LANCASTER HOUSE AGREEMENT ON COMMONWEALTH SUGAR

HC Deb 27 June 1972 vol 839 cc1195-279

Section III of Protocol No. 22 (on Relations between the European Economic Community and the Associated African and Malagasy States and certain Independent Developing Commonwealth Countries) shall be interpreted to mean that the question of sugar will be settled in accordance with the agreement reached at Lancaster House between the United Kingdom and the developing member countries of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement on 2nd and 3rd June 1971.

Mr. Peter Shore (Stepney)

On a point of order, Sir Robert. May I ask you to consider taking with this group of Amendments the Amendment standing on its own, No. 391? It is in page 12, line 16, at end insert: (4) The home-grown beet crop for 1972 or any subsequent year shall not be less than the existing ratio between this crop and Britain's imports. The division between this Amendment and the Amendments in the group is a narrow one, and it would perhaps make for a better debate if we were able to consider it along with the others.

The Chairman

If that is the wish of the Committee, I am agreeable.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Fred Peart (Workington)

I beg to move Amendment No. 388, in page 11, line 18, at beginning insert: Subject to the acceptance by the Community of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement of 2nd and 3rd June, 1971. We are now dealing with an important part of the Treaty of Accession. I refer to Protocol No. 17 dealing with the import of sugar by the United Kingdom from the exporting countries and territories referred to in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. We are also dealing with Protocol No. 22, which deals with relations between the European Economic Community and the associated African and Malagasy States and also the independent developing countries situated in Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.

This part of the Bill seeks to give effect to the consequences of our negotiations on cane sugar and also on our own sugar industry in this country. There has been an earlier debate, and many hon. Members addressed their remarks to that, discussing the principle of the treaty and the White Paper. The text of the Treaty of Accession signed at Brussels on 22nd January, 1972, shows how wide is the gap between what Britain asked for and what Britain actually negotiated. It also shows how great is the difference between the reality of the negotiations as demonstrated in the context of the treaty and the impression which has been given to Parliament and the British public.

There are many major issues which would demonstrate this but sugar is a good example. The British Government's proposals to the Community were leaked in Brussels in 1970. They asked for the present contractual obligations under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement to continue until the end of 1974; that thereafter the enlarged Community should take sugar from the developing countries associated with the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement to a total of the present negotiated price quotas, 1.4 million tons; and that the Australian quota of 335,000 tons should be phased out over the length of the transitional period for British agriculture. We heard about these proposals long before they were given officially to the House of Commons.

It was reported that the Six were not prepared to reach decisions on quantity. Their own sugar regulations are due for review by 1975 and by the same date the Yaounde Convention must be renegotiated. The Six therefore made a counterproposal on 10th May, 1971, which meant that the present arrangements should continue until the end of 1974 and that the developing countries associated with the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement should be offered for the period thereafter a choice between association and trade agreements.

I know that the Chancellor of the Duchy reacted to this. He is on record as saying that this did not constitute a bankable assurance for Commonwealth sugar. This was a phrase used by Mr. Lightbourne, the Jamaican Minister. I know that the Chancellor felt strongly on this, and he tried to give the impression that he wanted these bankable assurances. His rejection of the terms and his demand that "the dialogue of the deaf" should end was not well received by the Six. We were rather pleased with the strong terms used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and that phrase of his has often been quoted here.

On the 13th May, 1971, the Six proposed, and the Chancellor accepted, an additional statement of intent to the effect that the enlarged Community would have the firm intention—aura à coeur—of safeguarding the interests of the developing countries whose economies depend to a large extent on the export of basic products, notably sugar. I am sure that anyone who has been to the Caribbean, to Fiji or Mauritius—those parts of the Commonwealth which rely on sugar—will appreciate the importance of that assurance to those areas. Without the safeguards, serious unemployment and economic misery would be created in that part of the world.

The Chancellor of the Duchy made an extensive tour of the Caribbean. I, with the hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. Hunt), had the honour to follow him later. It was expected that the Chancellor would make a firm stand on sugar in the negotiation and would get the bankable assurances which he had mentioned. In explaining this to the House of Commons on 17th May the Chancellor of the Duchy said: This text amounts to more than a declaration of intention. It is both a specific and a moral commitment. I can now say this to the developing sugar producing countries of the Commonwealth. There would be room in the enlarged Community, of which Britain would be part, both for present quantities of sugar from these countries at remunerative prices and for the development of sugar beet production. With this safeguard now promised, I believe the House can be satisfied that these countries will not suffer from our entry into the Community. The assurances which successive British Governments have given to these developing countries have now been double-banked by the Community's commitment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1971; Vol. 817, c. 886.] However, at the Press conference immediately following the session of 12th–13th May the Chancellor of the Duchy was reported in the British Press as saying that the statement covers at the same time the volume, the production, the prices, the use. Mr. Schumann at the same Press conference said that this called for flexibility in the choice of the means, guarantees of quantities, of price, aid in the diversification of production and industrialisation. Moreover, we know that the French sugar producers had already called for an increase in European sugar beet production of at least half a million tons and a reduction of the Commonwealth quotas to about 6,000 tons. Anyone who is aware of France's position will appreciate the importance of the sugar-beet lobby.

On 3rd June there were the consultations with the Chancellor and members of the Governments associated with the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. The Brussels statement was there interpreted as a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community on fair terms for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in respect of all existing developing member countries. On this basis the Commonwealth Governments concerned accepted the Community's proposals.

The text of the Lancaster House statement was deposited by the British Government with the Six and written into the record. The Six simply took note. I assert that they neither accepted nor rejected it. But after a ministerial meeting on 7th June the Press reported that a spokesman for the Commission had stated that the Lancaster House communiqué bound only Britain. So there is still uncertainty. I assure hon. Members that this uncertainty still exists in many parts of the Commonwealth.

On 24th June, 1971, the Chancellor told the House: The developing countries of the Commonwealth who are parties to the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement have been offered the broad protection of whatever form of association or trading agreement they may choose to negotiate. Therefore, if we fail to reach any agreement at all on sugar, which is highly improbable, the existing arrangements would continue."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th June, 1971; Vol. 819, c. 1615.] The Commonwealth countries concerned with sugar had no choice but to accept Lancaster House. I believe that Barbados was very critical. It was this or nothing, and it was far better to have a unilateral interpretation and a unilateral guarantee by the British Government than to have nothing except the vague words of the Brussels text.

In the light of all this, the Government and the Press tend to treat sugar as a subject now settled satisfactorily in the interests of the Commonwealth sugar exporting countries. I cannot accept that. There is uncertainty, and that is why we should express our doubts today when we have the opportunity to debate the Treaty of Accession.

All that appears in the text of the Treaty of Accession is the vague agreement at Brussels. In Protocol No. 22, it is spelled out in Section III, which says: The Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests of all the countries referred to in this Protocol whose economies depend to a considerable extent on the export of primary products, and particularly of sugar. The question of sugar will be settled within this framework, bearing in mind with regard to exports of sugar the importance of this product for the economies of several of these countries and of the Commonwealth countries in particular. In other words, nothing has been settled. The Community has made only a declaration, that it will have as its firm purpose". So we have to consider what the situation is. It means that everything has been swept under the carpet with a vague declaration of intent. I believe the real negotiation will take place in 1974.

I shall deal particularly with the position of Australia, which is a party to the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, to which I have referred on a previous occasion. The Australian question has simply got lost. The British proposal to phase out the Australian quota was in itself short-sighted. Britain asked for the phasing out of Australia's Commonwealth quota over the five-year transitional period for British agriculture.

The original intention of the Government was to seek negotiations to cover that period, but nothing was said at Brussels in May, 1970. Since then we have had vague assurances that difficulties would be discussed and a promise by the Chancellor of the Duchy to talk to Australia commodity by commodity. That is not good enough. Australia expanded its production in 1962 because of a world shortage. It cut back in 1968 to negotiate the International Sugar Agreement. That cut-back was mainly to help developing countries. I remind the Committee that the European Economic Community has expanded mainly since 1968 in a time of world surplus. The European Economic Community considers itself extremely progressive in the economic sense, but it refused to sign the International Sugar Agreement, and it has not signed it to this day. The fact that there is now a shortage of sugar does not alter the matter.

Why is it wrong for Australia to behave in the way that it has? Australia has acted admirably, and we should have defended her. Australia has behaved generously to the poorer countries. Moreover, it has been a good supplier of sugar to this country. Why should it be flung out to let European sugar beet growers have preference in our market? Australia may be a rich country, but its sugar is far cheaper than EEC sugar. The Australian negotiated price, under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, is £50 a ton. The raw equivalent of the EEC best beet sugar has an intervention price of about £80 a ton. There is a considerable difference. Moreover, if Australia is flung out, 350,000 tons of sugar goes to the free market and will compete with the developing countries. Inevitably, that will depress the price of sugar, which will have consequential effects on many parts of the Commonwealth.

Sir Robin Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

Surely the right hon. Gentleman is quoting a wrong figure. Under the new price scheme of the Common Market the intervention price is £98.81 a ton.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Peart

I was given this basic rate by a sugar expert. If it is higher than that, I gladly accept what the Father of the House has said. Nevertheless there is a difference, and it shows that Australia has produced sugar for us at a lower price than that at which we shall get it from the Community.

Indeed, with a view to the International Sugar Agreement due to be negotiated in 1973, this amount of sugar which I have mentioned could make the quota negotiation difficult, if not impossible. So I would say this afternoon that the least Her Majesty's Government should do is force the enlarged Community to agree to phase out the Australian quota as slowly as possible. I am sorry that it is going to be phased out but, if it is to be, let there not be indecent haste. This is not only a point for Australia, though in my judgment Australia deserves more points than she gets; it is also a point for us, who have a favourable balance of trade with Australia, and for the developing countries which will have to compete at a later time with sugar-beet producers in Europe.

Hon. Members must realise that many of the Commonwealth producers do not simply rely on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. Some of them are involved in the International Sugar Agreement. Both Mauritius and Fiji sell one-third or more of their crop to the free market. Again, Australian raw cane sugar represents about 18 per cent. of Tate and Lyle's turnover in this country, and in the chairman's statement in its 1970 annual report considerable anxiety was expressed about this loss of raw material.

Naturally, the Australians are disappointed with us, and the speeches of Mr. Anthony the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, have been critical of the negotiations. I know the Chancellor has tried to give a different impression, but Australian people feel very angry about it. We have a favourable balance of trade with Australia. The Australians have helped us in peace and, as I have said so often, they helped us in a critical period in time of war. So I think it is a tragedy that we are doing something which can harm some of our Commonwealth friends—not only Australia, but countries in the Caribbean, countries like Fiji and Mauritius.

Today we are debating really an important part of the Treaty of Accession. It is something, too, which can have a bearing upon our own industry here. Over the years we have controlled our sugar-beet acreage because of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, and our own British producers have accepted this generally. If we do something wrong here we could harm a generation in those parts of the world, something which would be against the best interests of Britain. So I hope that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster or the Minister who will be speaking in this debate will say quite honestly and frankly that they have really negotiated nothing, that it is merely on the record and that renegotiation will have to take place at a later date. It is for these reasons that I move the Amendment.

Mr. Neil Marten (Banbury)

I should just like to comment on the appalling fact that this great subject, so important to so many of our people in the Commonwealth, is to be given only about 3½ hours' debate. I am sure that if they realised this they would be shocked that this Mother of Parliaments was treating them in this way after all these years. I am deeply ashamed that we are in this situation and that the Government are in such a great hurry to get this Bill through.

Of course, this criticism goes back to a point I have made consistently, which is that before this debate started we should have debated the Treaty of Accession, which we have never done in this House. When we raised that question, time and time again we were told that there would be time during the Committee stage on Clause 7 to go into sugar and on Clause 6 to go into agriculture. But that was before the guillotine, so I am afraid that those undertakings have not been fulfilled. I am sure our Commonwealth sugar-producing countries would be deeply shocked if they knew what was happening, because this subject, which is something of a specialist subject when we talk about prices and quotas and so on, is in fact a very human matter which affects the lives of a great number of people, very often in rather small and out-of-the-way islands.

Like many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in this Committee, I suppose I have visited, in company with some of the hon. Members in this Chamber at the moment, some of those places, such as Fiji, the West Indian Islands, Mauritius, and indeed Queens land also but I would not call that a developing area. It is only when one goes round the sugar plantations in Fiji or Mauritius and see a 5-or 10-acre patch being worked for cane sugar by one family, which may be supporting 10 or 15 people, that one realises the enormous significance of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement with its guaranteed prices and its quotas. Anything that destroys or harms that is something that would never in this world have my support. I believe that this so-called agreement is not valid in law and could well not be honoured when we set to the renegotiating period of 1974–75.

I imagine that most of the speeches in the debate today will follow very much the same lines and will contain a number of quotations, which of necessity will be the same quotations. My text, as it were, for this contribution is on page 100 of the Treaty of Accession, Part I—that is, Protocol No. 22, Part III, the one which the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) has already quoted: The Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests of all the countries referred to in this Protocol whose economies depend to a considerable extent on the export of primary products, and particularly of sugar. The Commonwealth Sugar Agreement ends in 1974 and the Common Market Sugar Agreement with its associated territories has to be renegotiated in 1975, so we are talking about the period 1974–75. The question I should like to put to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who is going to answer this debate, is whether the Lancaster House Agreement will be honoured, and can be honoured. If it cannot—and this is a direct question—will he give an assurance that the Gov- ernment will use their veto? I hope he will not suggest that this is a hypothetical question, because it is in many ways the heart of the whole matter. Whether it is hypothetical or not, we must look to this contingency of disagreement when we come to renegotiate and what happens if there is such disagreement. If the Government use their veto—and there is an admission that they can do so, because the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said: …if we do not get safeguards for the interests of the developing countries, then we could exercise a veto."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 17th May, 1971; Vol. 817, c. 896.] —what then happens?

