preamble I will return to Amendment No. 450 and present shortly the argument in favour of it. In a previous debate the question of the meaning of "instrument" was raised. The reference is HANSARD, 14th June, 1972,c. 1615, towards the top of the column. In saying what is there recorded I hoped to get an answer from the Solicitor-General to the question I put; but that was one of the questions that the hon. and learned Gentleman did not answer. Perhaps the Solicitor-General will take this opportunity of dealing with that precise point.
At the top of page 20 of the Bill "community instrument" is defined as meaning
any instrument issued by a Community institution".This does not give any guidance or information, because we do not know what an instrument is. That is the word which needed to be defined. It was not necessary to define "Community" there. That is defined in Clause 1. What was needed to be defined in the Schedule was the meaning of "instrument". This has not been done.Amendment No. 450—I can leave the point after stating it this boldly and simply—gives a definition and gives a content to "instrument". The suggested definition is that "instrument" should be taken to mean—
a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers".It either means that or it does not. If it means that, why not say so? The Com- 280 mittee may feel that this Amendment could be given effect to in the Bill. If it does not mean that, let the Government say what it means. We suggest that the Government should table an Amendment to give some clear meaning to "instrument" which otherwise lurks in the obscurity which we are beginning to find all too typical of the Bill.The merits of Amendment No. 450 may be clear to the Committee. The point is a short and sharp one. I leave it to the Committee with the recommendation that the Amendment should be given effect to.
I turn shortly to the argument on Amendment No. 451 and to some extent, naturally, I shall touch upon the merits of the argument that no doubt lies behind Amendment No. 54. The definition of "Community obligation" in line three on page 20 reads as follows:
'Community obligation' means any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties…".Why make such a devious use of the English language? I should have thought that it would be more natural and idiomatic to have said "'Community obligation' means any obligation created by the treaties"—[Interruption.] I think that the simplest way of making the point is by referring to Amendment No. 451, because the language of that Amendment makes the point with complete precision. The last two lines of the Amendment uses wording which should commend itself to the normal speaker of idiomatic English. The reference is toobligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community law, and other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties…".That phraseology is greatly preferable to this rather odd analytical approach of talking aboutcreated or arising by or under the Treatiesdetaching the natural connection between "created" and "by" and the natural connection between "arising" and "under". Each verb has been detached from its suffix and the result seems to be an unfortunate and non-idiomatic use of English.However, that was an aside. It is not a matter of importance. It is simply a matter of intelligibility, but intelligibility of itself is important. The object of the 281 definition is presumably to make what it contains more intelligible.
Therefore, when one looks at the meaning of "Community obligation" one wants to see what it is intended to include. I come to the germ of the argument. This is the gist of the debate on the Amendment. The object of the amendment of the definition is to include in the definition of "Community obligation" enforceable Community obligations and also other obligations which are not enforceable Community obligations.
If this meant that a clear class of obligations was being defined, it might be of some assistance to the Committee and to the general public who will have to read the Bill if enacted. The first difficulty that arises with terms like "enforceable Community obligation" is that clearly they stem from Clause 2(1) which has been the subject of extensive debate and there has been considerable criticism in the Committee in the wording of that subsection. The first line of Clause 2 on page 2 contains a reference to
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations…So there is a reference to "obligation". In line 31 we get for the first time the combination of the words "enforceable" and "Community"; the expression "enforceable Community right" is defined in these words:'enforceable Community right' and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this subsection applies".These words are not without their obscurity, but I take it that they are intended to include, for example, the sort of obligations that are mentioned in the first line of the subsection, at line 24 of page 2. Presumably the obligations referred to there would be enforceable Community obligations, and the expression "enforceable Community obligation" would be a "similar expression" for the purposes of Clause 2(1) where it says at the end of the subsection:the expression 'enforceable Community right' and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this sub-section applies.It is unfortunate that a degree of circumlocution is needed to try to explain what is required, but this circumlocution is imposed by the wording in the subsection. In line 3, on page 20, there is the defini- 282 tion of the term "Community obligation''. The definition proceeds:any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties, whether an enforceable Community obligation or not."Community obligation" must at least include obligations arising under Clause 2(1). So we must consider what other Community obligations may be included. But before dealing with that we have to consider whether there is such a thing as an "enforceable Community obligation". The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) suggested that because of the wording in the Treaty of Rome and the wording in Clause 2(1), that is a null class, and that there are no enforceable Community rights and no enforceable Community obligations.The words used in the treaty are "directly applicable rights" and "directly applicable obligations". There is the risk therefore that if the wording of Clause 2(1) is applied it may mean that there is no content to the category of "enforceable Community obligations". Perhaps it is a null class, a class that is described but has no content. For that reason Amendment No. 451, which seeks to help the Government, to try to give some content to the words they have put in the definition part of the Schedule, supplies in the words following "Act" at least a category which obviously has some content.
The Amendment first spells out what the Government must be implying in the Bill, that is to say that "Community obligations"
includes enforceable Community obligations within the meaning of section 2(1)".If that is what they mean I cannot imagine why they did not say so, because it would have given some guidance. The words I have read out are subject to the criticism that there may be no such rights, no such obligations and nothing to fill the content of the class thus described. The words that follow "Act" then sayobligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community lawand if the Treaty of Rome is applied to the circumstances of the Bill, it will be found that there is content for that because the treaty sets up obligations that are directly applicable, particularly in Article 189.283 It is not without interest that the Bill uses the terminology "directly applicable" in later Clauses but for some reason the term is not used in Clause 2. Amendment No. 451 should therefore commend itself not only to the Committee but to the Government because it seems to say in precise terminology what the Government are trying to say in rather less precise terminology.
§ [Sir ROBERT GRANT-FERRIS in the Chair]
§ 5.45 p.m.
§
We are seeking to be helpful in trying to give the term "Community obligation" some content and we must ask what other obligations can reasonably be comprised within this definition. The last of the three elements of the suggested definition in Amendment No. 451 reads:
other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties which are enforceable in law.
It is, astonishing that the definition in the Bill,
'Community obligation' means any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties, whether an enforceable Community obligation or not",
would appear to cover obligations which are not enforceable in law. This is a tall order. What obligations are we thinking of? Are promises, letters, casual letters and unilateral undertakings to be included? We should have wanted to restrict the definition in some reasonable way to make it clear that it is intended to be restricted to obligations which are enforceable in law, even though they are not "enforceable Community obligations".
§ Again, the Amendment seems to be very reasonable and I shall be interested to see what possible objections the Government have to it. With Amendment No. 451, the Opposition are being highly constructive and for the reasons I have given I commend the Amendments.
§ Mr. Percy Grieve (Solihull)I do not believe that any lawyer in this Committee, and I doubt if any layman in this Committee, would disagree with me when I suggest that the simpler the language of drafting the more likely is the Bill, when it becomes law, to avoid difficulty when it comes before the courts 284 for interpretation. The Amendments we are discussing, in my respectful submission, err in that first and fundamental respect that they seek to substitute for the perfectly clear language of the Bill language which is infinitely more complex and which would lead to far greater difficulties when the Bill comes before the courts for interpretation.
The first stumbling block, as I understand it, which was adumbrated by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) when he dealt with Amendment No. 450 to that part of Schedule 1 which says that an instrument means any instrument issued by a Community institution, was over the word "instrument". He suggested that the word "instrument" was vague and was likely to cause great difficulties of interpretation. I hope I am not paraphrasing him unfairly. I cannot speak for the law of Scotland but the word "instrument" in the law of England has a perfectly clear meaning which has been dealt with and considered in many cases by learned judges.
I was lucky enough to obtain from the Library "Words and Phrases Judicially Defined", Volume 3, by the late Roland Burrows, in which he deals with the definition of "instrument". When I look through that, I cannot see for a moment how the word can possibly cause any difficulty if and when the first definition with which we are dealing comes before the courts. The word occurs in a number of English Statutes. It is common form in contracts, and there are a number of allusions in "Words and Phrases Judicially Defined" to the interpretation which it has received. I hope I shall not weary the Committee unduly if I cite just two or three of them, because they make perfectly plain that meaning which we all know the word "instrument" has in English law.
Under the heading "Instrument" on page 124 of Volume 3, the then Rule of the Supreme Court, LIVA, r. 1, is set out:
In any division of the High Court any person claiming to be interested under a deed, will or other written instrument may apply by originating summons for the determination of any question of construction arising under the instrument, etc.In a judgment of Mr. Justice Stirling in Mason v. Schuppisser (1899), 81 Law 285 Times, 147, he dealt with the interpretation of the word as follows:It seems to me that the word 'instrument' was meant to receive a wide construction, and that it would apply to any written document under which any right or liability, whether legal or equitable, exists. I have no doubt that it was intended to extend, and it has in fact, I believe, been applied, to the construction of such mercantile instruments as bills of lading and charterparties. In my judgment, the written contract for the sale of the lease is a written instrument within the meaning of the rule.In effect, any written document meant to have legal effect is an instrument in English law.The same appears in the construction of Section 7 of the Forgery Act, 1913, which provides that a person shall be guilty of a felony who, with intent to defraud, demands any money under, upon, or by virtue of any forged instrument.
In Reg. v. Riley [1896], 1 Queen's Bench 309, page 322, Mr. Justice Wills dealt with the interpretation of "instrument" in that Section, saying that it was
a writing which, if accepted and acted upon, would establish a business relation and lead directly to business dealings with another person. The Court is clearly of the opinion that this letter",which was the subject matter of that case, a letter seeking money, was an instrument within the meaning of that Section.Therefore, it can be seen that the word is not one which in English law should occasion the slightest difficulty. But if it were to be defined, as in the Amendment, as
a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers",we should be substituting a far less clear interpretation of "Community instrument".Another stumbling block in the mind of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith, was in the word "issued", so that it is to be confined around by the expression
a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers",I suggest once again that the original interpretation in the Bill presents no difficulties whatever. Plainly, if an instrument is issued by a Community institution not acting within its powers, that is something of which the English court examining whatever came before it, in 286 whatever cause, would take cognisance. Something which is issued illegally is something which within the law could not be said to be issued at all.Therefore, to the extent that the Amendment hedges round the original interpretation with those further clauses, suggesting that "instrument" should be only
a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers",the additional verbiage is not only unnecessary but tautologous. That which is issued must be issued legally; that which is not issued legally is not issued at all, and would not be held to be issued at all by any court which had to consider a Community instrument within the light of this definition Schedule.I turn briefly to Amendment 451. Here again the hon. and learned Gentleman is seeking to substitute for the perfectly clear language of the Schedule, which says
'Community obligation' means any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties, whether an enforceable Community obligation or not",something which is far less clear. First, instead of "means" there is substituted "includes". If it includes, what else does it mean? To have the perfectly plain word "means", with a clear meaning in the English language, is infinitely preferable. The Amendment says:includes enforceable Community obligations within the meaning of section 2(1)…,obligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community law, and other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties which are enforceable in law.All of that is comprehended within the present, much shorter definition, and the shorter definition is all-embracing and conclusive.For those reasons, I hope very much the Committee will reject Amendment No. 450 and those Amendments which go with it.
§ Mr. David Waddington (Nelson and Colne)I have been as puzzled as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) by the Amendment. I have wondered long about its purpose. I do not want to repeat what my hon. and learned Friend has already said so eloquently. It is obvious from what he has said that the word "instrument" has been 287 legally defined on plenty of occasions, and we should not be adding any clarity to the definition if we substituted for that word, which has been legally defined, a far less precise expression such as "written document", which so far as I know is almost incapable of being defined because it is so broad.
Therefore, we must ask ourselves what would be gained if we substituted for the completely clear words of the Bill the vaguer and wider term suggested by the Opposition.
But, as my hon. and learned Friend has said, the matter goes much further, because the Amendment reads:
a written document having legal effect issued by a Community institution acting within its powers".I cannot understand how on earth an English court could begin to enforce as an obligation on a citizen a written document which it concluded had been issued by a Community institution acting outside its powers. That must be obvious. It must surely be conceded by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) that a Community instrument having no legal effect must be a legal nullity and as a result would not be enforced by any court in this country.
§ 6.0 p.m.
§ Mr. PowellWe have been proceeding very fast under the guillotine and I am not sure whether my hon. and learned Friend has had time to study Clause 3, because Clause 3 appears, at any rate in subsections (3) and (4), to be designed precisely to preclude a court in this country from addressing its mind to the point at issue.
§ Mr. WaddingtonPerhaps my right hon. Friend would draw my attention to the words he is concerned with.
§ Mr. PowellYes. I am concerned with the words,
Evidence of any instrument issued…by the Community, contained in subsections (3) and (4). I find nothing there which would in itself entitle a court in this country to look into the vires of the instrument. Indeed, the wording appears to be deliberately designed to prevent the court from doing so.
§ Mr. WaddingtonI would not concede that for a moment. I should have thought that subsection (3) was dealing with an entirely different matter and was solely concerned with the nature of evidence which might be admissible in a hearing before an English court. The subject of vires is not dealt with by Clause 3 at all. Subsection (2), which was the subject of certain Amendments which unfortunately have not been discussed, assists the English courts in allowing them to take judicial notice of certain facts so that the litigant does not have to be put to the unnecessary expense of proving before the court, for instance, the very treaty itself. That is the purpose of subsection (2).
Subsection (3) is a similar provision which merely assists the court and the litigant in pointing out the sort of evidence which will be admissible before the court and might be admissible without further proof. No part of Clause 3 deals with the question of the vires of the instrument itself and no English court can be barred by any part of the Bill from examining whether an instrument on which a litigant relies has been properly promulgated by the appropriate organ of the Community.
I turn now to Amendment No. 451. I would merely say on this that to my mind the wording of the Bill at present—
'Community obligation' means any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties, whether an enforceable Community obligation or not"—is expressed in that manner so as to make clear that comprised in the expression "Community obligation" are not only obligations enforceable in the courts of this country, but also obligations imposed in this country in international law so far as its relationships with other countries are concerned. So again Amendment No. 451 does not help us towards clarity and would be a restrictive definition of "Community obligation" which would exclude those obligations which undoubtedly are imposed on member Governments by the treaties and yet are not obligations which could be enforceable in the English courts by individual citizens.
§ Mr. John Peel (Leicester, South-East)I want to address myself to Amendment No. 450. I find it difficult to understand why the hon. and learned Member for 289 Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) feels that the wording in the Bill does not cover the definition adequately. Far from not doing so, it seems to me to do it very much more adequately, if one looks at the Treaty, than the Amendment, which would narrow the definition so much that we could not fulfil our obligations under the Treaty. I should like to remind the Committee of what Article 189 says, because the whole purpose of the definition of these Community instruments is to cover a very wide range of regulations, directives, decisions, and so on, which can be made either by the Council or by the Commission. Various rules apply to these various instruments and some of them have no binding force whatever in each country. Hence the wording in Article 189,
Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force".Nevertheless, these are regarded, and rightly so, as Community instruments.Therefore, it seems to me not only totally unnecessary but quite wrong to restrict the definition of "Community instrument" to something having legal effect. If we were to restrict it in that way, we should not be fulfilling our obligations under Article 189. I believe that the definition in the Bill is entirely correct and entirely within the Treaty and is essential as it stands. The Amendment would not only restrict it unduly but would prevent us from fulfilling our duties under Article 189. I cannot see that the Amendment would help in any way. Indeed, it would definitely hinder. The definition as it stands is entirely correct and covers completely the requirements and duties under Article 189. I hope that the Committee will reject Amendment No. 450.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThe Amendments under discussion contain some distinct points which I will try and deal with separately. First, there is the group of points made on the meaning of the expression "Community instrument" and the attempt to replace that expression by the words contained in Amendment No. 450. The answer has been given by my hon. and learned Friends the Members for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) and Solihull (Mr. Grieve) and others. The change suggested is unnecessary and might be unhelpful.
290 The appearance of the phrase "Community instrument" in the Bill as something which needs to be defined is not designed to conceal any great mystery. It is a convenient expression used in a number of places, some of which have been referred to in the debate, and is no more than a shorthand way of referring to what the definition says—
any instrument issued by a Community institution".There is no mystery or need for mystery about the meaning of the word "instrument". The phrase is merely meant to identify the instrument—namely, one that comes from a Community institution. Perhaps one could almost have done without the definition and, of course, the phrase scarcely needs elaboration.To elaborate it as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) suggests might produce the wrong result. To give an example, if one were to seek to confine it to an instrument which has legal effect, which is the argument advanced, one would be deliberately excluding categories of instruments which could require analysis in the context of court proceedings, such as an opinion of the European institutions not intended to have direct legal effect. That could nevertheless be an instrument whose validity as propounded could be in question in proceedings before the English courts because in certain cases the existence or non-existence of such a preliminary opinion might be a condition precedent to the validity of the regulation.
One would want to allow for the inclusion of such an opinion in the category of Community instruments although that in itself would not have legal effect in the words contended for in the Amendment. It would be a matter forming part of the legal chain. The suggestion of the hon. and learned Member that it is a dangerous and curious thing—perhaps those are too emotive words for me to attribute to the hon. and learned Member—to allow instruments to be floating around if they do not have manifest legal validity and could raise legal doubts is to overlook the fact that Clause 3(1) is the instrument, if I may use the word in a different context, which enables English or Scots courts to determine, among other things, any question as to the validity. 291 meaning or effect of any Community instrument. No Community instrument not intended to have legal effect could have legal effect, because its validity would be called in question under that or at a later stage or in a different way before the European Court.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) made an intervention which I think he will acknowledge was answered by the reply of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne. He had suggested that subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 3 allowed an instrument to be admitted in courts in this country and for their validity not to be challenged. He will, I am sure, see that those subsections are merely familiar evidential procedures derived from the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868, which says that, all things being equal, one may produce a copy of an instrument without proof of the signature or identity of the man who signed it, but if someone comes along and says that the signature is not correct the court is able to look at the matter and it can be said that the instrument should have no validity until the point has been proved. There is no reason for this elaboration of the meaning of a Community instrument. It has been well founded on the ipsissima verba of the hon. and learned Member for Leith which he used in the debate on the last occasion.
Turning to the more important group of Amendments, which hinge on the meanings to be attached to "Community obligation" and so on, I can best deal with this by looking back to Clause 2(1). I start with the intelligibility point raised by the hon. and learned Member. Although he founded it on the appearance of the words
created or arising by or underin Schedule 1 he will find that the same words appear in the opening lines of Clause 2(1). I confess, although it is an odd thing to say, that my reaction to these alternative presentations is almost a matter of intuition and how the words seem to go together.There seem to be two methods of saying the same thing. It is plainly necessary to provide the rights which are created by or arise under the treaty because it is necessary to cover subordinate legisla- 292 tion under the treaty, by which rights are created. I find no reason to prefer the phaseology suggested by the hon and learned Member.