Can we have a firm statement on that, because I imagine that if we exercise the veto on any further discussions or arrangements we go back to the common agricultural policy, when the derogations which we have been so graciously allowed by the Common Market to honour our existing contracts will no longer apply and the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement countries get precisely nothing but simply come face to face with the common agricultural policy. That is the position as I understand it, and I should be grateful to the Minister if he would confirm that.

Mr. Shore

Would it be possible for the Minister who is to reply to the debate to answer this serious question? There is no point in us going on to the end of the debate when one of the crucial questions relates to the explicit answer to what has been put to him. We want to know whether a veto is available to us and, if so, whether it is the clear intention of the Government to use it.

Mr. Marten

I am willing to give way to either of the two Ministers if one of them is willing to answer that question straight away.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon)

We have discussed on many occasions the whole question of the veto and the Luxembourg Agreement. My hon. Friend well knows that circumstances in which the Community works and that in practice it never operates against the national interests of any of the countries concerned. We have discussed the four matters on which we have put down these markers. My hon. Friend is seeking a repetition of our debates. The words that we have used on all previous occasions have been carefully selected, and I stand by them. Incidentally, they have been accepted as assurances by the countries concerned—namely, the sugar producing countries, one of which, Mauritius, has already negotiated its association agreement.

Mr. Marten

I recognise that the words have been carefully selected. As for the agreement with Mauritius, it would perhaps have been more informative if my right hon. and learned Friend had told the Committee that the one thing it did not contain was any agreement about sugar. It was an agreement on industrial trade and excluded sugar. It is unfortunate that that should have been left out.

To use the expression one hears occasionally in church, let us hear what comforting words the Chancellor of the Duchy has said: As far as the sugar régime is concerned, perhaps talk of vetoes is unfortunate…. In other words, I think he rather regretted having said that the veto could be used— …because I am satisfied that the Community meant what it said, and that we can reply on that. The Chancellor of the Duchy speaks for himself and, I imagine, for himself alone, certainly not for the House of Commons, although he might speak on that for the Government. If, at the end of the day, a situation arose which we could not agree, then one would no doubt have a crisis in the Community, which we would resolve, holding firmly to the assurance we have been given."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1971; Vol. 817, c. 897.] In other words, there would be no "give" by us. If there were a crisis and we would not give, how could that crisis be resolved? There is good reason for having the matter cleared up.

The intervention of my right hon. and learned Friend did nothing to clear up the point, which is this. If we use our veto—and my right hon. and learned Friend has admitted that we can—do we, or do we not, then go back to the common agricultural policy? Do these derogations cease to exist if we use the veto?

Mr. John Mendelson (Penistone)

Perhaps the Government could claim that it is not the most convenient way to give such a far-reaching assurance in an intervention. Perhaps it would be more reasonable, after the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) has finished his speech, to allow the Minister to give a reply to this important question in his own way.

Mr. Marten

As always, the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) is very helpful to the Government Front Bench. Doubtless Ministers will have at heart what he has said.

4.15 p.m.

Let us look at what the French think about it. Dearly as I love the French—as the Committee knows, I am very pro-European and have within me, and am proud of it, French and probably Gaullist blood—I am suspicious about them over the question of sugar because I also love, perhaps more dearly, the Commonwealth, particularly the developing Commonwealth. Looking at the production and consumption of sugar in the enlarged Community in 1971—although it was not enlarged then, one can make the additions—one finds that the enlarged Community was short of only about 300,000 metric tons of sugar. I understand that already the French have planted beet to cope with that gap.

What worries me is that production and consumption are roughly in balance, and that next year and possibly the year after they will also be in balance, because my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has said: Given normal beet yields, I would expect the surplus of the enlarged Community in 1973 to be much the same as the average surplus of the existing Community of Six over the last few years. It is too early to forecast the position in 1974."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th June, 1972; Vol. 839, c. 53.] It does not look as though there will be much change.

A National Farmers Union paper of 20th May reports from Paris that the French Sugar Beet Growers' Association has announced a 5 per cent, increase in planting this year, making a total of about 1,103,000 acres of beet sugar. That will produce practically the amount of sugar guaranteed under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. We therefore have every right to be suspicious of the French beet sugar growers. When 1974–75 comes along and the agreement has to be renegotiated the French will have boosted their production sufficiently to take up that Commonwealth Sugar Agreement portion. That is the reality, and that will lead to head-on collision between ourselves, on behalf of the Commonwealth sugar countries, and the Common Market.

Against that background I am anxious that the Lancaster House Agreement will not, and cannot, be honoured, much as the intention might be at present that it should be honoured. The Amendment therefore seems an obvious one. If the Government do not accept the Amendment, there will be grounds for the deepest suspicions. All the Amendment does is to strengthen the Government's hand when they come to renegotiate in 1974–75.

If the French are planting over 1 million acres, the Commonwealth sugar countries will have to put their surplus on the world market and the price will come rocketing down, particularly as there must be added to it nearly 400,000 tons from Queens land, Australia, which I reckon has been carted for six, if I might use a Test Match expression about that great country which has done so much for us. Apart from the Commonwealth sugar portion or quota, Fiji and Mauritius have to sell over one-third of their production on the world market, so if they do not get their CSA quota, that, in addition to the one-third, will go on the world market.

I wish finally to refer to a publication, the translation of which I have, of Sucrerie Française August/September, 1971, which speaks of the Lancaster House Agreement: It is indeed rather surprising to find the statement that 'the British Government and other participating Commonwealth Governments consider this (i.e. the EEC's) offer as a firm assurance of a stable and permanent market in the enlarged Community, on remunerative terms, for the quantities of sugar provided for by the CSA for all the developing member countries.…The EEC never intended to commit itself at the present stage to such wide and precise undertakings. I think I should repeat that passage. It was a remark made about my right hon. Friend's negotiations. He was in conversation with his colleague when I quoted it: The EEC never intended to commit itself at the present stage to such wide and precise undertakings. the translation of the Sucrerie Francaise continues: Lastly, on the 5th June, 'Le Monde', in commenting on the communiqué of the 3rd June, set out above, quoted official sources close to Mr. Rippon as stating that he would merely inform the Six at Luxembourg on 7th June, of the position laid out at Lancaster House, without requesting their approval of the interpretation made by the Commonwealth (and by himself) of the nature and scope of the commitments of the Community. It seems that this was the course which was in fact taken. That is a Press report. Further on it reads: It seems, according to certain pieces of information, that the EEC is simply 'taking note of' the communiqué, which evidently does not constitute a commitment. There is a footnote which reads: Mr. Schuman said in precise terms that this document committed only the UK, and the Community merely took note of it for information. This Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Workington makes good sense and will greatly strengthen the hand of the Government when it comes to negotiate.

I appeal to those many Members in Parliament who have at heart the welfare of the developing countries. Whatever they think of the Common Market, they might like to support this Amendment. If they do not, one will begin to think perhaps that their care for the developing countries may be a little transparent and not as clear as some of us thought.

I hope on this occasion that all those hon. Members who have the interests of the developing countries at heart can support this Amendment when it comes to the vote.

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)

The Amendments were eloquently and powerfully moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). Each of the Amendments has my warm support. I am a sponsor of all but one of them and the principal sponsor of new Clause 3. There can be no justification whatever for the rejection of new Clause 3. Certainly, there can be no criticism of its importance or of its form. With my co-sponsors, I took the best possible drafting advice available to hon. Members of this House. If the new Clause is opposed, the implication is that the European Communities Bill is unamendable. The need for an amendment in terms of new Clause 3 is to ensure that the European Economic Community places the same interpretation on the Lancaster House Agreement as does the Treasury Bench in this House.

In common with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides, I deplore the absence of any reference to the assurances given at Lancaster House in the text of the treaty negotiated with the Community. The text contains only a general assurance of intention. It contains no reference to the precise interpretation given to our assurances to the Commonwealth sugar producers at Lancaster House.

It must be emphasised that the Lancaster House Agreement was rightly accepted by the 14 developing Commonwealth Governments, and the Commonwealth sugar exporters, as providing a firm assurance from the British Government on markets in the enlarged Community. The communiqué from Lancaster House made it clear that the Commonwealth Governments accepted the Community's proposal only on the basis of the interpretation put upon it at Lancaster House.

The European Economic Community has sealed its lips. There has not been a breath of comment as to whether it put the same interpretation upon the Lancaster House Agreement as do the Commonwealth sugar producers and exporters.

Many sections of the Press have attempted to treat the question of sugar as one which is now settled. They even imply it is settled satisfactorily in the interests of the Commonwealth sugar exporting countries. But all that appears in the Treaty of Accession is the vague agreement at Brussels. There is nothing else. The Lancaster House communiqué was, of course, merely noted by the Six. So there could be nothing else. This means that everything has been swept under the carpet with a vague declaration of intent. That is not good enough for very many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Workington emphasised that quantity is important. One of the Amendments argues that we must be prepared to pledge continued access to this country of 1,400,000 tons of Commonwealth sugar if and when we enter the European Economic Community.

Many of the poorer Commonwealth countries depend for their very existence on exporting sugar to the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) referred in particular to Mauritius. He may perhaps recall Josef Conrad's phrase. He said of the people of Mauritius that sugar is their daily bread. Well upwards of 90 per cent, of their exports consist of sugar and sugar by-products. We cannot simply turn aside from the difficulties of the world's poor.

It was emphasised to the House earlier in our debates on the Bill that terms of trade have recently been moving strongly against the poorer countries in favour of the richer countries. It has been shown that in the last 15 years the benefit of aid programmes to the new nations of Africa has been almost totally eliminated by the increasingly adverse terms of trade, which have deteriorated by about 15 per cent. since 1950. The poor cane sugar farmers of the West Indies and those in countries bordering the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific now have to produce much more sugar to buy a tractor. It can hardly be right that this Parliament should refuse the poorer Commonwealth countries a definite assurance about their economic future.

Aid to developing countries is deeply important. In the long term, however, trade is far more important than aid.

My friends in the poorer countries have told me again and again how much they dislike charity. Of course, they need charity now. But they do not want indefinitely to have to rely upon crumbs from the rich man's table. The Commonwealth Sugar Agreement is an instrument that helps them to plan their economies and sustain their independence. They would lament any possibility of a phasing out of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. We ought to remind ourselves in this debate that 75 per cent. of mankind live in poverty. Moreover, many of those who live in the direst poverty are people who depend on producing cane sugar for their livelihood.

4.30 p.m.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Workington also referred in his speech to Australia. There is an illusion that every farmer in Queensland is a rich man. It is just not true. Many of us have personal friends there, and we know that they have served this country well in good times as well as bad. There is no case at all for excluding the Queenslanders from the British market. They produce cane sugar very efficiently. They are far more efficient than the French or the West Germans—and they make important purchases from this country in return. It must be stressed again that in recent years we have had a very favourable balance of payments with Australia. Why then should we now be asked to turn our backs on traditional friends?

I hope the Committee will now assert its authority against the Government. There are those on both sides of the Committee who know the realities of the situation facing the poorer Commonwealth countries and who are aware of the implications of our decision on these Amendments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) was himself a leading sponsor of an early-day Motion on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. My right hon. Friend is an ardent supporter of British entry into the Common Market. In that Motion, however, together with right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the political fence, he implored the Government to see that there were definite assurances for the Commonwealth sugar producers as a precondition of entry. I hope that all who signed that Motion will stand by their word in the Lobby tonight. I trust that at the end of the debate they will go into the Lobby to give effect to the terms of their Motion.

Mr. Marten

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not implying that there are right hon. or hon. Members on this side of the Committee who signed that splendid Motion who would do other than support these Amendments. I am sure that nobody on this side of the Committee who took that earlier view would do such a disgraceful thing as not to support these Amendments tonight.

Mr. Morris

It would certainly be a sad moment if any right hon. or hon. Gentleman on either side were to go back on his signature on that extremely important early-day Motion. No doubt tomorrow the Division lists will be examined with care and will be compared with the signatures on the early-day Motion to which I referred.

Sir Anthony Meyer (Flint, West)

Would the hon. Gentleman express the equal hope that those of his right hon. and hon. Friends who voted in October in favour of Britain's entry into Europe will stand by their vote on that occasion?

Mr. Morris

None of my right hon. or hon. Friends has ever expressed any support for phasing out the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. We have only to look at these Amendments to see that there is no possible justification for rejecting them. Therefore, I hope the Committee will proceed to assert its authority by agreeing these Amendments to the Bill.

Mr. Charles Morrison (Devizes)

I have the highest possible regard for the negotiating ability of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster. But I must admit that my regard for his ability is not so high as to believe that he was capable of forcing representatives of the Governments involved in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement to agree against their will to the Lancaster House statement, or of so misleading them as to persuade them that what they were accepting was reasonable when it was not. It seems to me that the first of those alternatives would have been an insult to the strength of character of the representatives of the Commonwealth countries concerned, and the second would have been an insult to their intelligence. Yet it is those alternatives which seem to be the implications behind the Amendments and the comments made in their support.

The right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said that the Commonwealth Governments had no choice but to accept the offer on sugar. Why did they have no choice? They need not have accepted the offer. If they had not done so—and it was entirely up to them—it would have been open to the British Government, if they had felt so inclined, either to break off negotiations with the Common Market countries if they felt unable to obtain anything more from them, or to negotiate a harder bargain with the Common Market. The fact to be borne in mind is that the offer was accepted and the agreed Lancaster House statement was made.

Mr. John Mendelson

Surely the hon. Gentleman is far too exclusive in putting forward only two possibilities. Does he not know from the participants at the conference that the British Government said to the sugar producers "We shall do neither of these two things, and you must accept the position"? Secondly, does he not appreciate that credits must be provided for continuing sugar production and that the sugar producers are not their own masters in that respect?

Mr. Morrison

The hon. Gentleman claims to know a lot of things, though I do not know how he knows them. However, even if he is right, there was still no need for the Governments concerned to accept the offer. They could have reserved their position and said that they did not agree with what was being put to them. It would then have been up to the British Government to come to Parliament to try to obtain support for what had been negotiated.

I believe that the Governments involved in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement accepted the situation not only because they were satisfied with the arrangement on sugar but also because of the new opportunities which would be available to them from a closer relationship with the Common Market. Those countries will have the option of an offer of association with the enlarged Community, and that association would give those countries preferential access to a far larger market for some of their other products and exports. Furthermore, by becoming associated with the enlarged Community the developing countries would have the opportunity of further development aid from the Community. I have no doubt that it was in the light of those further thoughts that the Governments concerned agreed with the terms of the Lancaster House statement. I believe that the association of those countries with the Common Market will provide new and better export opportunities for the gradually developing countries.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) said that trade was better than aid. I agree with him, but I also feel that there will be far better opportunities for trade than those countries have enjoyed up to the present when this country is a member of the Community and when the developing countries are associated with the Community.

Mr. John Mendelson

The speech made in good faith by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) is only possible because of the deliberate refusal of Her Majesty's Government to supply the Committee or the House of Commons with any information about these discussions. It is precisely because the Government knew that if they were to provide proper information about these discussions there would be such an outcry from their own benches, let alone from my hon. and right hon. Friends. It is a tragic sequence of events that this Committee, on behalf of the House, at this late stage in the proceedings should still be working in the dark as far as these negotiations are concerned.

There are sometimes complaints in this House and in Committees of this House of Commons about matters which are far less important than the subject with which we are concerned, where the Minister representing the Government gets up in a Committee upstairs and says that he has seen the housing associations, he has seen associations of manufacturers, he has seen all these bodies and reached agreement with them. Every member of the Committee gets up and shows himself completely dissatisfied with that approach. The Government are accused of being well on the way towards a corporate State. Members of the Committee charge the Government with refusing essential information to the elected Members of Parliament who are supposed to be, according to the Government, so much in control of this legislation; who are the only people, according to the Government, who are fit to pass judgment on the legislation the Government are putting before the House.

In such matters, not as important as this legislation, Members of the House of Commons refuse to accept the Government's statement that they have cleared this in secret negotiations with bodies outside and that they cannot give the details to the Committee of the House. They ought to do the same thing this afternoon. According to the Government, Members of the House are the only people who could have a hand in making this final decision. They have refused to go to the country in a General Election. They have refused a referendum. They have said that only Members of the House are the proper people, having been elected by their constituents, to pass judgment on these matters.

I have twice asked the Leader of the House, who is responsible for Government publications, to produce these exchanges and this correspondence before this afternoon. Nothing has been published in addition to what we have already had with the cursory references that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) made a few moments ago. I would say to the hon. Member for Devizes that he is quite wrong and misinformed on the position in which the sugar producers and the sugar-producing countries found themselves in the Lancaster House discussions. First of all, the Government made it quite clear to them—and we have the Minister to reply, and I am within his hearing; he can correct me if what I say is untrue—that in no circumstances were the Government prepared to break off the negotiations with the Six if they could not get the sugar agreement they wanted. They were told that this was going ahead, that it was a fait accompli, and that they had better accept it.

Secondly, several Ministers—one of whom said so in public on television immediately after the Lancaster House discussions had concluded that afternoon—demanded in a private meeting that the British Government should go back and say that they wanted the Lancaster House declaration accepted as part of the agreement. That is a fact, and let the Minister deny it if he wishes. Far from declaring themselves satisfied, several Ministers rehearsed the fears which have been expressed in this Committee this afternoon before any Member of the House of Commons ever did so. They knew their responsibilities. The Government's reply was that if the others were prepared to accept it, then they would be very pleased, but that they were not going to insist upon it. If the others did not accept it, then they would have to accept their refusal. That was the Government's position. Let the Minister deny that if he wishes.

[MISS HARVIE ANDERSON in the Chair]

4.45 p.m.

Therefore, the hon. Member for Devizes should accept in equally good faith from those of us who have looked at those facts that this information is wrong, that the sugar-producing Governments were not in a position to act freely as indicated. What were they to do? If they merely broke up the negotiations altogether and said that they would have no further contact at all, that after all they were the customers, it would have been a ridiculous attitude. That is the reply to the contribution made by the hon. Member for Devizes.

We have to accept our responsibilities in this respect. It is for us to decide—I mean the Government as well as the House—whether we can accept, in all conscience, the way in which we have treated these countries and whether we can be responsible in future for having accepted the refusal of the Six to read this part into the Agreement between them and us.

I can understand the difficulty in which the Minister finds himself this afternoon, to answer the question put by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten). After all, this is serious work which we are doing in this Committee. We are not trying to catch each other out. There is no value in trying to score a point against the Minister on a matter of this magnitude. We do that on other matters because we know that two months later we can go back and change it round again. I can understand the Minister's difficulty, because he knows that he has an overriding decision by people far more powerful in his Cabinet than he is: that there was going to be no listening to the sugar producers; that they were going to be sacrificed to the refusal of the Six to accept the Lancaster House declaration into the Agreement. That is the reality of the position.

I say to the Minister that this argument is not concluded. This argument will continue, and it will continue in the country where the Government do not want it to continue. They have illusions if they think that if they carry the vote in this Committee, and later in the House of Commons, their responsibility will be forgotten or wiped away. There is real difficulty in the Minister's position.

I also believe that it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility, remaining still in the negotiations with the Six, for the Government to accept the wisdom of the Committee on this matter and change their own position. After all, Mr. Schumann refused point blank—and this has been quoted by the hon. Member for Banbury; I quoted it once before in similar terms in a debate in the House rather than in Committee—to go beyond the formal declaration after the sugar negotiations had been completed. This was the British Government's point of view and it in no way committed any of the Governments of the Six.

Whatever the Government have failed to do in the past in coming back to us and reporting this, as the Chancellor of the Duchy never did, time has moved on since then. Surely it is possible, if the Government maintain the position that they will play an important part within the Community if we join, for them to say that they have had many representations made to them, that this is a parliamentary democracy, that there is powerful opinion in the House of Commons that this is not to be accepted in this way. They could go back to the Six and seek to reopen the discussions on this matter. What is to stop them? I cannot believe for a moment that it is this nonsense about having to devote five or six days to a Report stage which will finally prevent them from accepting an Amendment which they believe to be reasonable in their own minds. That would be an attitude of irresponsibility that even I should find it hard to believe.

What may be the more powerful reason is that the Prime Minister wants to ensure that there are no difficult negotiations or discussions yet ahead of him before he can attend the first summit meeting, if there is such a meeting; the French Government have not yet made up their minds about it. But if there is any sense in having real, continuing discussions as potential members of the Community, surely the Government ought now to say that they will listen to the voice of the House of Commons on this matter and that they will begin negotiations demanding that the Lancaster House declaration shall become part of an agreement between the Six and ourselves and not merely a matter of which they take note. If there is a summit conference, it might be that the run-up to it could be used for the negotiation of this matter.

Surely that is a practical proposition which many Members of Parliament would support gladly. On a matter where opinion is expressed so freely and where even those who are inclined to give the Government the benefit of the doubt put forward the view that the Government's interpretation is not correct on the facts, surely it is incumbent upon the Government to say to the Committee, as they are so concerned with parliamentary democracy, "We accept in some form what so many hon. Members urge upon us."

I do not know what the Government's reply to such a case might be. However, if the Government were to adopt that attitude, it would not be contradictory to their general purpose of wishing to join the Community. Many hon. Members whatever their views on the general principle, would rejoice if the Government adopted this attitude. Surely there is a very powerful case for the Government to consider. There must be some very strange reasons if they refuse to meet the Committee on this issue.

Sir Robin Turton

I agree with the last words of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) made the strongest speech that could be made from either side of the Committee in favour of this Amendment. However, I take issue with the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) who talked about breaking the Government in the Division Lobbies. That is not the purpose of the Amendment. It is designed to turn what has been described as a specific and moral commitment into a specific, moral and legal commitment. That is the issue that we are discussing today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes said he was certain that the Government were sincere about the Lancaster House agreement. So am I. So are the vast majority of hon. Members. However, we are not certain about how far the Community representatives hold the same view. That is why it is important by some means to put words into the Bill which will tie down the Six as well to the Lancaster House agreement.

I remember on 11th May how proud I was when my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy spoke out for Britain and the Commonwealth and how surprised I was at what appeared to be his volte-face the following day. It is more than a year ago now, but I remind the Committee of the report which appeared in France-Soir on 14th May: Mr. Rippon, on Tuesday, had made a very violent plea in this connection: 'If we do not get out of this bog, we shall do harm to ourselves,' he declared. 'This dialogue of deaf people must end.' On Wednesday he went into reverse. The French pointed out if these outlets were guaranteed to the Commonwealth countries for their sugar, the same should apply to the countries already associated, such as Senegal, and Niger for their ground-nuts and Tchad for their cotton. Finally, Mr. Rippon was content with a promise…Mr. Rippon thus cancelled his 'outburst' of Tuesday, which had made such a bad impression. The English journalists, in interviewing the British delegation, strongly emphasised this volte-face, and it is probable that the comments of the English press will be severe. This is the reason why it is vital to reassure our Commonwealth suger producers, who have to plan on a long-term basis. Their position is not like that of my constituents who grow beet sugar. In cane it is necessary to plan on the long term.

While I have no doubt about the firm resolve of my right hon. and learned Friend, I fear that these words are being interpreted differently by the Community and by Her Majesty's Government. I say that because of the report in Le Figaro describing the Press conference on 13th May, when my right hon. and learned Friend declared: The French expression 'sauvegarder les interets' is very strong. It covers at the same time the volume, the production, the prices, the use.' Mr. Schumann, who was sitting next to Mr. Rippon, submitted his comment differently: 'Sauvegarder les interets calls for flexibility in the choice of the means, guarantees of quantity of price, aid in the diversification of production and in industrialisation'. I hope that we shall be told that we regard this safeguarding of interests in the light of what my right hon. and learned Friend said on 14th May.

Turning from that to what was touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) and the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), I am not happy that these Amendments cover the point that they raised about the Queensland farmers. I hope that the Government will try to devise some way in which in the Bill we can give more reassurance to the Queensland farmers than they have at the moment.

The assurance was given by my right hon and learned Friend when he was in Canberra. On 18th September, 1970, he told the Australians: I am well aware how vital this matter is for some of your farmers in economic and human terms. I promise you that we shall treat it extremely carefully and seriously in close consultation with your Government. This is, when all is said and done, a matter of mutual concern. We have made it plain that we shall seek the longest possible transitional period in which to resolve these initial difficulties. That was a definite pledge by Her Majesty's Government that they would have a long transitional phasing out of Queensland sugar under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. In the White Paper, in the Accession Treaty, and in the Bill there is no provision at all. After 25th February, 1974, out goes Queensland sugar with no phasing out at all.

I beg my right hon. Friend to realise that this has aroused a good deal of bitterness in Australia and in relations between this country and Australia. I ask him for an undertaking that he will continue to demand from the Community a proper, long period of phasing out of Australian sugar, so as not to harm the economy of Australia, particularly Queensland, or the world sugar market.

5.0 p.m.

One of the great difficulties is that the Community has remained outside the International Sugar Agreement. It should be the policy of this Government that, if there is to be an enlarged Community, that enlarged Community should be a member of the Agreement. We have abandoned, I am afraid, most of our Commonwealth links, but in the enlarged Community, we can bring our Commonwealth partners and with them the wider world developing countries' interests into a relationship with the Community. That means a completely new approach by the Community to the International Sugar Agreement.

I am not happy about Protocol 22 of the Treaty of Accession, because the history of Association for sugar-producing countries has not been happy. After all, Congo-Brazzaville and Madagascar were both sugar-producing countries and tried to export sugar to the Community after it was formed. Levies kept those sugar imports out and the trade virtually stopped. Surinam used to export sugar to Holland. When the Community was formed, it was said that this contravened the EEC regulations. To avoid a case being brought in the European Court, it was eventually agreed that these exports should be cut by half and would continue only until 1975.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes said that this was a wonderful thing that was being offered—Associated Status. What good is that if sugar is excluded? What good is that to the little island of Mauritius, 95 per cent, of whose exports are in sugar? What good is that to Jamaica, which at the moment has 18 per cent, unemployment? We feel terrible when our unemployment touches 6 per cent. The economies of these countries depend on sugar. That is why it is desperately important that the Government should put in the Bill a firm declaration of where we stand on the matter of sugar.

It is curious that up to now everyone has talked about the Commonwealth and the developing countries and no one has mentioned some people who are quite as important—the housewives of this country. Protocol 17 deals with the imports and pricing of sugar into this country. Paragraph 3 says: The price at which the sugar in question is marketed in the United Kingdom shall be fixed at a level such as to allow the quantities in question effectively to be marketed without prejudice the marketing of Community sugar. That protocol deals with the transitional period from 1st January, 1973, until 28th February, 1975. With regard to other food imports, the Minister is having a phasing in of increased prices so that the inflation on the housewife will be tapered and will not come to full effect until the end of the transitional period. But with sugar, the effect will be felt immediately in the transitional period.

At the moment, sugar in the shops is 9p for two pounds. This means that, on entry, the price of sugar for the house wife will be doubled—

Mr. John H. Osborn (Sheffield, Hallam)

No.

Sir Robin Turton

Yes, doubled. What hon. Members do not realise—I had to correct the right hon. Member for Workington because he was out of date—is that since we last talked about sugar, there has been an uplift of price. When I was quoting a figure of the target price of £103a ton and an intervention price of £98.81 per ton, I was quoting figures given in April to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes by the Minister of Agriculture. In other words, with the last price increase agreed by the Community—since Friday the price will be higher still—[An HON. MEMBER: "More than doubled."] Of course. The basic figure at the moment on the London market is about £60 a ton. This will raise it.