If we turn to the substance of the matter, the hon. and learned Member drew attention to the definition of "enforceable Community right" at page 2, line 31, and rightly interpreted that to mean that "enforceable Community obligation" is to be construed in the same way so that an enforceable Community right, or enforceable Community power or liability or whatever, are all by virtue of the provisions of Clause 2(1) rights, powers, liabilities or obligations which are created or arising by or under the treaties. In other words, they are all rights, powers, liabilities or obligations which are, in a different and more familiar jargon, "directly applicable". The use of the phrase "enforceable Community right" is convenient only because the word "right" is the first to appear at the beginning of the sentence. I dare say that some sense of draftsmanship and poetry may have impelled them to appear in that order. [Interruption.] I thought that might move the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot).
§ Mr. Michael FootIt is the best joke I have heard today.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralWe have not been doing very well today on either side of the Committee. That is where the phrase "enforceable Community right" comes from.
6.15 p.m.
If we look at the definition in Schedule 1 of "Community obligation" it will be seen that it is intended in essence to deal with two different kinds of obligation. It speaks of:
any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties".An obligation created by or arising under the treaties can be an enforceable Community obligation, namely one that is directly applicable within this country to people within this country, or it can be an obligation created by or arising under the treaties, which is effective only upon the member States. "Community obligation" means an obligation of whatever kind, whichever of those kinds it might be, created by or arising under the treaties.293 At one point I thought the hon. and learned Member was suggesting that there was no such animal as an enforceable Community right or obligation. I must have misunderstood him because I do not believe he could have been saying that.
§ Mr. Ronald King MurrayThe point I was trying to make was the one made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in dealing with Clause 2. The Solicitor-General may remember that he pointed out that literally "enforceable Community right" within the meaning of that subsection meant provisions which without further enactment had to be given legal effect. One is going back to the words "without further enactment". The point made by the right hon. Member was that the words "without further enactment" did not appear in the treaty.
§ [Mr. E. L. MALLALIEU in the Chair]
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThe hon. and learned Member is really picking up a point made by my right hon. Friend, with which I dealt in our last debate. There may or may not still be room for argument as to whether the phrase "without further enactment" is an adequate way of describing directly applicable rights, but upon the assumption, which can be made now that the Committee has approved the Clause, that this is acceptable, and upon the assumption that the hon. and learned Member believes in directly applicable rights—I do not mean as a matter of religious faith, but as a matter of credibility, in their existence—it is clear that we have to make provision for them. I rather thought that he gave examples of them. A directly enforceable Community right, for example, could be the right of someone in this country to rely upon the fact that the Community institutions had declared an agreement to be void. That would give someone the right to have it regarded as a nullity.
It is on that basis, the structure of the Clause and the Schedule, that I find it difficult to see how the more complicated version of the phrase in Schedule 1 can be regarded as acceptable. It is advanced as a drafting Amendment. It is an attempt, made with kindness and helpfulness of a kind which does not always come from the Opposition in the debates 294 on the Bill, to help the Government put it in a clearer and more intelligible form.
I am sorry to tell the hon. and learned Member for Leith that the Amendment does not do that. It purports to distinguish between three different types of enforceable Community obligations and in fact there is only one. It talks first of all about enforceable Community obligations within the meaning of Section 2(1). It then goes on to say:
obligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community law".They are one and the same thing. Clause 2(1) is giving effect to directly applicable Community law. If the third version,other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties which are enforceable in law",is intended to embrace some further category of domestic law which is given effect to in this country by virtue of the treaties, one need not bother because no such class exists. The only category of law taking effect within this country is that given effect to by Clause 2(1), namely directly applicable law.There is no need to have this third version,
and other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties".If the third group of words is intended to cover obligations that are at least binding in international law as opposed to obligatitons arising in honour only, it adds unnecessary length to what is already inherent in the definition in the Bill.One cannot have a Community obligation meaning in this context one that is not an enforceable Community obligation,
obligations created by or arising under the Treaties".One cannot have such an obligation unless it gives rise to an obligation which is enforceable in international law: an obligation is an obligation is an obligation. It is not necessary to use this approach and to say "we exclude moral or non-legal obligations," by which I mean non-international legally binding obligations.The phraseology of the Amendment moved by the hon. and learned Member for Leith is merely a longer way of saying,
obligations created by or arising under the Treaties…whether enforceable or not.295 I cannot commend these Amendments to the Committee. I have dealt with the points that have been put in respect of them and I invite the Committee to reject them.
§ Mr. David Crouch (Canterbury)I can remember the time when I sometimes used to come into this Chamber at the request of Whips and speak because they thought I was a lawyer. This time I have come in because I wanted to hear what the lawyers are saying. Having listened to this debate—[Interruption.] I have heard nothing so far from the Opposition. Unfortunately I missed the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray). However, I have been listening to the lawyers on this side and I have been much impressed by the repudiation of the arguments put forward in the Amendments from the Opposition and from some of my colleagues.
It is sometimes helpful that when lawyers take the floor of the House of Commons there should be some observations from someone who is not a lawyer. Sometimes a person who is not a lawyer does not understand what they are talking about and it might be as well to see whether he understands what is being talked about.
Not having heard much from the Opposition in the last three-quarters of an hour to support their argument, about which I can only imagine they do not feel strongly, and having listened to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General—[Interruption.] I am sure there is plenty of time for us to hear the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). We always like to hear the hon. Member, particularly on matters of law. I have not heard arguments put forward from anyone on the Opposition side, and not even in the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), which made me feel that these Amendments are acceptable to the Committee.
Why do we need, as suggested in Amendment No. 450, to have specified and spelt out
a written document having direct legal effect issued by a Community institution acting withing its powers"?As I read this point in Schedule 1, the matter is made clear. As my hon. and 296 learned Friend the Solicitor-General has said, "Community instrument"—and the Schedule defines exactly what that is—means any instrument issued by a Community institution. A Community instrument has been properly described earlier in the Schedule. To a plain man that makes much more sense than having to spell it out as the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Leith would suggest.The same argument also applies to the other Amendments which we are also considering. I always appreciate that when the House is in Committee it should take time not only to listen to lawyers but to see whether there is a gap in legislation that needs to be stopped up, particularly in important legislation of this nature. However, the description suggested in Amendment No. 451 is no better than the neat and shorter description in Schedule 1, which the Solicitor General has argued before the Committee. If I were a member of a jury, I should not have been convinced why it is better to have the phrase "includes enforceable" as set out in Amendment No. 451. I stress the word "enforceable" because it is stressed in Amendment No. 133 which has been put forward by my right hon. and hon. Friends. Why do we have to stress the word "enforceable"? I shall remind the Committee what we are considering in the Amendment, which I do not think is worth much more of the time of the Committee. [Interruption.] Hon. Members must hear me. I am the first non-lawyer to speak apart from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West.
§ Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)The hon. Gentleman also voted for the guillotine.
§ Mr. CrouchI hate being interrupted by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). He makes such excellent speeches on his own. He is much better when he is on his feet making a long speech rather than making interventions from a seated position. [Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) will not set the hon. Gentleman a bad example by making an intervention from a seated position. My hon. Friend frequently makes good speeches and sometimes his interventions are heard as well. I hope he will not 297 spoil my speech, which has only just begun.
I put before the Committee the suggestion which is made in Amendment No. 451 that we should insert the following words:
includes enforceable Community obligations within the meaning of section 2(1) of this Act, obligations created by or arising under directly applicable Community law, and other obligations created by or arising under the Treaties which are enforceable in law.It certainly has not been argued before me this afternoon in a satisfactory and convincing way—I do not know whether other hon. Members take the same view—that it is better than'Community obligation' means any obligation created or arising by or under the Treaties, whether an enforceable Community obligation or not".I know that there is a suggestion in Amendment No. 54, in the names of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends to leave outwhether an enforceable Community obligation or not".
§ I should be interested to hear why my hon. Friends want to stress this point.
§ Mr. MartenThe fact that it is included as an "obligation or not" is pointless. It serves no purpose. If my hon. Friend goes away and studies it, he will observe that those words are otiose.
§ Mr. CrouchI am not convinced by that argument. If I have to weigh the two arguments, I must rest on the more convincing argument by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. As a plain man, a non-lawyer, I have not been impressed by the few arguments I have heard in support of the Amendments. I am surprised that they have been put down. The excellent arguments adduced by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and the lawyers behind him on these benches should have convinced the Committee that the Amendments should not be carried.
§ Question put, That the Amendment be made:—
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 264 Noes 279.