Paragraph 3 of Protocol 22 provides that the price should not be less than the Community price; and paragraph 2 provides for special levies equal to the difference between the c.i.f. equivalent of the agreed purchase price and the price at which sugar is marketed in the United Kingdom, and also a charge based on the difference between the world c.i.f. price of raw sugar and the c.i.f. equivalent of the agreed purchase price. These paragraphs will mean that the price of sugar to the housewife on entry will be doubled.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Prior)

As my right hon. Friend has dealt with both those points, perhaps I had better wait until the winding-up speech—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] All right; I shall deal with it now. As I have so many points to deal with later, perhaps it would be a good idea to clear this one out of the way.

The range of price at present operative in the United Kingdom is £82 to £92 per ton, and not the £60 per ton which my right hon. Friend has mentioned. The mid-point at present is £87. This would be £97 if it were not for the special subsidy which this year we are giving to the sugar industry in order to try to hold down prices.

The Community price is at present about 11 per cent. higher than our price would have been if I had not put in those special measures, or 24 per cent, higher than it is following the introduction of the measures.

We have a five-year transitional period to come up to Community prices. What it means in terms of retail prices—the important point about which right hon. and hon. Members wish to hear—is that retail prices in the Six are substantially higher than they are in this country; anything between 35 per cent. and 70 per cent higher—not 100 per cent. higher. The difference is basically due to the efficiency and, therefore, the cheapness of our distributive system and to the fact that retailers here have traditionally reckoned to make very little out of selling sugar. Consequently, I would expect the increase in retail prices, other things being equal, to be of the same order as the increase in the wholesale price of sugar. This I have already said would have been 11 per cent., had I not taken the measures on 8th March, but would be 24 per cent. allowing for those measures.

Sir Robin Turton

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. It is very helpful that he has given us this information. I do not want him to intervene again, but I presume that he will not be able to continue the present subsidy once we enter the Community, because that is against the Treaty of Rome. Therefore, it will mean an increase, according to my right hon. Friend's figures, of 24 per cent. But, in addition, under paragraph 3 of the Protocol there is no phasing-in. That is what I am objecting to. It is not a phasing-in. Directly we get in, we are not allowed to have sugar on sale at a lower price because we must not prejudice the marketing of Community sugar. That is what we have agreed to. I wish that we had not agreed. I did not realise that we were adopting for sugar a different policy from other foodstuffs.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will give some rather more satisfactory answer to the housewives of Britain. What will happen if before we enter the Community there is another price review of the common agricultural policy and a further uplift of prices? These figures are for the year 1972–73, the current agri- cultural year. What we shall be facing in 1973 are the 1973–74 prices, which may be higher.

I take comfort that my right hon. Friend considers that my figure of a doubling is excessive. But I am still worried about housewives having to pay, on my right hon. Friend's estimate, prices at least 24 per cent. higher. I believe that my right hon. Friend is optimistic.

For those reasons, I hope that the Government will look favourably on one of these Amendments. I do not know which one would be easiest for the Government to adopt. But in the interests of British housewives, and in the interests of Australia and particularly our sugar producing Commonwealth countries, it is vitally necessary that something should be put into the Bill to give them a degree of confidence for the future.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Acton)

The Father of the House has, with his characteristic clarity, outlined the political background to the Amendments. As one or two hon. Members on the Government benches do not seem to be aware of the full significance of what we are debating, I hope to put briefly certain points which have not yet been mentioned. I am very glad to do this because in a previous debate there was some discussion as to how far the European Economic Community was an outward looking world-oriented organisation, and it has been sometimes stated by the proponents of the advantages of joining the Community that that is so.

I am not trying to be funny when I say that sugar is an acid test in this respect. Hon. Members on the Government benches have already pointed out the great extent to which sugar forms the inherent and basic economy of so many of our Commonwealth territories. I am glad that the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer), is present in the Chamber, because we clashed on this matter in a previous debate and I said that I hoped that he would be present when I made these points in this debate.

First, I should like to describe—I am open to correction from the Minister if my figures are wrong—something of the mechanism operating at present. As I understand it, the Community has a sugar surplus of between half a million and 1 million tons annually over and above its current consumption. I shall explain later how this came to be so. But it is not surprising to know that, by and large, the great mass of this surplus is grown in France. This, perhaps, is explained by the natural background of that country and the degree to which some parts of France are particularly suited to sugar beet production.

As I understand it, our deficit is about 1,800,000 tons. As we have heard, there is a marked difference in price through our support arrangements and quota system for farmers. I add for the benefit of the interest group of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) that the British farmer is also interested in this matter, and it may not be as sweet for him as perhaps some people have thought. Therefore, we have a great imbalance in price. The figures have already been quoted. I think that the Minister said that it would be about 70 per cent. in retail terms at the end of the transitional period.

Why is the European surplus so great? It is because in world terms sugar is a tropical crop. As I understand it, in 1961 when the sugar arrangements were introduced under the common agricultural policy the Community agreed to calculate basic quantities. That was done on the years 1961–62 to 1965–66. The Community calculated a basic production quantity of some 6½ million tons. But this estimate of European consumption was rather too high. However, once having handed out the quotas to individual States, and individual States having handed out the quotas to individual factories, and individual factories having given quotas to farmers delivering to those factories—a procedure well known to many hon. Members on the Government benches who represent agricultural constituencies; because we work basically the same system—the Community then found that irrespective of the yield, which was probably under-estimated rather than over-estimated, this very marked surplus resulted.

One must bear in mind that in doing this the Community was attempting to produce a free market in sugar—a very difficult thing to do in view of the way in which this process works and because of a quota from country to country as a ceiling quota anyway. The basic quotas were given a guaranteed price. In other words, farmers whose sugar factory was producing quantities up to the quota which it was given could get the guaranteed price at the market price level.

It would be right to describe in detail from an authoritative source exactly what happens. If the Committee is not interested, I am sure British farmers will be interested, because the same system, I take it, that exists in Europe will exist here shortly. I quote from "Green Europe", published by the Agra-Europe Group. It is a fortnightly bulletin for British farmers. The issue of 5th February, 1971, says: The Common Market farm fund will guarantee this intervention price for all sugar produced up to five per cent above the estimated quantity for consumption in the Community."— that is, of course, already over-estimated to begin with— And the member states, which have given their factories basic quotas of sugar, are at present committed to paying the full intervention price for all sugar offered to them up to 135 per cent of these basic quotas with funds provided from FEOGA. This ceiling, known as the maximum quota, is due for revision this year. This extra 35 per cent of production, although it qualifies for the intervention price, is not straightforward profit for the sugar factories because they have to pay a levy back to FEOGA for production above their basic quotas. The size of this levy is calculated from a formula based on total EEC production, and on price levels within the Community and on world markets. Once the intervention agencies have bought up sugar with FEOGA funds, they can either resell it on the Community market at a price above the intervention price, or they can denature it and sell it cheaply for animal feeding stuffs or chemical uses, or they can sell it at the world market price for export to non-member countries. Production over the 135 per cent mark cannot be sold on the Community market and has to be exported at world prices. The rules which apply to the price structure for white sugar are reflected in the guaranteed prices available for producers of beet. No target price is fixed for beet, but there is a guaranteed minimum price of 7s. 2d. per cwt. which is calculated back from the white sugar price. It applies to beet of 16 per cent sugar content, delivered to the factory within the basic quota. Between basic quota and maximum quota (100–135 per cent) there is a lower minimum price of 4s. 3d. per cwt. Beet produced over and above the quota qualifies for no guaranteed minimum price. It is the sugar manufactured from this surplus beet which cannot be sold on the Community market. So the production discipline which the three-tier price arrangements impose on sugar factories is passed to sugar beet growers. They are put under further pressure because the levy on over-production (mentioned above) which the factory has to pay is split60: 40 between producer and processor; it is the farmer who has to pay the larger part of the penalty for overproduction. I intervene at this point to say that we are told that the CAP is to help the farmer. But here we are shown that the farmer who over-produces is penalised and the factory and the manufacturer, presumably, get the profit.

I continue— The minimum prices for sugar beet are fixed on the basis of the intervention price for white sugar, allowing for the processing margin, yield, receipts from the sale of molasses and the cost of delivering beet to the factory. Because the Community prices were fixed from the usual political compromise, they were extremely generous for the more developed beet growing areas. The minimum price within the basic quota represented an increase of 40 per cent for the French beet grower betwen 1966–67 and 1968–69—hence the considerable increase in production within the Community. I have no doubt that hon. Members are completely foxed and wearied by this long quotation. But it is right to read it because it is simple compared with what happens. There is nothing here about a percentage of sugar in the beet. There is nothing about how the farmer will compete with his neighbour, and there is nothing about how one sugar-producing factory will compete with another, which is the essence of the system. It is far more complex than even the document I have quoted makes out. I have shown that a system which we are joining has an in-built surplus because of the nature of the political compromise necessary to start the system up. I hope I have now come to the point of the long quotation.

This is why it is politically very expedient for the Community to make sure that there is a market for the surplus under the system. As far as I can understand, it is a system which it is unable to change. In 1969–70 £36 million of Community funds went to support sugar prices internally. The Committee can now see just how crazy the system is. But it is even crazier. Included in the French quota, which is the largest of the quotas in the Community, and which amounts to about 2,400,000 tons, is 465,000 tons as the quota for Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, which are parts of overseas France and, therefore, for the purposes of sugar calculation are part of Europe. They are producing cane sugar in the West Indies which is regarded as beet sugar grown in Europe. Good luck to them. The French have done well by their West Indian territories, but neither the Chancellor of the Duchy nor the Minister of Agriculture has said what they have done for our West Indian territories.

If the French found it necessary to make a special arrangement for their territories and to have a quota for the West Indies built into the European system, surely we could have done something similar. Surely it would have been only justice to have said in the negotiations that we wanted a comparable system to the French. The French are now having it two ways. They not only have a guaranteed market for their West Indian producers; they also have a surplus production by their own domestic producers, and production has therefore risen very rapidly in the last two years.

Mr. William Molloy (Ealing, North)

Would my hon. Friend not agree that this is all part and parcel of the terms of surrender and the price that we are having to pay for entry We are not only letting down producers in this country, but we are letting down Commonwealth producers who have assisted us in years of stress and strain, and that is a shameful thing to contemplate.

Mr. Spearing

I fully agree with my hon. Friend but even he has not understood the extent to which we are letting them down. That is my next point. I am glad to see the Chancellor of the Duchy has returned, and if I am wrong I hope he will intervene.

We have made no such similar arrangement for our West Indian territories. As the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has explained, cane sugar requires some degree of certainty because of the replanting cycle of 5–7 years. We are often told, and I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Lewisham, West, will agree, that trade and aid require stability. The guarantees contained in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement for the Commonwealth sugar producers were perhaps a model of world trade in this respect. That agreement seems to be on the verge of disruption.

It is impossible for any primary producer to plan ahead if the world market price is going to shoot up and down. He can make no plans because of the lack of stability, and he cannot depend upon a fair price, the old mediaeval idea of a just price, which is believed by everybody to be in the best interests of world trade. We are scrapping a system and we are disrupting that trade that remains. As part of the European sugar system, surplus sugar must be used either for feeding stuffs or it must be put on the world market at world prices which are well below the European prices. Not many years ago a million tons of sugar was dumped by EEC producers on the world market, and such a move plays havoc with world prices.

Not only are we busting up the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, which gave guarantees to primary producers in countries where sugar was the major, and in some cases virtually the only, export crop. We are also ensuring that the market which will be left to them will be subjected to an avalanche of European sugar which will make conditions even more unstable.

5.30 p.m.

When we talk about the matter we talk not only about our Commonwealth but, in my case at least, about some of our constituents. Many of my constituents come from the West Indies, and many of them hope to go back there. Many have relatives there and will be trying to obtain better jobs or to work longer overtime in this country because of the destitution which already exists there and which will no doubt become even worse as a result of the sort of arrangements we shall be entering into very shortly if the Government have their way.

Where did the £36 million spent in 1969–70 to support sugar prices and to dump over 1 million tons on the world market come from? It came from levies on imported foods, again from the pockets of the housewife. It is a vicious system, contrary to everything that is said about the need for aid and world trade. That is why not so long ago I challenged the hon. Member for Lewisham, West to say why in this respect the EEC was an outward-looking and world-conscious community. On the very commodity where it could have played a great part in helping the rest of the world to maintain, if not increase, economic standards, it has chosen not to adopt a system to help. The system adopted is directly contrary, one which is almost mad financially and which appears to be mad in human terms. Some might go further and call it bad, if not evil.

No one has so far quoted in this debate the words of Part III of Protocol No. 22 in the Treaty of Accession. I hope hon. Members will compare these words with the system I have just outlined: The Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests of all the countries referred to in this Protocol whose economies depend to a considerable extent on the export of primary products, and particularly of sugar. The question of sugar will be settled within this framework, bearing in mind with regard to exports of sugar the importance of this product for the economies of several of these countries and of the Commonwealth countries in particular. Having signed a treaty including that protocol, and bearing in mind the system I have outlined—no hon. Member has denied that that is how it works—the Government should be only too glad to accept one of our Amendments. That would underline everything we have heard about the Community's outward-looking, world-wide mission and its responsibility to those less developed countries which are absolutely tied to one primary product. It would also put into legislative form the aspirations of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he signed the treaty of which that protocol was part.

Mr. Shore

On a point of order, Miss Harvie Anderson. Might not it be helpful to all of us if we had a reply from the Government rather in advance of the winding-up speech at the end of the debate? If we were not under a guillotine we should normally be able to make points and then return to them. Everyone who has heard the debate will agree that such substantial points have been made on both sides in the seven speeches already that it would be very welcome if the Minister replied and we then had the opportunity to pursue matters a little further. It would be convenient for everyone for the Minister to have a second bite if necessary.

The First Deputy Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is not a matter for the Chair, but no doubt his words have been heard.

Sir George Sinclair (Dorking)

I agree with one of the major points made by the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing), that the question of sugar imports from the developing countries of the Commonwealth is an acid test of Britain's relationships with the developing world. It is of basic importance to many hon. Members on both sides. It will be a test also of the relationship between the enlarged EEC and the third world.

We gave guarantees at Lancaster House which were accepted by the Sugar Producers Association and the Governments of the sugar-producing developing countries. They were accepted by Her Majesty's Government as a basic obligation. The question we have been debating this evening is how far the guarantees we gave unilaterally have been accepted by the enlarged EEC and, in the long term, how far they will be acceptable to our fellow Members.

Let us look at the situation as it is affected by different interests. There are strong forces ranged against the maintenance of imports of sugar from the Commonwealth producing areas. First, there is the increasing production of sugar beet in other European countries. Secondly, there is the pressure within Britain for increases in the efficient production of beet sugar by United Kingdom farmers. It is, in the light of the present prices for United Kingdom farm products, the best-paying break crop for large-scale corn growers, especially in East Anglia. There is also heavy capital investment in Britain in the efficient processing of this crop. Of course, radical changes upwards in the market prices for other agricultural products, such as beef, might make another break crop such as grass competitive. But we are dealing with the present situation.

There are powerful influences in favour of home production, both in Britain and in Europe, among the farmers and among those who have invested in sugar pro- cessing. They will seek to use their influence in favour of the industry in which they are engaged and against the import of sugar from the developing Commonwealth countries.

Mr. Alfred Morris

I believe the hon. Gentleman signed an early-day Motion that said a firm agreement with the Six on the question of sugar must be a precondition of entry. Is that still his position?

Sir G. Sinclair

I shall make that point in my own way. In nearly every speech I have made in this Chamber I have supported the cause of the developing countries. In this, my concern has been for two things. One is the cause of the developing countries and the other is Britain's good name in its relationship with those countries. They are both important to Britain.

Until the sugar producers in these developing countries can find an alternative export crop which will give them as good a return in foreign exchange as the production of cane sugar, we have an obligation to help them continue to market their product.

Mr. Richard Body (Holland with Boston)

Vote for the Amendment then.

Sir G. Sinclair

My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) says that I should vote for the Amendment. There are many ways of giving support to the developing countries apart from voting for Amendments. I do not support the Amendment.

I do not believe, as some people have suggested, that aid is any substitute for providing access at reasonable terms to the markets of the developed world. I am sorry that we are not to have a Foreign Office Minister winding up this evening because our obligation over sugar from the sugar producing countries of the Commonwealth affects our relationship with those countries; and this is the concern of the Foreign Office. This relationship is not really the responsibility of the Minister of Agriculture towards the British farmer.

The Government gave honourable assurances at the Lancaster House conference. Taking into account the limited degree of acceptance of these assurances by the EEC so far and the in-built forces within the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe working for the expansion of the beet sugar industry, we shall look for heavy reassurances this evening from the Minister about the future of the guarantees given unilaterally by this country. This is a real test of Britain's good faith towards those countries.

My belief is that in seeking entry to the EEC we are opening up for the developing countries, or we can do so, a better future and improved access to the markets of the world. We can also help to produce a stronger aid consortium in Europe. It is for those two reasons, among others that I want to see Britain entering the Common Market. I believe it will be of benefit to the developing countries. Let us make sure that the important assurances given at the Lancaster House conference are carried through by Government policy from now on and are not allowed to become simply agreements that we have negotiated adroitly. I believe that that is not the Government's attitude. I believe that we have a real sense of responsibility towards the third world, and I look to the Minister tonight to support what was agreed at Lancaster House.

Mr. Kenneth Marks (Manchester, Gorton)

Next week Members of Parliament and Legislative Councillors of Commonwealth Caribbean countries will be meeting for their regional conference and I wonder whether they will be as happy about EEC entry as our Government think they ought to be. Sugar is not their only worry; they have great unemployment problems; some have had difficulty with the banana crops.

Next week they will be debating the effect of our entry on their countries and particularly upon sugar. They will see, as my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) pointed out, their neighbouring islands, which are part of metropolitan France, doing quite well out of EEC membership. The only information they will have to go on is the communiqué issued after the meeting of the heads of the developing countries of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in 1971.

I want to remind the Committee of what that said: There was a full discussion of the Community's offer made on sugar after 1974. Many of us would have liked to have heard that discussion in full. The British delegation assured other delegations that the Community's proposals constitute a specific and moral commitment by the enlarged Community, of which the United Kingdom would be part. The British Government and other Commonwealth Governments participating regard this offer as a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community on fair terms for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in respect of all its existing developing member countries. The developing Commonwealth countries will continue to plan their future production on this basis, and their plans now are for long after 1974.

The final paragraph said: While recognising that the present meeting was concerned with the arrangements to apply to the developing Commonwealth sugar producers after Britain's entry into an enlarged Community, the Government representatives stressed the importance of a continuing and vital International Sugar Agreement to all sugar-producing countries. They expressed the hope that the enlarged Community would participate actively to this end. 5.45 p.m.

Whether that hope is any greater now than it was then I do not know. Whether the Community has shown that it will take an increased interest in the developing countries, and particularly sugar producers, is questionable. There will be many pressures on the EEC countries by 1975 to think about their own sugar production and their own affairs rather than the affairs of other countries. At present there is a surplus of sugar, and I think that about 11 per cent. of the production of the Six is converted to animal foods. If we enter the EEC that surplus could come here for refining, and our friends in the Commonwealth countries will be very concerned about that pressure from European countries.

It is easy to say that we all keep to agreements. This week we are finding with monetary matters that, while the Government may have the finest intentions of keeping to agreements, if the pressures are so great that they have to break them then they break them. There is another pressure which will be operating on the EEC countries. There will be a demand to simplify all the ramifications and special relations between the Six and its former dependencies and between us and our former dependencies. No doubt by 1975 we shall be talking much more in terms of simplified arrangements.

Mr. Alfred Morris

My hon. Friend referred by implication to Guadeloupe and Martinique. These are integral parts of metropolitan France and, as such, are in a different position from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana.

Mr. Marks

I agree. The independent Caribbean countries are in a very different position. If the associated States of the West Indies enter into a common arrangement with Jamaica as they hope to, and it would be logical, they may well lose some of their rights of association, which Jamaica does not have at the moment. The questions they will be asking next week are: Is the bankable assurance really there? Will we take as much sugar from them then as we do now? The Government can demonstrate the force of their assurance, can show their support for the Commonwealth and the priority they will give to the less developed countries, by accepting the Amendment. If they do not, then it is up to us to write in a real and bankable assurance.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

I associate myself entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) when he said that this debate illustrates sharply the inadequacy of the time and opportunity which this Committee has to consider the contents of the Treaty of Accession and what lies behind the Bill.

That was drastically illustrated by the two brief episodes when, first, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and then, somewhat less reluctantly and very helpfully, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, were briefly brought to their feet to make interventions.

It was also illustrated by the plea of the right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) that a Government spokesman should interpose in the course of this debate. The purpose of a Committee stage is to enable the Committee to understand the meaning and implications of the provisions of a Bill by having the opportunity to question the Government specifically and to consider what the Government have to say. Of course, I understand the reason why my right hon. Friends are determined to defer their interventions to the latest possible moment. It is so that they cannot be questioned; it is so there shall be no opportunity to do what a proper Committee stage provides for, namely, to come back again after an explanation has been given, to examine that explanation, to discover by debate whether it is satisfactory, and then go forward from there.

The Committee is being denied a true Committee stage of this Bill by the joint operation of the guillotine, which enables the Government to avoid being questioned, and the decision that there shall be no further stage at which whatever Ministers are pleased to say at the conclusion of these debates can be further considered and debated.

There are two aspects to this undoubtedly important part of the treaty and of the Bill which are under consideration together. There is the initial period, the first two years up to the beginning of 1975, and there is the future at large after that date. Both require considerable investigation and detailed examination.

I do not know how many Members of the Committee have sought to read Protocol No. 17, which deals with the first of those two phases, in conjunction with Clause 7 of the Bill; but it is illuminating to do so. My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) was fully justified in reminding the Committee that, up to that point of his speech, we were altogether overlooking Protocol No. 17 and the first or initial phase. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to paragraph 5 of Protocol No. 17, which says: The Council shall, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, adopt the measures necessary for implementing the provisions of this Protocol". Then it continues: in such a way as to ensure the proper functioning of the common organisation of the market in sugar and in particular to ensure that … the price at which the sugar is marketed in the United Kingdom is respected. It is of importance, before this Clause is added to the Bill, that it should be understood beyond peradventure what is meant by that not immediately intelligible expression. The Council shall, acting by a qualified majority"— there will be no question of our being able to interpose a veto— adopt the measures necessary for implementing the provisions"— that is to say, it is to implement the levies in this country— in such a way as to ensure that…the price at which the sugar is marketed in the United Kingdom is respected. It is important that we should know whether that means action to keep the price in this country up or down? Or exactly what does it mean?

There is a special reason for our inquisitiveness, and that is that this is the last opportunity that the House of Commons is sure of receiving to advert to this matter. Clause 7, which, after all, is the Clause under consideration, deals with the amounts charged for the use of the Sugar Board by a directly applicable Community provision on goods imported into the United Kingdom. So the imposition of the levies set out in the protocol and the implementation of the provisions for the first or pre-1975 phase will take place by directly applicable Community provision. Hon. Members must not suppose that they can let the matter go, on the basis that we shall be able to consider some time during the next two or three years what will be the effect on prices in this country of this or that level at which the levy may be set. The matter will be entirely out of the hands of Parliament. Therefore, we should have a proper opportunity, since this is taxation—taxation of the food of the people, one of the most vital matters—to hear a detailed ministerial explanation of the way that this will work, the effect that it will have on prices, and what is meant by that respect to the market price of sugar in this country which the Council and the Commission are to have. In short, we need be told in advance the meaning behind Protocol No. 17, so that at least we can, as the months and years go by, watch whether the behaviour of the Council in implementing that protocol by qualified majority agrees with what we had been told before we joined. We deserve a whole debate upon Protocol No. 17, after there has been a full explanation on behalf of the Government.

However, there is no doubt that the major matter before the committee is what is to happen after 1975. We all share the sense of obligation which was so well expressed, if he will forgive my saying so, by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair). We have all read the words—they have been read several times already—in paragraph 112 of the White Paper of July, which set out the British Government's position. I make no apology for repeating them. The paragraph reads: The British Government…regard this offer"— that is the offer in Protocol No. 22— as a firm assurance"— a firm assurance of what? of a secure and continuing market"— that is, without limit of time— in the enlarged Community, on fair terms"— for how much sugar?— for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement". That is to say—and it is very precise—that the Government regard Protocol No. 22 as meaning that for an indefinite future there will be a secure and continuing market on fair terms for these exact quantities of sugar. In case there was any loophole they went on to add, in respect of all its existing developing member countries. One could hardly have tied it up more tightly than that.

That is the British Government's understanding. From that statement with its clarity, precision and definiteness, from that guarantee, we turn to Protocol No. 22. There we find no more than the vaguest possible expression, an expression without any detail or quantification whatsoever. The safeguarding of the interests of all the countries referred to in this Protocol"; and it continues: "the question of sugar"—a very precise expression, to be sure— will be settled within this framework". There is nothing in that protocol which implements the Government's understanding or undertaking and there is nothing which justifies the confidence which the Government profess.

[Mr. BRYANT GODMAN IRVINE in the chair]

[MR. POWELL.]

6.0 p.m.

This can be counter-checked from the treaty itself. It is not only in connection with sugar that the question arises: what is to happen after the initial period? That question also arose over New Zealand butter, where there is a first phase and then a phase after 1977. The treaty itself contains a specific provision for what shall happen after 1977. Though we may not consider even those terms to be adequate, there is written into the treaty a precise indication of what is to happen after 1977. It is not something which can be overridden when the time comes, something which is vague; it is something which calls for precise action on the part of the institutions of the Community.

I want my right hon. Friend, when he winds up, to answer this question: is the assurance to the Commonwealth suger producers as firm as the assurance to New Zealand? The British Government consider it a firm assurance. Do they consider that the Commonwealth sugar producers have an assurance as firm or as good as the New Zealand butter producers? If my right hon. Friend replies "Yes", why is there not a similar provision in the treaty? If the second phase for the New Zealand butter producers could not be adequately safeguarded without the terms of the relevant protocol, why was it possible to give an equal safeguard to the Commonwealth sugar producers without anything corresponding? On the other hand, if my right hon. Friend replies, "No, there is a difference; we have done better for New Zealand than for the sugar producers", then it is not only one side of the Committee which will want to know why the interests of the Commonwealth sugar producers were regarded as less a debt of honour and a requirement imposed on this country than the requirements of the New Zealand butter producers.

Of course there is not the slightest doubt about the reason for the difference between the two. The Government insisted on a specific provision being written into the treaty regarding New Zealand butter. They did not insist—or rather, in their attempt to insist they failed—upon a similar provision being written in for sugar. The history, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton reminded the Committee, makes that perfectly clear. The fact is that there is no corresponding, adequate or precise guarantee on the part of the Community for the Commonwealth sugar producers after 1975; and the Government know it.

We are often exhorted in these matters to have regard not to the letter but to the practice. We are told not to be too nice about the letter of the treaty but to look at how people actually behave. That is a rather painful proposition, this week of all weeks, for my right hon. Friends, who find themselves in the position of having been in breach, admittedly not of a provision of the treaty, but of a firm understanding, designed to lead to an even tighter arrangement within the Community itself, which they threw over on Friday last.

However, we have had some evidence lately of how the members of the Community regard that which is actually written into the treaty. I think it is material, in the interpretation of the vague words of Protocol No. 22, Part III, to understand how cavalierly much more precise provisions of the treaty can be regarded by the members of the Community. In that context, and for that purpose only, I think there should be recorded what we have learned recently about the attitude of one of the Community Governments, the French Government, to the New Zealand guarantee in phase 1—corresponding, it will be observed, to phase 1 of the sugar arrangement and drawn much more tightly than phase 2 even in regard to New Zealand butter, not to mention Commonwealth sugar.