301| Division No. 229.] | AYES | [6.30 p.m. |
| Abse, Leo | Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Griffiths, Will (Exchange) |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Crosaman, Rt. Hn. Richard | Hamling, William |
| Allen, Scholefield | Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.) | Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill) |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven) | Hardy, Peter |
| Ashley, Jack | Dalyell, Tam | Harper, Joseph |
| Ashton, Joe | Davidson, Arthur | Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) |
| Atkinson, Norman | Davies, Denzil (Llanelly) | Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Hattersley, Roy |
| Barnett, Guy (Greenwich) | Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.) | Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis |
| Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton) | Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove) | Heffer, Eric S. |
| Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood | Deakins, Eric | Hilton, W. S. |
| Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton) | de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey | Horam, John |
| Bidwell, Sydney | Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund | Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas |
| Biffen, John | Dempsey, James | Huckfield, Leslie |
| Bishop, E. S. | Doig, Peter | Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey) |
| Blenkinsop, Arthur | Dormand, J. D | Hughes, Mark (Durham) |
| Boardman, H. (Leigh) | Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.) | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.) |
| Body, Richard | Douglas-Mann, Bruce | Hughes, Roy (Newport) |
| Booth, Albert | Driberg, Tom | Hunter, Adam |
| Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur | Duffy, A. E. P. | Janner, Greville |
| Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland) | Dunnett, Jack | Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas |
| Bradley, Tom | Eadie, Alex | Jeger, Mrs. Lena |
| Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) | Edelman, Maurice | Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) |
| Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) | Edwards, William (Merioneth) | John, Brynmor |
| Ellis, Tom | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | |
| Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury) | English, Michael | Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) |
| Buchan, Norman | Evans, Fred | Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.) |
| Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) | Ewing, Henry | Jones, Dan (Burnley) |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Fell, Anthony | Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.) |
| Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James | Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood) | |
| Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.) | Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen) |
| Cant, R. B. | Foley, Maurice | Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.) |
| Carmichael, Neil | Foot, Michael | Judd, Frank |
| Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield) | Forrester, John | Kaufman, Gerald |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles) | Fraser, John (Norwood) | Kerr, Russell |
| Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara | Freeson, Reginald | Kinnock, Neil |
| Clark, David (Colne Valley) | Gilbert, Dr. John | Lambie, David |
| Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.) | Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury) | Lamborn, Harry |
| Cohen, Stanley | Golding, John | Lamond, James |
| Coleman, Donald | Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C. | Latham, Arthur |
| Concannon, J. D. | Gourlay, Harry | Leadbitter, Ted |
| Conlan, Bernard | Grant, George (Morpeth) | Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Crawshaw, Richard | Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside) | Leonard, Dick |
| Lestor, Miss Joan | Oakes, Gordon | Skinner, Dennis |
| Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold | Ogden, Eric | Small, William |
| Lewis Arthur (W. Ham, N.) | O'Halloran, Michael | Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.) |
| Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) | O'Malley, Brian | Spearing, Nigel |
| Lipton, Marcus | Oram, Bert | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Lomas, Kenneth | Orbach, Maurice | Stallard, A. W. |
| Loughlin, Charles | Orme, Stanley | Stewart, Donald (Western Isles) |
| Lyon, Alexander W. (York) | Oswald, Thomas | Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham) |
| Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) | Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton) | Stoddart, David (Swindon) |
| Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Padley, Walter | Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John |
| McBride, Neil | Paisley, Rev. Ian | Strang, Gavin |
| McCartney, Hugh | Palmer, Arthur | Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. |
| McElhone, Frank | Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles | Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley |
| McGuire, Michael | Parker, John (Dagenham) | Swain, Thomas |
| Mackenzie, Gregor | Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange) | Taverne, Dick |
| Mackie, John | Pavitt, Laurie | Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.) |
| Mackintosh, John P. | Peart, Rt. Hon. Fred | Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery) |
| Maclennan, Robert | Pendry, Tom | Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee. E.) |
| McMaster, Stanley | Pentland, Norman | Tinn, James |
| McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) | Perry, Ernest G. | Tomney, Frank |
| McNamara, J. Kevin | Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch | Torney, Tom |
| Maginnis, John E. | Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg. | Tuck, Raphael |
| Mahon, Simon (Bootle) | Prescott, John | Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin |
| Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E. | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | Urwin, T. W. |
| Marks, Kenneth | Price, William (Rugby) | Varley, Eric G. |
| Marsden, F. | Probert, Arthur | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Marshall, Dr. Edmund | Rankin, John | Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints) |
| Marten, Neil | Reed, D. (Sedgefield) | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy | Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.) | Wallace, George |
| Mayhew, Christopher | Rhodes, Geoffrey | Watkins, David |
| Meacher, Michael | Richard, Ivor | Weitzman, David |
| Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) | Wellbeloved, James |
| Mendelson, John | Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon) | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) |
| Mikardo, Ian | Robertson, John (Paisley) | White, James (Glasgow. Pollok) |
| Millan, Bruce | Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n&R'dnor) | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Miller, Dr. M. S. | Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees) | Whitlock, William |
| Milne, Edward | Roper, John | Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Rose, Paul B. | Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.) | |
| Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen) | Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin) | |
| Moate, Roger | Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock) | Williams, W. T. (Warrington) |
| Molloy, William | Rowlands, Edward | Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton) |
| Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) | Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne) | Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton) |
| Morris, Alfred, (Wythenshawe) | Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney) | Woof, Robert |
| Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) | Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne) | |
| Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon) | Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Moyle, Roland | Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich) | Mr. James A. Dunn and |
| Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Sillars, James | Mr. James Hamilton. |
| Murray, Ronald King | Silverman, Julius | |
| NOES | ||
| Adley, Robert | Butler, Adam (Bosworth) | Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) |
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray&Nairn) | Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Carlisle, Mark | Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.) |
| Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian | Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert | Emery, Peter |
| Archer, Jeffrey (Louth) | Cary, Sir Robert | Eyre, Reginald |
| Astor, John | Chapman, Sydney | Fenner, Mrs. Peggy |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher | Fidler, Michael |
| Awdry, Daniel | Chichester-Clark, R. | Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead) |
| Baker. Kenneth (St. Marylebone) | Churchill, W. S. | Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton) |
| Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord | Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Fletcher-Cooke, Charles |
| Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Clegg, Walter | Fortescue, Tim |
| Batsford, Brian | Cockeram, Eric | Foster, Sir John |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Cooke, Robert | Fowler, Norman |
| Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay) | Coombs, Derek | Fox, Marcus |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport) | Cooper, A. E. | Fry, Peter |
| Benyon, W. | Cordle, John | Galbraith, Hn. T. G. |
| Berry, Hn. Anthony | Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick | Gardner, Edward |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Cormack, Patrick | Gibson-Watt, David |
| Blaker, Peter | Costain, A. P. | Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) |
| Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Crouch, David | Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) |
| Boscawen, Robert | Crowder, F. P. | Glyn, Dr. Alan |
| Bossom, Sir Clive | Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford) | Goodhart, Philip |
| Bowden, Andrew | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Goodhew, Victor |
| Braine, Sir Bernard | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid,Maj.-Gen.James | Gorst, John |
| Bray, Ronald | Dean, Paul | Gower, Raymond |
| Brinton, Sir Tatton | Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. | Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.) |
| Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher | Dixon, Piers | Green, Alan |
| Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Dodds-Parker, Douglas | Grieve, Percy |
| Bruce-Gardyne, J. | Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec | Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds) |
| Bryan, Sir Paul | Drayson, G. B. | Grimond, Rt. Hn. J. |
| Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M) | du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward | Grylls, Michael |
| Buck, Antony | Dykes, Hugh | Gummer, J. Selwyn |
| Burden, F. A. | Eden, Sir John | Gurden, Harold |
| Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley) | Maddan, Martin | Rost, Peter |
| Hall, John (Wycombe) | Madel, David | Royle, Anthony |
| Hall-Davis, A. G. F. | Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest | St. John-Stevas, Norman |
| Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Mather, Carol | Sandys, Rt. Hn. D. |
| Hannam, John (Exeter) | Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald | Scott, Nicholas |
| Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Mawby, Ray | Sharples, Richard |
| Haselhurst, Alan | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) |
| Hastings, Stephen | Meyer, Sir Anthony | Shelton, William (Clapham) |
| Havers, Michael | Mills, Peter (Torrington) | Simeons, Charles |
| Hayhoe, Barney | Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.) | Sinclair, Sir George |
| Heseltine, Michael | Miscampbell, Norman | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Hicks, Robert | Mitchell,Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W) | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) |
| Higgins, Terence L. | Mitchell, David (Basingstoke) | Soref, Harold |
| Hiley, Joseph | Monks, Mrs. Connie | Speed, Keith |
| Spence, John | ||
| Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.) | Monro, Hector | Sproat, Iain |
| Hill, James (Southampton, Test) | Montgomery, Fergus | Stainton, Keith |
| Holland, Philip | More, Jasper | Stanbrook, Ivor |
| Holt, Miss Mary | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | Steel, David |
| Hordern, Peter | Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm. | Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper) |
| Hornby, Richard | Morrison, Charles | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. |
| Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia | Mudd, David | Stokes, John |
| Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate) | Murton, Oscar | Stuttaford, Dr. Tom |
| Howell, David (Guildford) | Nabarro, Sir Gerald | Tapsell, Peter |
| Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.) | Neave, Airey | Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) |
| Hunt, John | Nicholls, Sir Harmar | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) |
| Iremonger, T. L. | Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael | Tebbit, Norman |
| James, David | Normanton, Tom | Temple, John M. |
| Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Nott, John | Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret |
| Jessel, Toby | Onslow, Cranley | Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth) |
| Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead) | Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally | Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.) |
| Johnston, Russell (Inverness) | Osborn, John | Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.) | Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.) | Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy |
| Jopling, Michael | Page, Rt, Hn. Graham (Crosby) | Tilney, John |
| Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith | Page, John (Harrow, W.) | Trafford, Dr. Anthony |
| Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine | Pardoe, John | Trew, Peter |
| Kershaw, Anthony | Parkinson, Cecil | Tugendhat, Christopher |
| Kimball, Marcus | Peel, John | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) | Peyton, Rt. Hn. John | Vaughan, Dr. Gerard |
| King, Tom (Bridgwater) | Pike, Miss Mervyn | Vickers, Dame Joan |
| Kinsey, J. R. | Pink, R. Bonner | Waddington, David |
| Kirk, Peter | Pounder, Rafton | Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester) |
| Kitson, Timothy | Price, David (Eastleigh) | Wall, Patrick |
| Knight, Mrs. Jill | Prior, Rt. Hn J. M. L. | Walters, Dennis |
| Knox, David | Proudfoot, Wilfred | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Lambton, Lord | Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis | Warren, Kenneth |
| Lamont, Norman | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Weatherill, Bernard |
| Lane, David | Raison, Timothy | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Langford-Holt, Sir John | Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James | White, Roger (Gravesend) |
| Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Petet | Wiggin, Jerry |
| La Merchant, Spencer | Redmond, Robert | Wilkinson, John |
| Winterton, Nicholas | ||
| Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) | Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard |
| Longden, Sir Gilbert | Rees, Peter (Dover) | Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher |
| Loveridge, John | Rees-Davies, W. R. | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Luce, R. N. | Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David | Worsley, Marcus |
| MacArthur, Ian | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas | Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R. |
| McCrindle, R. A. | Ridsdale, Julian | Younger, Hn. George |
| McLaren, Martin | Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey | |
| Maclean, Sir Fitzroy | Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham) | Roberts, Wyn (Conway) | Mr. Paul Hawkins and |
| McNair Wilson, Michael | Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks) | Mr. Hamish Gray |
| McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest) | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) |
§ Question accordingly negatived.