One of the French Ministers was in the South Pacific and found himself extremely irritated by the action taken by certain trade unions in New Zealand in view of the proposed French nuclear tests. He said that, if this sort of thing went on, his country—France—would cut New Zealand's five-year guaranteed period of exports to Britain under the Market entry deal.

When I saw that in the Press, I could not believe it. I did not credit that such a statement could have been made by a responsible member of one of the Community Governments. So I sought contradiction from the most interested party, the New Zealand Government; and the New Zealand High Commission told me, in writing: M. Messmer was in fact correctly reported. He had said it, and the New Zealand Government knew that he had said it. But they said they were not worried because the French Foreign Ministry has indicated to the Press that M. Messmer's statement does not reflect French Government policy. One would think not. But I felt this was such an important matter that it was my business to be sure. So I turned to the French Embassy, only to be assured, two or three days ago, again in writing, that the French Embassy had no knowledge of any comment by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning the statement attributed to M. Messmer".

We do well to note a statement concerning one of these transitional provisions in the treaty, that, if necessary, it will be abrogated or neglected by one of the participating countries—a statement which the country concerned confirms has actually been made and which has not been disavowed by the Government to which the Minister who made it belongs. We ought to be chary of over-generosity in assuming that vague expressions in a protocol will be treated, years ahead, in the precise manner which, no doubt in entire good faith, my right hon. and learned Friend interpreted and put it before the House in the White Paper of last July.

My reference to the White Paper of last July brings me to my last point and to my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), who interrupted the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) to remind him of the majority of 112 last October which voted in favour of entry into the Common Market upon the terms negotiated. My hon. Friend seemed to think that was a reason for voting against these Amendments. With respect, it is a very strong reason for voting for them.

I suggest that hon. Members who, on 28th October, voted "Aye" for the proposition are, I go so far as to say, duty bound to vote either for these Amendments or for something which would have the same effect; for what they voted for on 28th October was the terms nego- tiated, as set out in the White Paper. They had not seen the treaty; they had not seen the Bill—those still lay in the womb of time—but they had the White Paper. So what they voted for were the precise undertakings to the Commonwealth sugar producers set out in that White Paper. They did not know that they would not be in the treaty; they did not know that there would be nothing in the Bill to secure them. They voted in good faith on what the White Paper says. They voted in effect, amongst other things, for what this Amendment would achieve. No, there is no hon. Member of the House, whichever way he voted last October, who is not free to address his mind to this question and who is not, in my view, bound in duty to those to whom our Government have given an assurance, to make as certain as we possibly can by Statute in this House of Commons that that assurance is going to be carried out.

Mr. Eric Deakins (Walthamstow, West)

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has a remarkable capacity for detailed analysis which has served this Committee well in the past and on this occasion he has drawn attention to a number of anomalies as between the treaty and the public statements that have been made about the sugar agreement which should give all of us in the Committee, regardless of our views on the Common Market, cause for concern. I hope to follow his lead a little later in my remarks, which I shall certainly make fairly brief.

I want to begin by commenting on the fact, which has not been fully emphasised in the Committee this afternoon, that we are discussing not simply sugar but sugar as an agricultural product. We are in fact discussing an agricultural product which is part of the common agricultural policy of the European Community. In considering the attitude of the Community to sugar production, imports from the developing countries and so on, the good faith of the Community in these negotiations has been called in question, but we have to consider the general attitude of the Community to all agricultural questions which affect the interests of agricultural producers in Western Europe.

We know from experience—not from the letter of the law but from what has actually happened in the past 10 years in the Community—that the common agricultural policy is basically a policy for each commodity which in its very nature gives priority to satisfying the domestic market from home production, with imports being allowed to come in, subject to levies and so on, to meet any particular deficiencies, while European producers are expanding their production of those commodities in which the Community is not at present self-sufficient.

If we look at sugar and the sugar negotiations in that light it becomes easier to see why there are the anomalies, difficulties and misunderstandings about the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement and its part in the negotiations to which the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Gentlemen in this debate have drawn attention. It is a fact and it is very sad, particularly in the case of sugar, that whereas for some agricultural commodities it could be said that Community production is not very much less efficient than that in the rest of the world, as regards sugar the Community is very much a high-cost sugar producer. Not only that, but it is also a very inefficient sugar producer because basically sugar beet in the Community is grown on marginal land and is grown as a break crop from cereals. Therefore it is not the sort of agricultural commodity that is regularly grown, such as cereals, or produced, such as meat and dairy products, which have formed the basis of the common agricultural policy.

This inefficient production has cost the European Community a great deal of money and will cost it even more in the future. At present the exporting of sugar and domestic intervention in buying any sugar which is produced above the minimum quota but below the maximum costs the Community something like 8 or 9 per cent. of the total agricultural budget. That is a very large amount indeed and it is something to which, since we shall be contributing to it, we should have regard in these discussions.

Furthermore, the Community has adopted, is adopting and will continue to adopt, I think, a pig-headed policy to world trade not only in agricultural products but to sugar in particular by refusing to join the International Sugar Agreement and dumping surpluses on world markets. This will create an even more serious situation in future with the 335,000 tons of Queensland sugar coming on to the world market in 1974. If the Community continues to pay export subsidies these will be much bigger for 1974; therefore our contribution will also be much bigger and it is inevitable that the whole of the International Sugar Agreement will be called in question.

6.15 p.m.

The enlarged Community would in fact be a non-importer of sugar and as long as we have these vague assurances for the Commonwealth sugar producers the Community will have to continue to export surpluses of sugar because they cannot export them here since we shall continue to take quantities under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. It has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) that the pressures within the Community to abrogate that agreement and sell the sugar producers down the river will grow and grow. They will be financial pressures and economic pressures and they will get stronger in the future. The signs can be seen already.

I do not wish to give many quotations but I should like to quote one prominent French agriculturist who was a past president of the Fédération Nationale des Syndicats ďExploitants Agricoles, which is the nearest thing the French have to the NFU. He said in an interview in the magazine NFU Insight on 25th March, 1972: What worries me is the thought that some aspects of these negotiations have been dealt with rather superficially. The negotiations may well have left the door open to claims which, in future years, may provoke a Common Market crisis. I am thinking particularly of the arrangements made for sugar and for dairy products. Coming from a Frenchman and even more important a Frenchman who is an agricultural producer, and representing their interests, that surely bodes ill for the future of the vague assurances that have been negotiated by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

I turn now to the effect on British consumers, which has already been alluded to in this debate. We are told that sugar prices over a five-year period will rise by only 24 per cent., which is the current difference between the wholesale price of sugar in this country and that in the Community. This is a slightly illogical argument unless it can be stated and evidenced by statistical proof that a more efficient distribution system does in fact exist in this country. It may be that the Minister of Agriculture is very pleased to think that there is a more efficient distribution system in this country, and I am not denying that there may be, but he has presented no evidence that there is a better distribution system here than in the Community. In the absence of such evidence it is surely more probable than not that the rise in retail prices will be of the order of 50 to 60 per cent., being half way between the 35 per cent. and 70 per cent. figures the Minister quoted in an earlier intervention.

In fact, we have a good system of sugar production in this country from the point of view of both producers and consumers and imports. I have made this point and do not want to labour it, but this is part of our present system of agricultural support which does not undermine the interests of developing countries exporting to this country or affect the housewife adversely. Why, therefore, should we swap a good system which works for a much worse one?

I come now to the most important point, which has been alluded to by many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in the debate, of the actual negotiations. Surely in the negotiations the ideal solution would have been to restrict Common Market sugar-beet production to its present levels and assuming that it was absolutely necessary to exclude Queensland from any concession—hon. Members have made their points about that—why could not the Queensland sugar quota of 335,000 tons have been divided up among all the Commonwealth developing States in addition to their quotas under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement? That would have meant that they would no longer be in a position in which, if they had surpluses over and above their quotas, they would have to dump them at low prices on the world market. We would be helping the developing countries far more by some such solution than the one we have at the moment.

I turn now to the main point made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West: what is to be the position in 1975 and thereafter, particularly if we should find ourselves in difficulties with our Common Market partners? I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will accept that the British Government have pledged their word, and none of us has any reason to doubt that that word was given in good faith and that any future British Government will do their utmost to see that the pledge is honoured, because we have at stake not only our national interest but our national honour as well. What will happen, however, if we find that we cannot go on after 1975 by agreement with the Community with the existing quantities and prices of Commonwealth sugar under the Commonwealth sugar quotas? Are we nevertheless to continue? Are we to say to our European partners "We are sorry but we cannot agree with you. You want to reduce Commonwealth sugar imports into Britain and the Common Market, but we insist that they go on as they are"?

I ask the Minister whether in that situation we would be in breach of our treaty obligations if we insisted on the Lancaster House agreement root and branch with no alternative. What will be our position in 1975? Under Protocol No. 22, the Community has …as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests… of the Commonwealth sugar countries. It is interesting to note that the words used are not that the Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the imports of sugar from Commonwealth developing countries. The protocol says that it will merely "safeguard" their interests.

As we know from bitter experience, the definition of any nation's interest, particularly by a third party, is a matter on which there can be a great deal of contention. I would not regard that "firm purpose" in Protocol No. 22 as one which would in any way have satisfied the Commonwealth sugar countries. Protocol No. 22 also refers to the African countries associated with the Common Market as well as our own Asian and Caribbean sugar producers. The Yaoundé Convention excludes common agricultural products such as sugar. Therefore, what hope is there for us that, if sugar and other agricultural commodities are excluded from the Yaoundé Convention, they will necessarily be taken full care of in any negotiations for the renewal of Yaoundé-type association agreements after 1974?

I want now to turn to the text of what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said on 21st July last year. He said that the Government had obtained a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community for the sugar exports of the developing countries". I query whether the Government have in fact obtained that firm assurance. The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say: we have written into the record of the conference the understanding of what that agreement means in practical terms."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st July, 1971; Vol. 821, c. 1589.] He did not use the words "our understanding" because that would have given a great deal of opportunity to my right hon. and hon. Friends to fire shots at him because he then would have been giving only our understanding. Does the word "the" in that context mean a general understanding, or is it merely a euphemism for "our understanding" and not the Community's understanding?

I come now to the biggest point of all. We were told throughout the negotiations, particularly at the conclusion, by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Community had noted the text of the Lancaster House agreement. But there was a change in Government policy because later the Minister of Agriculture went rather further. Last April my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) when putting a supplementary question asked the Minister: Is the Minister prepared now to seek ratification with the EEC of the Lancaster House agreement with the Commonwealth sugar producers? The right hon. Gentleman replied: The Lancaster House agreement was accepted by the EEC."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1972; Vol. 835, c. 217.] I do not claim to be an expert on English but there is all the difference in the world between the Community "noting" the agreement and "accepting" the agreement.

On the basis that a later Government statement must be taken as being more authoritative than an earlier Government statement, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm what he told the House in that reply on 18th April? If he does, the rest of this debate will probably be superfluous because that is precisely what we are asking for and the Government should accept the Amendment because it would be in accord with what the right hon. Gentleman said in April. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will clear up this misunderstanding in the Committee as to whether the text of the Lancaster House agreement when it was read into the record of the negotiating conference last year was "noted", as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster originally told us, or whether it was "accepted", as the Minister of Agriculture told us later.

Mr. Prior

I want to refer at once to the last point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins). In answer to a supplementary question on 18th April I used the word "accepted" instead of "noted". I should have used the word "noted". As the hon. Gentleman himself said, it might well be argued that there would have been no reason for our debate today if that was indeed our final view, but I must apologise to the Committee for having misled the House in that reply on 18th April. I do not think that there was any real feeling that I had misled the House but I apologise for the slip.

I recognise that this has been a very important debate and that the views expressed are strongly held, in many cases with passion and great emotion. I do not under-estimate the enormous contribution that the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement has made to the developing countries of the Commonwealth and for that matter to the prosperity of Queensland as well. I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) said when talking about our obligations to the developing countries, and I certainly agree that trade is better than aid. Furthermore, I think that this is a real test of Britain's good faith and for that matter of the Community's good faith as well. My hon. Friend asked whether I fully accepted and supported what was agreed at Lancaster House. Of course I do and I shall have more to say about it.

The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) claimed that the Commonwealth Ministers expected that the Lancaster House Declaration would be put before the Six with a demand that they accept it and write it into the treaty. That was not the conclusion of the conference. The text of the declaration—which was published in HANSARD on 9th June last year—said: On this basis, Commonwealth Ministers agreed to accept the Community's proposal and stated that they would proceed accordingly, it being further agreed that Mr. Rippon would so inform the Council of Ministers of the European Community…and would communicate to the Community the text of the agreed statement. The Governments of the Commonwealth countries could thus not have been under the impression that the declaration would be written into the Treaty.

6.30 p.m.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) felt that paragraph 3 of Protocol No. 17 meant that we would adopt Community prices right at the start of the transitional period. I assure him that that is not so. The provisions in the Treaty of Accession for compensatory amounts permitting prices in the acceding countries to be lower than in the Six apply to sugar as much as to any other products. This also deals with a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell).

Paragraph 3 of Protocol No. 17 deals with the price at which United Kingdom refiners receive the raw sugar purchased under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. That price must clearly be in the right relationship to the intervention price for refined sugar in the United Kingdom. If it is too low in relation to that price the marketing of Community sugar could be prejudiced. If it is too high it will not allow the quantities in question to be effectively marketed. The expression "Community sugar" in paragraph 3 means sugar produced in the United Kingdom—in other words, our own sugar beet, the price of which is being raised over the transitional period—as well as sugar produced in the Six. It is an assurance to us that our refiners will be given a margin which is adequate without being excessive.

Sir Robin Turton

The protocol refers to the price of "the sugar in question". It is not dealing with sugar produced from sugar beet grown at home. It refers to all sugar that is refined here and elsewhere presumably under the CSA.

Mr. Prior

It is the sugar produced within the Community, which in our case is the sugar produced here which is being raised in price as the transitional period progresses. The relationship between that price and the price of CSA sugar, which is raw sugar coming in, has to be adjusted so that the refiners can get a fair margin without getting too small or too large a margin. That is what the protocol covers.

Mr. Alfred Morris

What does the right hon. Gentleman expect the retail price of sugar to the British housewife to be at the end of the transitional period?

Mr. Prior

I will come on to that in a moment. It is a slightly easier question to answer.

Dr. John Gilbert (Dudley)

In an earlier exchange three sugar prices were quoted, £60, £97 and £120 or thereabouts. According to the Minister's explanation, the gap between the £60 a ton, which is the non-Commonwealth Sugar Agreement price to the Third World, and the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement price must be widened. Therefore, the benefit of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement will be increased in its last gasp. Is it correct that on this interpretation the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement price will go up for a brief period but at the same time the world price will tend to stay at the present £60?

Mr. Prior

No, we cannot possibly tell what the world price will be. We buy CSA sugar at the price we have negotiated and we sell it in the open market in this country to the refiners at the world price, which is generally lower than the CSA price. The difference has to be charged as a surcharge on all sugar used in this country. Clause 7 changes that system because it is against the Community's practice and in its place enables us to put a charge on CSA sugar coming in.

Mr. Peart

The right hon. Gentleman has been helpful but, although I know he has taken advice about paragraph 3 of Protocol No. 17, is he sure that his interpretation is right? I agree with the Father of the House about this. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at this? I think he has interpreted it wrongly.

Mr. Prior

I am absolutely certain that I have not, but it is such a complicated provision that I am perfectly prepared, if there is a change, to write to the right hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend and anyone else to tell them or, if necessary, to make a statement in the House of Commons. I am absolutely certain, from the advice I have had, that what I have said is the position.

I turn now to a problem which was raised by several right hon. and hon. Members about what will happen concerning Australian sugar after 1974. Australian exports to the United Kingdom are fully safeguarded until the agreement expires at the end of 1974. It is unrealistic to suppose that permanent arrangements could have been made for Australian sugar after 1974 of the sort that have been secured for developing countries of the Commonwealth. As a developed country Australia is not eligible for the type of association agreement which has been offered to the developing countries. That is why New Zealand was treated differently in her settlement on dairy produce from the way in which the developing Commonwealth countries have been treated for sugar. New Zealand could not have had developing country status.

Despite its importance to certain areas of Australia, sugar represents only a very small proportion of her total exports. By contrast the developing countries are dependent on sugar and export earnings range up to 95 per cent. in the case of Mauritius. Even taking sugar in isolation, the importance of the CSA outlet for Australia is nothing like as great as it is for the developing countries as a whole.

Much the greater part of Australia's sugar is exported to the free world market, and it follows that Australia has a vital interest in a continuing and effective International Sugar Agreement by which the free world market for sugar is regulated. It is our policy to support the International Sugar Agreement, and we very much hope that the enlarged Community will find it possible to join. Both we and Australia have been encouraged by the positive attitude taken by the Community on this point at the recent UNCTAD conference in Santiago where the EEC spokesman said that the EEC was ready to take part in negotiations for the new agreement in the most firm hope of being able to join it. Nevertheless we recognise that Australia could be in difficulties if her CSA quota were abruptly terminated at the end of 1974 and that the world market could in the same way be disrupted if it had suddenly to absorb this extra quantity.

Protocol No. 16 provides for action to be taken by the enlarged Community to prevent the abrupt dislocation of supplies from third countries which may result from the adoption of the CAP by the new member States. This assurance clearly extends to Australia, and sugar is specifically mentioned as a commodity where such problems could arise. Action should in our view be taken under Protocol 16 to phase out Australia's supplies to us under the CSA after 1974.

Mr. Powell

Has my right hon. Friend finished dealing with Protocol No. 17? I was hoping that he would be able to give an explanation of paragraph 5. He has referred to paragraph 3. I wonder whether he can help the Committee with paragraph 5.

Mr. Prior

I do not know for how long hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side will allow me to speak about this.

My right hon. Friend is concerned with the same aspect of Protocol No. 17 as my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. He supposed that the market price referred to in paragraphs 3 and 5 of the protocol is a price for the sugar that people eat—that is, refined sugar. That is not the case. The market price of refined sugar will be determined by the intervention price set under Articles 51 and 52 of the treaty in the same way as prices for other products. The price mentioned in the protocol is a price for the sugar purchased under the CSA, which is raw sugar. The provisions of the protocol therefore relate to the margin to be allowed to the refiners. This is at present controlled under the provisions of the Sugar Act and it is reasonable that it should be controlled under the Community system after our accession.

Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North)—rose—

Mr. Prior

I think I ought to proceed. I have an enormous number of questions to answer. I do not think I should give way, for a little while at least.

As regards the position of the French African sugar exporters and Surinam, it is widely believed—I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton implied it—thatCongo-Brazzaville and Malagasy used to have, before becoming associated States of the Community, guaranteed access for their sugar to the Community. Because they were previous colonies of France, those two countries had arrangements with France in the post-colonial period under which they received a guaranteed price for a proportion of their production. This guaranteed price, equivalent to the French internal price, was paid irrespective of the destination of the sugar. There was no right of access.

My right hon. Friend also mentioned Surinam. There was a protracted legal dispute about whether one of the protocols of the Treaty of Rome did or did not give the Netherlands the right to import up to 8,000 tons a year free of import levy. In the end I think it was agreed that it should. Surinam by that time could produce only 4,000 tons for the export trade because its own consumption had risen. I am certain it has not been able to send even that amount since that time.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) asked how there could be room for the CSA's 1.4 million tons of sugar in the Community. It is true that the Community is a surplus producer of sugar. A figure of about 1 million tons isoften mentioned, for example by the EEC Commission. That surplus is the surplus for human consumption. A lot of sugar goes into exported foodstuffs, into animal feed or into the chemical industry for example. Some of it is sugar produced above the maximum production quotas, which under the EEC arrangements must be exported outside the Community and so could not be sent to the new member States. Thus the figure of 1 million tons is misleading. Moreover, consumption is increasing rapidly by about 150,000 tons a year in the Six alone, particularly in Italy, and can be expected to go on doing so.

Taking all those factors into account, there is every reason to believe that in the years after 1974 the Community will be able to absorb 1.4 million tons of Commonwealth sugar and also admit some overall expansion of beet production.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Marten

Would my right hon. Friend comment on the report that the French are proposing to lay down 1,103,000 acres of beet sugar?

Mr. Prior

I know that the French beet growers were referred to. My hon. Friend quoted from the Sucrerie Francaise, which I gather is the French sugar manufacturers' journal. We are not negotiating with beet growers and sugar manufacturers who would no doubt always want to produce as much as they possibly can. But we have to negotiate with the Governments of the member States which have already committed themselves to the undertaking in Protocol No. 22.

It is not unreasonable that France might wish to expand her sugar beet production, which has gone up this year by something like 5 per cent. This will have to be renegotiated next year to operate before 1975.

Turning to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West, I shall also answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) concerning retail prices. There is a very considerable difference between the retail prices here and in the Six. It is far greater than the difference between, as it were, the intervention prices. Hon. Gentlemen must realise that so far as the operation of the arrangements for supporting our own sugar beet production and sugar imported under the CSA are concerned, the consumer has always paid this. It has been a balancing charge on the consumer. It has never come out of subsidy except this year when, for the reasons which I have given on other occasions. we subsidised through the Sugar Board to the extent of £25 million. Broadly speaking, it has always been a self-financing exercise for the CSA and the British Sugar Corporation.

At the moment our price is roughly 4.75p per pound. In the Community it varies from 6.5p in the Netherlands and 6p in France up to 7.5p in Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg. This is a far greater margin than is justified by the difference as it were in intervention prices. It reflects very favourably on our methods of distribution and refining and the fact that we take very low margins.

I now turn to the main theme running through the debate: the post-1974 arrangements. I want to say why the end of 1974 is a significant date. The Commonwealth Sugar Agreement was originally concluded in 1951 for a term of eight years, but it was annually extended by one year so that it always stretched eight years ahead. In 1966 it was, as usual, extended until 31st December, 1974. In 1967 the Labour Party applied to join the Community and believed that that application would be more likely to succeed if the Community was not confronted with a contractual obligation under the CSA lasting any longer than necessary. Consequently the previous Government refused in 1967 to make the usual annual extension. Then in 1968 it converted the CSA into an agreement of indefinite duration but inserted a break clause to the effect that the United Kingdom was not bound by it after the end of 1974 if we had by then joined the Community.

That should be borne in mind, not by those who have always been opposed to entry—because presumably they have known this the whole time—but by a good many hon. Gentlemen opposite who supported their Government when they were taking this action and are now criticising the present Government for the action we are taking. I do not say that it was wrong to make those amendments—in fact, I believe it was right. But they were made to facilitate entry into the Community in the days when Labour Members were anxious to do so.

The only assurance about the post-1974 period given to Commonwealth Sugar Agreement countries by the Labour Government in 1968 was very vague indeed. It spoke merely of seeking to find ways of continuing to fulfil the Agreement's objectives. It has been left to us to try to put in specific assurances.

There is no reference in the Bill to the arrangements for Commonwealth sugar after 1974. The whole purpose of the Bill is to make those changes in our law which are necessitated by accession to the Community. The Commonwealth Sugar Agreement was made between the United Kingdom Government and the Commonwealth sugar exporters. It is our responsibility, and, in so far as it needs implementation, it is implemented through the law of this country.

The post-1974 arrangements, however, will not be of the same nature. They will form part of association or trading agreements between the enlarged Community as a whole and the Commonwealth countries concerned which are scheduled to begin in the middle of next year. Whatever the precise shape of the final arrangements, the enlarged Community as a whole will enact the necessary legislation to operate them. No present change in the United Kingdom law is needed to allow us as a member of the enlarged Community to take part in those arrangements.

It has been suggested that the declaration issued after the Lancaster House conference last June should have formed part of the Treaty of Accession. I have already corrected the misleading impression I gave when I spoke on an earlier occasion. The reason why the declaration does not appear in the treaty is that the Lancaster House conference did not form part of the negotiations themselves. It could not possibly do so since it was a conference between Her Majesty's Government and the Governments of the developing Commonwealth countries concerned, and not a conference between the Community and the new member States. The Community could hardly be expected to accept, as part of the outcome of the negotiations, a text drawn up by somebody else in a different form and it was never asked to do so.

At the conference last June there was a very full discussion between the Governments concerned about the undertaking on sugar given by the Community, and this appears in Protocol No. 22 of the treaty. The Commonwealth Governments accepted the undertaking in the terms set out in the declaration. The essential phrase is that the British Government and other Commonwealth Governments participating regard this offer as a firm assurance of a secure and continuing market in the enlarged Community on fair terms for the quantities of sugar covered by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in respect of all its existing developing member countries. The fact that the declaration does not appear in the treaty does not mean that the Government are any the less committed to it. It means that we are committed to ensuring that the arrangements which the Community will make in due course for sugar from the developing countries after 1974 will accord with its terms. The Community is well aware of this since the declaration was placed on record with the Community. Considering the indisputable dependence of the countries concerned on sugar, and the recognition which the Community has given to this dependence in the wording of Protocol No. 22, we are confident there will be no problem in securing the sort of arrangements which we regard as necessary.

Mr. Jay

If the Minister is really confident that the Community is willing to carry out the agreement reached at Lancaster House, why did not the Government ask the Community to accept it and write it into the Treaty of Accession?

Mr. Prior

It was not an agreement which the Community had asked to make. It was an agreement between us and the Commonwealth sugar countries. We came to an agreement at Lancaster House that we would inform the Council of Ministers of the European Community and would communicate to the Community the text of the agreed statement. That was an acceptable assurance for the Commonwealth countries concerned. If it was acceptable to them, I see no reason why we in this Committee should doubt it.

It is a fact that the developing CSA countries are planning on the basis that the 1.4 million tons of sugar which they at present send to us will find a market in the enlarged Community. I regard that as an acceptable position and it has been accepted by them.

As the hon. Member for Wythenshawe knows only too well, he went around the Caribbean and made some statements to the effect that the Lancaster House declaration was worthless. The Caribbean Ministers rightly resented this and properly reaffirmed their acceptance of the position.

Mr. Alfred Morris

If it was right to have direct negotiations about products from New Zealand, why was it not right not to have direct negotiations to confirm the Lancaster House agreement on sugar?

Mr. Prior

I have already dealt with that problem once today in my speech. It is clearly covered by the fact that New Zealand as a developed country could not have associate status in the same way as could under-developed countries.

Mr. Marten

Will my right hon. Friend explain one very important point? If in negotiation something is put forward by all the other members of the enlarged Community which does not honour the Lancaster House agreement, will the Government veto it? Do we then fall back not to the question of derogation but to the CAP in respect of sugar?

Mr. Prior

My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already touched on this point and I thought he gave a very good answer. I see no reason for my seeking to step in on a matter with which my right hon. and learned Friend has already dealt. The essence of Community practice has always been to recognise the vital national interests of the countries of which it is composed.

To sum up, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the House in the debate in July last year, we reached an agreement with the Community and wrote into the record what we and the Commonwealth countries concerned accept as the practical meaning of that agreement. We shall be a member of the Community when the post-1974 arrangements are fulfilled and we are confident that the Community's undertaking will be implemented in the manner set out in the Lancaster House Declaration.

[Sir ROBERT GRANT-FERRIS in the Chair]

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Shore

We have heard a remarkable speech from the Minister of Agriculture following a remarkable debate. We were happy to have his frank correction of what he said earlier and his confirmation that he made a slip when answering a Question on an earlier occasion in the House to the effect that the Community had accepted the Government statement about the sugar agreement. He corrected this to say that they had instead noted the statement.

I emphasise the important distinction between "accepting" and "noting". As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) has said, if we could have been assured that the Minister of Agriculture's use of the word "accepted" expressed the meaning, the policy and the facts of the situation, we could have wound up the debate straight away and we would all have been happy. That is not the situation.