§ Question proposed, That this Schedule be the First Schedule to the Bill.
§ Mr. ShoreI must first draw attention to what must be the most bizarre example yet of the effect of the guillotine on our discussions. The Government in their timetable have allowed the Committee exactly 90 minutes to discuss the whole of Schedule 1 which includes, among other important definitions, all the preaccession treaties to which Britain, if the Bill is enacted, will accede. The Schedule includes the familiar Rome Treaty, the 302 Paris Treaty, the Euratom Treaty, the Brussels merger Treaty of 1965 and the Luxembourg Treaty of April, 1970, together with about 100 other treaties and agreements concluded by the Communities since they were formed, which the House had never seen and had not been told about until the 10 volumes appeared in February this year.
My right hon. Friends and myself, in discussing Clause 1, sought to turn the pages at least of these treaty volumes but inevitably, in the time available, we had to content ourselves with establishing not 303 so much their contents as the broad categories and the Community machinery used for negotiating them and future treaties. We learned only a little from those debates, but it was enough to convince us that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—and we are glad to see him again—and the Solicitor-General, like hon. Members on both sides of the Committee but perhaps with less excuse, were wholly innocent of their content.
It is against this background of accession to 100 treaties that the Committee and the country should take note of the sheer effrontery of the Government in limiting our discussion to 90 minutes. We have made a considerable effort today to create a little more time to discuss Schedule 1, and that is why we brought to an end as quickly as possible the debate on Clause 3. Under a timetable, however, we can make room to discuss one matter only if we suffer a corresponding loss of time to discuss some other matter.
6.45 p.m.
It is against this background of grotesque gagging that we have decided to concentrate our fire on one particularly unacceptable treaty, namely, the Treaty of Luxembourg, which was signed 10 weeks before the negotiations for Britain's entry began. We have selected it deliberately, for these reasons. First, we wish to make clear the pressing economic objections to the arrangements it contains. Secondly, we object strongly to the power over taxation and expenditure which, under the treaty, the House of Commons loses and European institutions acquire. Thirdly, we have a duty to make clear to those in Europe with whom the Government have made these arrangements, before they have ratified the equivalent treaties of accession, that the Opposition are not bound, and will not be bound, by the terms of the Luxembourg Treaty.
First, I shall not say a great deal on the grave disadvantages of the treaty to us, except perhaps to emphasise that we object to both sides of the Community's budget, the composition of the taxes which are to be raised and the pattern of expenditure which the budget allows. Both are unacceptable to us. The mix of the famous three taxes which comprise 304 the own resources which the Treaty of Luxembourg and the corresponding decisions enforce—the levies on imported food, the customs duties and the 1 per cent. value added tax—are so absurdly and disproportionately disadvantageous to the point at which, without exaggeration, we are seriously menaced in our balance of payments and, thus, our employment and trading prospects for years and perhaps a decade or more, ahead.
The spending side of the budget is overwhelmingly geared to the problems of mainland farming. It is particularly advantageous to France and Holland and does not serve too ill the interests of any other mainland countries. But the one country which can hope to get virtually no benefit from the Community budget is the United Kingdom,whose farms are so much larger than those of the Community and which are not faced with the problem of immense farm surpluses.
It will not do for hon. Members on the Government side, in their efforts to defend what is indefensible, suddenly to proclaim that they have a social conscience about the plight of poor farmers and peasants in the countries of the Six and thus try to justify the British contribution under the Treaty of Luxembourg as though it was part of a British aid programme to help poorer sections of the European Community. My right hon. and hon. Friends and myself are prepared to help poor people in Europe and in other continents, but the plain truth is that the great bulk of the farm expenditure rewards not the poorer farmer, but the comfortable and affluent.
It has often been said by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite when we put to them the gravity of the obligation into which they are entering under the treaty, that it is impossible precisely to quantify what is involved. They say in their disarming way that they are not prepared to play the numbers game. The more I have reflected on refusing to play the numbers game, the more it has struck me that this is rich man's talk. Only the very rich man is not concerned about how much things cost.
It is probably true that in only one year in the whole of Britain's post-war history has it been possible for a Government to engage in rich man's talk 305 about the numbers game in relation to the balance of payments, and that happened to be last year when, for the first time, we accumulated such a gigantic surplus on our balance of trade as to cause us considerable problems. Need I emphasise to the Committee that our balance of payments problems are coming back? I will not engage in threatening talk about the immediate prospects but during the last five months we have lost our trade surplus. We are not running into the red, but we are back in the position of running just about even on our current account, taking both visibles and invisibles, and we have therefore, as usual, to finance the ordinary requirements of our capital investment, and so on, as we have in the past.
§ Sir David Renton (Huntingdonshire)The right hon. Gentleman said "as we have in the past", but is there not a difference between the present and immediate future and the past up until the last General Election? Now, all our short-term and medium-term debts have been repaid and we have the strongest reserves that we have had in modern history. So the position is quite different from what it was in the past as the right hon. Gentleman envisages the past.
§ Mr. ShoreThe right hon. and learned Gentleman is right, and I am glad he is right, in that we are not loaded down with short-term or even medium-term indebtedness. That is a great help. But we are talking of serious matters and not trying to make points at each other's expense. We have to think about what will happen when the economy begins to expand. We are only at the beginning of the process, even if expansion is taking place. Expansion has dramatic effects on the balance of payments, and great changes in the order of magnitude of our exports and above all of our imports must be presumed to take place. We must also remember that, while our reserves reflect some genuine accretion of strength, nevertheless they are inflated and swollen by a considerable amount of shorter-term money movements. It is unreasonable to say that the present level of reserves genuinely reflects the actual state of our reserves and our surplus.
Against this we have to set the reasonable certainty of paying out £750 million, which is the Government's estimate of the contribution to the European Com- 306 munities made by this country across the balance of payments as part of our club subscription in the first five years. That £750 million is the reduced net subscription which for the next five years any Government which accept the Treaty have to find. Over the following five years—and I am not playing the numbers game but giving the lowest estimate I can honestly give—it cannot be less than £2,000 million. It cannot be less than £400 million a year, as anyone who looks soberly at 90 per cent. of our customs duties and 90 per cent, of our food levies plus 1 per cent. value added tax will agree. I have included only the first two and left out the VAT. If those two taxes are paid across the balance of payments in the second quinquennium, as they must be, we shall accumulate an obligation of £2,000 million. That is the minimum sum.
In seriously contemplating paying £2,750 million as a minimum club subscription over the next 10 years, we must address ourselves to the agreement which is embodied in the so-called Treaty of Luxembourg. We cannot dismiss it and say that, because we have this fortuitous, unusual trade surplus and because our reserves are at a fairly high level that settles the matter—
§ Mr. Dan Jones (Burnley)On the assumption that we sign the Treaty in January, 1973, when do those charges first become payable by the United Kingdom?
§ Mr. ShoreIf my hon. Friend will look at the current beige paper on public expenditure he will find recorded there the first Community payment. I do not know whether we shall pay the first year's contribution on 1st January, or in quarterly instalments, but our first year reduced contribution at the very lowest is over £100 million and that takes no account of the additional obligations into which we have entered.
One other aspect of the obligation we have undertaken is that by agreeing to the first moves towards economic and monetary union we have narrowed the bands around which the £ is allowed to move in relation to other European currencies. Having obtained from the Smithsonian Institute the liberalising margin of 2½ per cent. on either side we at once close the doors to 1¼ per cent on 307 each side by agreeing with the Six to go forward with them into the first stages of economic and monetary union.
This all sounds difficult and esoteric stuff, but it is not. We have seen in the last week the first fruits of this commitment. At the end of this month the cost of supporting the £ against last week's flurries within this narrow band will have to be borne on the reserves. Therefore, we have to look not merely at the subscription to Europe but at all the associated arrangements involved in it which are bound to have a worrying and damaging effect upon the prospects and prosperity of every man, woman and child in the country.
In addition to the economic objection to which I have just referred, there is a further objection which I must put on the record. Britain is a member of many international organisations. We are ready and happy to make contributions to them year after year, so long as we are convinced that the purposes are worth while and that our contributions are fair. What is distinctive about the new arrangements that the Treaty of Luxembourg introduces is that national contributions to the Community budget are to be phased out and the new doctrine of Community's own resources is to come in.
7.0 p.m.
The meaning of "own resources" was brought home to me in a vivid phrase by the Chief Secretary when he said how Community taxes imposed on the British people would "flow" to Brussels and that the revenues did not belong to us—the British Parliament and Government—at all. Clause 5, which we shall discuss tomorrow, makes this clear in relation to Customs duties when it says in subsection (4) that the law affecting the collection of Customs duties will apply in future
…as if the revenue from other duties so imposed remained part of the revenues of the Crown.That puts the point to the phrase "as if", pretty clearly. So that there can be no doubt what is involved in the Treaty of Luxembourg.We shall not become contributors to the Communities; we shall cede them the right to impose taxes on ourselves. 308 That is the meaning of "own resources" as distinct from all the other methods of financing the Community from national contributions which have existed in the past. We have never ceded this right before. We do not think it is necessary for the purposes of the Community if those purposes are limited to the Customs Union and other common policies which the proponents of membership suggest And we shall not have it because we believe the right to levy taxes on the British people is a right which only democratically elected representatives of this country lawfully exercise.
There is an argument, which is somewhat theoretical, that it would at least be consistent with the doctrine of "no taxation without representation" if Community taxes were imposed by an elected European Parliament, in which we were properly represented. But this is not the proposition that is now before us. It is not in the Treaty itself. I am surprised how little discussion there has been of what precisely is in the Treaty of Luxembourg. It is really two documents. One is the substantive change to Article 203, and along with it is a financial decision of the Council of Ministers about which I have been making most of my complaints in my earlier remarks. The Treaty of Luxembourg deals with the machinery and the relationships between the Assembly and the Council of Ministers and the Commission in deciding budgetary matters in the Community.
The one thing that emerges so clearly as to be beyond any doubt whatever is that whoever it is that possesses and determines the use of the Community's own resources, it is not the European Assembly and of that there can be no doubt whatever. Secondly, the European Assembly has distinct features in that it is not merely part of a division of powers within the European institutional framework which inevitably gives it a very weak rôle, but further it suffers from the fact that it has virtually no powers of its own.
We have recently had the report of the Vedel Working Party which was set up to look at the whole question of the power of the European Assembly. That report made some interesting points. On budgetary matters and control of the Community's own resources, its whole analysis is devastating and its prognosis 309 is not hopeful. What it says is that the Assembly has a kind of power—almostan audit power—over the budget but has no real power in deciding the policies which lead to expenditure. It would be almost true to say that the taxes collected from the member countries under the own resources rule are almost hypothecated in terms of the expenditures which they are designed to finance; the area of freedom in determining how those own resources should be used is minimal. The own resources are already devoted to, and are indeed built into, pre-determined agricultural support policies and this applies to one or two of the minor expenditure items which have been decided not by the Assembly but by the Council of Ministers.
The general verdict about the future of the Assembly in its ability to exercise control over money matters is very depressing. The Vedel Working Party said that it did not think this would advance the cause of parliamentary participation in Community decisions, particularly in legislative matters, and went on:
By its very nature a prolonged institutional crisis resulting from such a refusal"—a refusal to approve the budget—would endanger the still precarious progress of Community activities and its outcome would not be attended by the success desired.I am sure that that is a fair assessment, and it is not as strong and adverse a judgment as that with which we are all familiar from Mr. Dahrendorf, who is one of the Commissioners and who expressed himself strongly about the wholly inadequate democratic powers of the European Assembly.As things are, and as they are likely to be, decisions about raising resources, taxes and expenditure in the Community are taken by the Council of Ministers and the Commission in Brussels. The area of decision which is clearly and unambiguously left to the Assembly accounts for no more than about 3 to 4 per cent. of the Community budget.
My last point aims at getting clear why we cannot and will not be bound by these arrangements. In past debates there have been a number of exchanges about what was accepted and what was not accepted by the Labour Government prior to the recent negotiations which have just ended. I do not return to the subject for the 310 benefit of right hon. Gentleman opposite since we have exchanged our views on this matter on a number of occasions. I do so in order that our approach may be understood by those across the channel with whom sooner or later we shall have to deal. There must be no confusion about this matter, nor need there be.
In 1967 when the Labour Government sought to open negotiations it was made abundantly clear that the most serious obstacle for Britain was the burden on our economy and balance of payments which financing of the common agricultural policy would impose. Because of this factor the then Foreign Secretary spoken in The Hague of the need for a financial arrangement which would put a fairer burden on the United Kingdom. He stressed the fact that he hoped we would take part long before the end of the initial transitional period in 1970 as a full member of the Community in the negotiations of the agricultural financing arrangements for the period after the end of 1969. That was one of his main reasons for wanting to get in at that stage, namely that he wanted us to have a position of negotiating from the inside. I am not commenting on that situation but am trying to set it out so that people may know where we stand and where we have stood in the past.
In short, Labour spokesmen then stated their opposition to the Six on the temporary financial arrangements which were then in force in terms of the CAP and looked forward to altering them before permanent arrangements were agreed. It was perhaps the openness of this approach which led the French to resist and seek to veto our application. I always remember M. Couve de Murville saying in Brussels only four days after the British negotiations in 1967:
Britain was asking to re-negotiate from inside the Community. France could not accept this. If the Six were to negotiate with Britain they would have to agree beforehand on the means of financing the common agricultural policy.So much for 1967. Now for 1970. The French were as good as their word. They insisted at the beginning of 1970 on making permanent arrangements for financing the common agricultural policy which were greatly to their own advantage but grievously to our disadvantage 311 and which are embodied in the agreements reached and the treaties signed in Luxembourg on 21st April, 1970.It is wrong to suggest either to Europe or to this country that there was any commitment on the part of the Labour Government to accept the open-ended commitments contained in the Luxembourg Treaty. We had not accepted them, nor did the incoming Government. Certainly they were not accepted in the opening phases of the negotiation. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite did not accept them. Let us be realistic and frank with each other. We all recall what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to say in his opening statement at Luxembourg on 30th June, 1970. He said that unless we could find a solution to this ghastly business of the burden of Community finance on Britain,
…the burden on the United Kingdom could not be sustained and no British Government could contemplate joining.That was the true position. It was the position of all serious-minded people concerned with the negotiations. Since then the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his right hon. Friends have tried to pass off those words by pretending that they did not really mean what they said and by suggesting that all that the right hon. Gentleman had in mind was transitional arrangements, a period of adjustment, and then acceptance of the full unsustainable burden. In other words, the right hon. Gentleman had in mind always roughly what he has now, total acceptance of the Treaty of Luxembourg with just a period for transitional arrangements in which to adjust.In his first report to the House on negotiations with the Six on 23rd July, 1970, when specifically asked whether we were negotiating just about how long and about how much we had to pay, or whether the negotiations were about something more substantial, the then Chancellor of the Duchy said:
As for transitional periods, I made it clear at the meeting on Tuesday"—that was in Luxembourg with the Council of Ministers—…that I was not prepared to accept the view that the only means of solving these problems was necessarily…by transitional provisions.312 He went on to say that he preferred to keep open other possibilities including…that a solution might be found in whole or in part by means other than simply transitional arangements."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd July, 1970; Vol. 804, c. 797–8.]Those were the words of the Chancellor of the Duchy who was negotiating at that time, not at the first meeting but after the first or second meeting with the Six. That was his position. I am trying to be frank. It was the position. Although we had not ourselves reached that point, it is the inevitable position that any group on either side of the House is bound to take in relation to the Treaty of Luxembourg and negotiations with the Six.There is no excuse. Something happened. The Chancellor of the Duchy or the Prime Minister undoubtedly shifted his stance and changed his mind. History will tell. We shall await their memoirs, perhaps. I believe that there will be a judgment on them. But I cannot think of any decision in the whole of Britain's post-war history which will cost the nation more dearly than this decision to surrender to terms which are so grievously disadvantageous to us, and it was a decision made by the Chancellor of the Duchy and the Prime Minister—
§ 6.45 p.m.
§ Mr. ShoreIt is all very well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say, "Cheer up!" If he thinks that the present condition of the nation is a cheerful one and that with the prospect of paying not far short of £3,000 million from our balance of payments over the next decade, the outlook for our people will be even brighter, I am afraid that he is living in a world of his own.
The more important point is that people in Europe, too, must understand that there is not now nor was there before any bipartisan support for or acceptance of the Luxembourg Treaty. That is the reality. That is what the countries of Europe have to understand and take into account in making any decision which they may have to make in terms of ratifying these treaties.
We do not accept these arrangements. We shall not abide by them. Lastly, we 313 shall reject these policies and seek to remove them at the earliest moment that we have the power to do so.
§ [MR. JOHN BREWIS in the Chair]
§ Mr. RipponWe have heard from the right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) some general observations upon the Community budget, the subject of resources propres, the basis of our contribution, and the nature of the burden on the balance of payments. It is a speech that we have heard many times before. It is a familiar and misleading theme that the right hon. Gentleman continually lays before the Committee.
My hon. Friend the Chief Secretary dealt with all these matters after a long debate on 8th June, and I refer the Committee specifically to cols. 799–800 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. There has been no doubt from the outset about the determination of both Governments to accept the basic provisions of the treaties subject only to the negotiation of transitional arrangements. Clearly at an early stage in the negotiations we left as many matters open for discussion as we could. But my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary dealt specifically with the nature of the United Kingdom's commitment on 8th June at col. 805. He said:
It was in December, 1969, that the members of the Community agreed in principle on a new system of financing the Communities, and this was referred to in considerable detail in the Labour Government's White Paper of February, 1970."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th June, 1972; Vol. 838, c. 805.]That again is a matter that we have gone over frequently between us. It has been clear for a long period of time that the general principle of resources propres is known and understood.The terms negotiated were debated fully by the House when we discussed the White Paper in 1971. The terms were accepted by a majority in the House of 112. There was agreement in principle to our joining the Community on the basis of the terms negotiated. That is clear beyond peradventure.
What the right hon. Gentleman does continually is not to have regard to the statement in the White Paper of 1971 which indicated that our net contribution to the budget, as far as could be judged—it refers only to the "possible net con- 314 tribution"—might rise from £100 million in 1973 to £200 million in 1977. There are other aspects of the burden on the balance of payments which the White Paper also dealt with in relation to the changes in tariffs on food prices and said that the burden might rise from £5 million in the first year to £50 million at the end of the transitional period.
It distorts the position to say, as the right hon. Gentleman does—he does it to try to strike terror into the hearts of the British people—that there will be a burden of about £3,000 million on the balance of payments over a 10-year period. That is not true, because what the right hon. Gentleman always does is to take some hypothetical figure far into the future and aggregate it on the basis of the largest amount of the net contribution for one year. He takes no account of the other side of the picture. He looks only at the contribution to the Community budget. As we have said frequently, we can only make an assessment about that because the size and shape of the budget will change in the course of the next decade and we shall be concerned to see that whereas the last decade has been concerned with the development of the CAP, we want the next decade to be concerned primarily with industrial and commercial matters, regional policies, and so on. Over a period of years the size and shape of the budget will change.
But apart from that, on the other side of the picture of the economic consequences of joining the Community one has to set our contribution to the Budget against the value to British industry, to the British people and, above all, to the unemployed in this country, of permanent, unrestricted access to a market of more than 300 million people. The White Paper of July, 1971, dealt at some length with this and other matters, and said in paragraph 48:
If we enter the Communities we shall be able to profit from the general advantages of a larger market and, in particular, to play a full part in the development of industries based on advanced technology. If we do not join, we shall forgo these opportunities which the members of the Communities will increasingly enjoy. Their industries will have a home market of some 190 million people, with preferential markets in other European and overseas countries. Our industries would have a home market of some 55 million people, with perhaps another 45 million in EFTA, 315 as against a home market of some 290 million people we should have if we joined the Communities.Then there is a long passage, which we have debated at length over and over again, about our assessment of the experience of the Six and the prospects for our economy, and paragraph 57 points out thatif a rate of growth of national income a ½ per cent. higher were to be achieved as a result of membership, by the end of period of five years our national income would be some £1,100 million higher in the fifth year.If it were 1 per cent., it would be a £2,200 million growth in national income to be set against the contribution to the Budget. Mere increase in national income is not reflected totally in the balance of payments, but in so far as that would be export-led growth resulting from our access to the larger market it would be a substantial contribution to our balance of payments.It is clear that when the right hon. Member for Stepney makes these out-rageous statements about the burden on the balance of payments he does not carry with him the full-hearted support of the vast majority of hon. Members of his party, except on the basis of a three-line Whip, whether imposed last October, or imposed in the course of these proceedings, because these matters, which we have debated over and over again, have not been raised only by a Conservative Government. They were raised by a Labour Government, and these assessments of the effect on our balance of payments were made by a Labour Government.
It was a Labour Government who envisaged in the first instance that the contribution to the Budget would be balanced to a considerable extent by access to a larger market. Of course, it is a matter of judgment. One can make a reasonable assessment of the burden of the balance of payments in the earlier years, but the further one takes this projection the further one gets into the realm of speculation and, as we said in the debate on the White Paper, this is a matter of judgment.
The fact of the matter is that a majority of the last Labour Cabinet publicly stated that they would have recommended a Labour Government to join the Communities on the basis of the 316 terms negotiated. There was an absolute majority of the last Labour Government who, either in this House or in the other place, publicly declared themselves to hold that view. I shall not say that it necessarily proves anything with mathematical certainty. All these things are matters of judgment, and in debating whether we should join the Communities hon. Members on both sides of the House, exercising their judgment as Members of Parliament, have tried to strike a balance between what they think are the economic advantages or disadvantages of joining, and the political advantages or disadvantages of so doing. This has to be seen as a whole.
§ Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North)Instead of talking all this rubbish, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give the Committee his estimate of the balance of payments advantages which will offset the disadvantages in the first year after the transition?
§ Mr. RipponThe White Paper explained all the difficulties of making a mathematical assessment. It is hard enough to make on the basis of the contribution to the budget where the size is changing. Assuming a ½ per cent. growth over five years, the Labour Government's estimate was that that would result in an increase of £1,100 million. I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) in the Chamber because, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was firm in his declaration about the economic advantages of joining the Communities. He said that there would be problems, and that they could not make an exact assessment, but I remember the right hon. Gentleman saying that if one were to look ahead 10 years one could not think of many problems which would be more easily solved by this country in the economic sphere outside rather than inside the Community.
§ Mr. JayWill the right hon. and learned Gentleman stop confusing national income with balance of payments and answer my question? Will he give us his estimate of the balance of payments advantage in the first year after transition?
§ Mr. RipponI explained to the right hon. Gentleman that an assessment of 317 the growth in the national income is not the same as an immediate benefit to the balance of payments, but that in so far as that growth was exported as a result of permanent and unrestricted access to a market of more than 300 million people that would be a contribution to our balance of payments. What the right hon. Gentleman must start taking notice of is the way in which already investment is coming into this country because people see the positive advantages of investing in this country and employing people here in order to take advantage of this vast Continental market as the tariff barriers come down.
That is a matter of fact. It has happened in my constituency, and it has happened in constituencies in Scotland. People have invested and opened factories because they believe that within the Community we shall be able to take advantage of this larger market. If some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite were to cease their unremitting assault upon the policy and upon the Bill they would find that that investment flow would increase. As soon as the Bill is on the Statute Book, we shall begin to reap the advantages.
I believe, with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that this is not a matter of nicely calculated less or more. I also believe with the right hon. Gentleman that at the end when, as a matter of judgment, we have weighed the contribution to the budget, which will change in shape and size over the years, against the advantages of unrestricted access to a market of more than 300 million people we shall find that
§ the result of our entering the Communities and passing the Bill to enable us to ratify the treaties will be a positive and substantial contribution to our balance of payments, and will not result in any deficit at all.
§ Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)The right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned Scotland. I represent a Scottish constituency. Will he tell me which areas in Scotland have had this fantastic attraction to them specifically because of the confidence he says that his Government have engendered?
§ Mr. RipponIf the hon. Member will visit the Glenrothes Estate in Fife he will see there a textile factory employing a considerable number of people, and hoping to employ more, which an American company has started because it sees great advantages in having access to the Common Market from a factory based on Scotland where there is available a good labour force and considerable skills. Those are the opportunities which have come in one constituency in Scotland. I could mention others. I know a great American company which has invested in my constituency because it sees these advantages in our joining the Common Market—
§ It being half past Seven o'clock, The CHAIRMAN, proceeded, pursuant to Order [2nd May], to put forthwith the Question a redy proposed from the Chair.
§ Question put, That this Schedule be the First Schedule to the Bill:—
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 279 Noes 270.
321| Division No. 230.] | AYES | [7.30 p.m. |
| Adley, Robert | Bowden, Andrew | Cockeram, Eric |
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Braine, Bernard | Cooke, Robert |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Bray, Ronald | Coombs, Derek |
| Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian | Brinton, Sir Tatton | Cooper, A. E. |
| Archer, Jeffrey (Louth) | Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Cordle, John |
| Astor, John | Bruce-Gardyne, J | Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Bryan, Paul | Cormack, Patrick |
| Awdry, Daniel | Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M) | Costain, A. P. |
| Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone) | Buck, Antony | Crouch, David |
| Balniel, Lord | Burden, F. A. | Crowder, F. P. |
| Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Butler, Adam (Bosworth) | Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford) |
| Batsford, Brian | Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray&Nairn) | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Carlisle, Mark | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid,Maj.-Gen. James |
| Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay) | Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert | Dean, Paul |
| Benyon, W. | Cary, Sir Robert | Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. |
| Berry, Hn. Anthony | Chapman, Sydney | Dixon, Piers |
| Biggs-Davidson, John | Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher | Dodds-Parker, Douglas |
| Blaker, Peter | Chichester-Clark, R. | Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec |
| Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Churchill, W. S. | Drayson, G. B. |
| Boscawen, Robert | Clark, William (Surrey, E.) | du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward |
| Bossom, Sir Clive | Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Dykes, Hugh |
| Eden, Sir John | Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine | Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James |
| Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) | Kershaw, Anthony | Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter |
| Elliott, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Kimball, Marcus | Redmond, Robert |
| Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.) | King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) | Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) |
| Emery, Peter | King, Tom (Bridgwater) | Rees, Peter (Dover) |
| Eyre, Reginald | Kinsey, J. R. | Rees-Davies, W. R. |
| Fenner, Mrs. Peggy | Kirk, Peter | Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David |
| Fidler, Michael | Kitson, Timothy | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas |
| Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead) | Knight, Mrs. Jill | Ridsdale, Julian |
| Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton) | Knox, David | Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey |
| Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | Lambton, Lord | Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.) |
| Fookes, Miss Janet | Lamont, Norman | Roberts, Wyn (Conway) |
| Fortescue, Tim | Lane, David | Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks) |
| Foster, Sir John | Langford-Holt Sir John | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) |
| Fowler, Norman | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Rost, Peter |
| Fox, Marcus | Le Merchant, Spencer | Royle, Anthony |
| Fry, Peter | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | St. John-Stevas, Norman |
| Galbraith, Hn. T. G. | Longden, Gilbert | Sandys, Rt. Hn. D. |
| Gardner, Edward | Loveridge, John | Scott, Nicholas |
| Gibson-Watt, David | Luce, R. N. | Sharples, Richard |
| Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) | MacArthur, Ian | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) |
| Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) | McCrindle, R. A. | Shelton, William (Clapham) |
| Glyn, Dr. Alan | McLaren, Martin | Simeons, Charles |
| Goodhart, Philip | Maclean, Sir Fitzroy | Sinclair, Sir George |
| Goodhew, Victor | Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham) | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Gorst, John | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) | |
| Gower, Raymond | McNair,-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest) | Sorel, Harold |
| Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.) | Maddan, Martin | Speed, Keith |
| Gray, Hamish | Madel, David | Spence, John |
| Green, Alan | Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest | Sproat, Iain |
| Grieve, Percy | Mather, Carol | Stainton, Keith |
| Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds) | Maudling. Rt. Hn. Reginald | Stanbrook, Ivor |
| Grimond, Rt. Hn. J. | Mawby, Ray | Steel, David |
| Grylls, Michael | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper) |
| Gummer, Selwyn | Meyer, Sir Anthony | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. |
| Gurden, Harold | Mills, Peter (Torrington) | Stokes, John |
| Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley) | Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.) | Stuttaford, Dr. Tom |
| Hall-Davis, A. G. F. | Miscampbell, Norman | Tapsell, Peter |
| Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W) | Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) |
| Hannam, John (Exeter) | Mitchell, David (Basingstoke) | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) |
| Harrison, Brian (Maldon) | Money, Ernle | Tebbit, Norman |
| Monks, Mrs. Connie | Temple, John M. | |
| Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Monro, Hector | Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret |
| Haselhurst, Alan | Montgomery, Fergus | Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth) |
| Hastings, Stephen | More, Jasper | Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.) |
| Havers, Michael | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Hawkins, Paul | Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm. | Tilney, John |
| Hayhoe, Barney | Morrison, Charles | Trafford, Dr. Anthony |
| Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward | Mudd, David | Trew, Peter |
| Heseltine, Michael | Murton, Oscar | Tugendhat, Christopher |
| Hicks, Robert | Nabarro, Sir Gerald | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Higgins, Terence L. | Neave, Airey | Vaughan, Dr. Gerard |
| Hiley, Joseph | Nicholls, Sir Harmar | Vickers, Dame Joan |
| Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.) | Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael | Waddington, David |
| Hill, James (Southampton, Test) | Nott, John | Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester) |
| Holland, Philip | Onslow, Cranley | Wall, Patrick |
| Holt, Miss Mary | Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally | Walters, Dennis |
| Hordern, Peter | Osborn, John | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Hornby, Richard | Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.) | Warren, Kenneth |
| Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate) | Page, John (Harrow, W.) | White, Roger (Gravesend) |
| Howell, David (Guildford) | Pardoe, John | Wiggin, Jerry |
| Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.) | Parkinson, Cecil | Wilkinson, John |
| Hunt, John | Peel, John | Winterton, Nicholas |
| Iremonger, T. L. | Peyton, Rt. Hn. John | Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard |
| James, David | Pike, Miss Mervyn | Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher |
| Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Pink, R. Bonner | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Jessel, Toby | Pounder, Rafton | Worsley, Marcus |
| Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead) | Price, David (Eastleigh) | Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R. |
| Johnston, Russell (Inverness) | Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L. | Younger, Hn. George |
| Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.) | Proudfoot, Wilfred | |
| Jopling, Michael | Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Joseph. Rt. Hn. Sir Keith | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Mr. Walter Clegg and |
| Kaberry, Sir Donald | Raison, Timothy | Mr. Bernard Weatherill. |
| NOES | ||
| Abse, Leo | Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Blenkinsop, Arthur |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Barnett, Guy (Greenwich) | Boardman, H. (Leigh) |
| Allen, Scholefield | Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton) | Body, Richard |
| Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis) | Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood | Booth, Albert |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton) | Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur |
| Ashley, Jack | Bidwell, Sydney | Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland) |
| Ashton, Joe | Biffen, John | Bradley, Tom |
| Atkinson, Norman | Bishop, E. S. | Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) |
| Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.) | Oswald, Thomas |
| Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury) | Hughes, Roy (Newport) | Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth. Sutton) |
| Buchan, Norman | Hunter, Adam | Padley, Walter |
| Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) | Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill) | Paisley, Rev. Ian |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Janner, Greville | Palmer, Arthur |
| Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James | Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas | Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles |
| Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.) | Jeger, Mrs. Lena | Parker, John (Dagenham) |
| Cant, R. B. | Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) | Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange) |
| Carmichael, Neil | John, Brynmor | Pavitt, Laurie |
| Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield) | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles) | Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) | Pendry, Tom |
| Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara | Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.) | Pentland, Norman |
| Clark, David (Colne Valley) | Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Perry, Ernest G. |
| Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.) | Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.) | Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch |
| Cohen, Stanley | Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen) | Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg. |
| Coleman, Donald | Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.) | Prescott, John |
| Concannon, J. D. | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | |
| Conlan, Bernard | Judd, Frank | Price, William (Rugby) |
| Crawshaw, Richard | Kaufman, Gerald | Probert, Arthur |
| Cronin, John | Kelley, Richard | Rankin, John |
| Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Kerr, Russell | Reed, D. (Sedgefield) |
| Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard | Kilfedder, James | Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.) |
| Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.) | Kinnock, Neil | Rhodes, Geoffrey |
| Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven) | Lambie, David | Richard, Ivor |
| Dalyell, Tam | Lamborn, Harry | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Davidson, Arthur | Lamond, James | Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon) |
| Davies, Denzil (Llanelly) | Latham, Arthur | Robertson, John (Paisley) |
| Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Leadbitter, Ted | Roderick, CaerwynE. (Br'c'n&R'dnor) |
| Davies, Clinton (Hackney, C.) | Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove) | Leonard, Dick | Roper, John |
| Deakins, Eric | Lestor, Miss Joan | Rose, Paul B. |
| de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey | Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold | Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock) |
| Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund | Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.) | Rowlands, Ted |
| Dempsey, James | Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) | Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Doig, Peter | Lipton, Marcus | Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney) |
| Dormand, J. D. | Lomas, Kenneth | Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (Nc'tle-u-Tyne) |
| Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.) | Loughlin, Charles | Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) |
| Douglas-Mann, Bruce | Lyon, Alexander W. (York) | Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich) |
| Driberg, Tom | Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) | Sillars, James |
| Duffy, A. E. P. | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Silverman, Julius |
| Dunnett, Jack | McBride, Neil | Skinner, Dennis |
| Eadie, Alex | McCartney, Hugh | Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.) |
| Edelman, Maurice | McElhone, Frank | Spearing, Nigel |
| Edwards, William (Merioneth) | McGuire, Michael | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Ellis, Tom | Mackenzie, Gregor | Stallard, A. W. |
| English, Michael | Mackintosh, John P. | Stewart, Donald (Western Isles) |
| Evans, Fred | Maclennan, Robert | Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham) |
| Ewing, Harry | McMaster, Stanley | Stoddart, David (Swindon) |
| McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) | Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John | |
| Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham,Ladywood) | McNamara, J. Kevin | Strang, Gavin |
| Fitch, Alan (Wigan) | Maginnis, John E. | Strauss, Rt. Hn. John |
| Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) | Mahon, Simon (Bootle) | Swain, Thomas |
| Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.) | Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.) |
| Foley, Maurice | Marks, Kenneth | Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery) |
| Foot, Michael | Marsden, F. | Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.) |
| Forrester, John | Marshall, Dr. Edmund | Tinn, James |
| Fraser, John (Norwood) | Marten, Neil | Tomney, Frank |
| Freeson, Reginald | Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy | Torney, Tom |
| Gilbert, Dr. John | Mayhew, Christopher | Tuck, Raphael |
| Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury) | Meacher, Michael | Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin |
| Golding, John | Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert | Urwin, T. W. |
| Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C. | Mendelson, John | Varley, Eric G. |
| Gourlay, Harry | Mikardo, Ian | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Grant, George (Morpeth) | Millan, Bruce | Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints) |
| Grant, John D. (Islington, E.) | Miller, Dr. M. S. | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside) | Milne, Edward | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek |
| Griffiths, Will (Exchange) | Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen) | Wallace, George |
| Hamilton, James (Bothwell) | Moate, Roger | Watkins, David |
| Hamilton, William (Fife, W.) | Molloy, William | Weitzman, David |
| Hamling, William | Molyneaux, James | Wellbeloved, James |
| Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill) | Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) |
| Hardy, Peter | Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) | White, James (Glasgow, Pollok) |
| Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith | Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon) | Whitlock, William |
| Hattersley, Roy | Moyle, Roland | Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis | Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.) |
| Heffer, Eric S. | Murray, Ronald King | Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin) |
| Hilton, W. S. | Oakes, Gordon | Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton) |
| Horam, John | Ogden, Eric | Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton) |
| Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas | O'Halloran, Michael | Woof, Robert |
| Howell, Denis (Small Heath) | O'Malley, Brian | |
| Huckfield, Leslie | Oram, Bert | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey) | Orbach, Maurice | Mr. James A. Dunn and |
| Hughes, Mark (Durham) | Orme, Stanley | Mr. Joseph Harper. |
§ Schedule 1 agreed to.