Whilst commenting on a number of points which the Minister of Agriculture has made, I must begin by reiterating what is the essential reason for our having moved this Amendment this afternoon. My right hon. Friend and others have spoken to it because we are not satisfied. I put aside for the moment other matters such as domestic prices of sugar. I put aside the problems of our own beet-sugar growers. They are not the heart issues of this debate.

I take up the central factor that we were not satisfied with the assurances given to the Commonwealth countries that they would be able to supply the United Kingdom with the same quantities of sugar as they now export when the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement expires in 1975, two years after the Government propose that we should join the Common Market. We accept that the Government have given the developing Commonwealth countries a firm and definite assurance about the future of their sugar sales. These guarantees are contained in the Lancaster House communiqué issued last June. I have no complaint about the communiqué. It states as categorically as anyone could reasonably ask the Government's inter- pretation of the agreement entered into and their resolve to honour it.

The reason we are concerned, as has already been made clear, is that this agreement, the Lancaster House agreement is not to be found in the Treaty of Accession and, therefore, is not be found in the Bill. It is precisely to make sure that there is no misunderstanding whatsoever that we have tabled this Amendment.

What concerns us is that in the absence of the Lancaster House agreement in the text of the Treaty of Accession, there is no real validity, no legality, no enforce-ability of the agreements which were entered into. If in 1974 Britain's commercial policies, including our food import policies, were still in our hands, we might take a more relaxed view about the prospect. However, as the Minister confirmed to us only a short time ago, this will not be the case as far as any further negotiations with Commonwealth sugar-producing countries are concerned. It will not be Britain with whom they are negotiating, because Britain will no longer exist as a separate commercial entity. They will have to negotiate with the enlarged Community, to whom we shall have handed over the right and the power which we now possess to make commercial agreements. That is the reality of the matter.

I have only one quotation to make from Protocol No. 17 which is worth putting to the Committee. It states at the very beginning: Until 28th February, 1975, the United Kingdom is authorised to import from the exporting countries and territories referred to in the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, on the following terms, quantities of sugar within the negotiated price quotas under that Agreement. I quote that to make it absolutely plain that we are authorised until 25th February, 1975. Our concern, then, is what happens afterwards.

I want to take up straight away the Minister's explanation as to why the Lancaster House agreement was not in the treaties. I listened to him with great interest on this point because on 15th March I probed this matter. I was exploring then what we call the treaty complex covered by Clause 1. I drew attention to what I called the conspicuous absentees in the hundreds of agreements and arrangements to which that Clause sought to give substance.

The two absentees which I identified were the reference to a national veto, which is a matter of some importance, and the Luxembourg statement to that effect at the beginning of 1966. The other great conspicuous absentee was the Lancaster House agreement on Commonwealth sugar. I contrasted this with the treatment meted out when the Government wish to make matters plain either by an exchange of letters on sterling or in protocols as they have done in the case of New Zealand and many other matters. What is so remarkable is not that there is not already a protocol on sugar. There is a protocol on sugar. People have been quoting quite considerable parts of Protocol No. 17 in Committee this afternoon. What is remarkable about the protocol is that it has nothing to say about the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, other than what I have already quoted, which is that we are authorised until 25th February, 1975, to import under its arrangements. It does not say one word about what is to happen thereafter. That is remarkable, because in all the other protocols and agreements which have a transitional period derogation is allowed against the basic rule of the treaty. All those other matters do not simply state what is the situation during the derogation; they go on to say roughly what procedures are to be followed in determining the period thereafter.

But this has nothing to say about this at all.

The Minister of Agriculture tried to explain this omission by saying that the real reason is that the Lancaster House conference did not form part of the negotiations with the Six, that it was a bilateral negotiation between Britain and the Commonwealth countries. I am wholly unconvinced by what he says about that being the reason why it should not be part of the treaty. I am wholly unconvinced because I am quite sure that the Commonwealth countries themselves assume that when he reported the Lancaster House results to Brussels it would then have been the subject of further negotiations with a view to agreement with them, and that he would then come back and make it plain that it had been accepted by them. The reason why it was never put to the Council for its explicit acceptance was that the Minister did not dare risk a rebuff, and so he had to be content with the uncertain, ambiguous word that they had "noted" it.

I have one further point to drive this home to the Government. It is not the first time that a main treaty signed by the Community has had a protocol in which one of its members has reached agreements with other countries which are not part of the central negotiation between the Six. Look at the Rome Treaty. It is full of protocols in which the original member States entered into arrangements with countries which were neither members of the Six nor brought into direct negotiations with the Six. The agreements which the main countries of the Six made with those other countries were not just noted; they were spelt out in separate protocols in the Treaty of Rome. Therefore it will not wash; right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will have to think of a better and more convincing explanation.

Mr. Body

But it goes much further. There are declarations of intent. India has secured such a declaration in the treaty for her sugar exports.

Mr. Shore

The hon. Gentleman is correct. I gave way to him because I knew that he was anxious to get in earlier and had tried to intervene during the Minister's speech a few moments ago.

Part of the defence which has been put to us is that, somehow, the words in Protocol No. 22 are of an equivalent status to what has been spelled out in terms in the Lancaster House communiqué. Those words in Protocol No. 22 say: The Community will have as its firm purpose the safeguarding of the interests of all the countries referred to in this Protocol whose economies depend to a considerable extent on the export of primary products, and particularly of sugar. The question of sugar will be settled within this framework…", the framework being the possibilities of negotiation with a view to association to the enlarged Community.

That is the other position. But, as has been pointed out from both sides of the Committee, to have a general statement of intent of this kind is not the same as a specific moral and binding guarantee, to adopt the words used by the Chancellor of the Duchy.

Another reason why this promise of association is not good enough is that it is not open to a number of the territories involved to have associated status. Let us take India, for example. It is part of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. It sells sugar. It is explicitly denied the possibility of becoming an associate member. So far as association is a defence, it cannot apply to India.

In addition, why should anyone imagine that countries of the British Commonwealth which are sugar producers, like the West Indies and Africa, will in the end wish to become associated with the enlarged Community? A number of them will not because the Community demands reverse preferences and because the United States is very unhappy and threatening to withdraw privileges from countries which are in the reverse preference system of the European Community. This is a very powerful reason why many of them, in the West Indies especially, will in the end not feel themselves able to avail themselves of this offer.

Mr. Rippon

The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it was because the offer of association was not extended to India that India was dealt with in the Declaration of Intent. It was made clear that the purpose was to extend its trade. As for offers of association or a trade agreement, the reason why this is linked to sugar is so that if any country does not want any form of association it will be able to deal with this matter in the context of a trade agreement, although it does not follow that the Community must insist on reverse preferences.

Mr. Shore

Under Article 113 of the treaty trade agreements are to be dealt with by majority voting, and trade agreements do not have to be reported to this House under Clause 1(3).

Finally, in the case of India are we now to assume that the guarantee of India's sugar is embodied in that joint declaration of intent? If so, it will have to be the most extraordinary interpretation, which does not suggest itself to any normal reading of that protocol. There are two paragraphs. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will not find it difficult to look it up.

Mr. Rippon

The Joint Declaration of Intent on page 117 says: The question of exports of sugar from India to the Community after the expiry of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement on 31st December, 1974, must be settled by the Community in the light of this Declaration of Intent, taking account of the provisions which may be adopted…in Protocol No. 22…".

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Shore

That is perfectly right. I do not mean that the subject matter is not covered. I mean that the specific guarantees of quantities of sugar on which Commonwealth sugar producers have to make their plans are not covered.

I turn to my last reason for concern. Again, it has been touched upon by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. It is the central reason. It is the fact that the European Community already is self-sufficient in sugar and has policies to continue to be self-sufficient. That is a matter which cannot be brushed aside. We know that beet sugar is grown extensively and that it is protected by the levy system of the Community. It is true that the consumption of sugar has increased in the Community in recent years. However, production has increased even more. The plain truth is that 1967 was the last year in which the Community ceased to be an importer of sugar. In 1968, 1969 and 1970 sugar exports by the Community were substantial and growing, just as production had been growing. No less than £100 million a year is spent out of the CAP supporting Community sugar, of which no less than £50 million is to subsidise Community sugar selling below its own price and being dumped on world markets. There are powerful interests which have to be faced here.

My conclusion is that all the mainland farming interests of Europe are bound to be united against us in our efforts to maintain after February, 1975, an un-diminished outlet for Commonwealth sugar. Whether we are to be authorised beyond February, 1975, to continue to import the same quantity or even a diminished quantity of Commonwealth sugar, there is bound to be a great challenge. Therefore, we come to this specific Amendment.

I do not charge Ministers with bad faith in their attempts to secure the interests of the Commonwealth sugar producing countries. Nor do I say that all the countries of Europe have set their faces against any kind of arrangement which would be helpful. I am sure that there is more intelligence and understanding in the Commission than many people would begin to believe. However, there will be a very formidable opposition to break to make sure that the Commonwealth continues to sell sugar to Europe.

To succeed is to make the first break in the common agricultural policy of the Six. It is a major challenge to that system. It is especially a challenge to the interests of France and one or two of the other countries concerned. It is a challenge which is made not directly by us but by many small countries which are weak and isolated. I believe that it is our duty to defend their interests. I do not say that a British Government would not attempt to do so on the basis of the rather thin verbal guarantees that we have. All that I say is that I know that this House will defend those interests if this amended Clause is written into the Bill.

Mr. J. H. Osborn

May one of the silent majority during this approach to enter the Common Market make some observations? I have listened to all the debate and I was disappointed when the right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) did not give way for an intervention I wanted to make.

I said on Second Reading that entry to the Common Market was a challenge. The negotiations themselves are a challenge, and a challenge to the Government. By saying that I do not wish to imply that the Government are not meeting that challenge. The very complexity of the issues which we have discussed tonight has convinced me of the difficulties which lie before us and which we must overcome. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has given us a very sober and realistic appraisal of what he has achieved so far, an appraisal which I am certain will give some satisfaction in the Commonwealth, especially among sugar producers who are concerned about their future markets and exports in the years to come.

Many hon. Members have referred to the metropolitan areas of Martinique and Guadéloupe. In the last 12 months, I have been there and have seen the extent of the sugar production—

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

How did the hon. Member arrange that?

Mr. Osborn

I hope that the hon. Member will allow me to make my own speech. I have been in the Chamber throughout this debate.

Let us have no illusion. On totting up the speeches made today, with the exception of that of my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair), it would be easy to imagine that the House of Commons was against the Government on the sugar issue. As one of the silent majority I should like to assure my right hon. Friends that I am one of many who support the Government in their approach and wish them well in their very difficult negotiations.

The British housewife might gain the impression from my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) that the price of sugar will be doubled. He was corrected on this. The housewife is concerned about the price of sugar, but overall it is the impact of entry which is of so much greater importance.

The most important issue is that those who are concerned about the interests of the sugar producers want the Government to remain alert. We had the Lancaster House communiqué, but there is concern that there should be adequate continuation of the negotiations to ensure that the markets which the Commonwealth sugar producers now have are assured after 1975. My right hon. Friend has given us assurances on this. If hon. Members feel that he is defaulting in the complexities which lie ahead, he can rest assured that some of us will try to keep him on his toes.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) talked of Mauritius and Swaziland. I have been to Swaziland three times during the last five years and once with him and have seen the extent of the sugar production and the extent of British money in the sugar mills there. Those of us who have been out have suggested alternative crops and to an increasing extent citrus and rice have replaced the sugar. I accept that Mauritius is another problem altogether. I have been there. As my right hon. Friend said, sugar accounts for 95 per cent. of the country's total exports.

The right hon. Member for Stepney talked about production in Europe. According to the International Sugar Organisation figures, total production in the EEC was 7.2 million metric tons raw value in 1967, 7.3 million in 1968, 8.1 million in 1969 and 8.7 million in 1971. It has been steadily rising. In the wider Community, production has risen between 1967 and 1971 from 8.6 million tons to 10.3 million. In the same period total consumption in the wider Community has risen from 10.1 million tons to 10.6 million tons.

The important thing is that, whereas in 1968 the gap between production and consumption was 2.00 million tons, production being 10.7 million and consumption 8.7 million—that is the excess production over consumption—that gap has now been reduced. In 1971 it was only 344,000 tons. My right hon. Friend pointed out that if these trends go on as they are, there will be an increasing demand for sugar from outside the Community. The assurance which the Minister has given us, that there will be a demand for 1.4 million tons of cane sugar from outside, is surely a statistical reality that can give some comfort and assurance to Commonwealth sugar producers.

I ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that those in the Commonwealth with sugar interests want to be kept informed. Throughout discussion there is the challenge of adequate communications. We in the House would wish to know at regular intervals the extent to which, in the Community as a whole, sugar is being produced within the Community from beet as against imported

from outside from cane. Information has been lacking. Had I spoken earlier I would have asked for greater clarification of the confused figures obtained from different sources, circulated to those with an interest in sugar as well as to hon. Members.

I would also ask my right hon. Friend to find a mechanism to notify the Commonwealth sugar producers of the progress which was made in discussions with the Community and to continue to give them that assurance we gave them in the Lancaster House communiqué. It is vital that they should have that assurance. Having visited many sugar producing countries, including Mauritius and many in the Caribbean where cane sugar producers depend on adequate export markets, I would ask my right hon. Friend to ensure that they are given the information they require to have to maintain confidence in the next two or three years.

These Amendments are irrelevant and unnecessary in the content of the agreement and the negotiations that have taken place. There has been negotiation and an agreement has been reached in good faith. I am certain that our Community partners reflect the good faith expressed to my right hon. Friends. Therefore, I will not be supporting the Amendments tonight.

Mr. Molloy

There can be little doubt that the arguments adduced in support of these Amendments on both sides were so formidable that there was no essential answer from the Minister. He did his best and gave way a number of times, but we have not had a proper opportunity to debate these matters.

Question put, That the Amendment be made: —

The Committee divided: Ayes 264, Noes 272.

Division No. 246.]	AYES	[7.30 p.m.
Abse, Leo	Baxter, William	Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Bradley, Tom
Allen, Scholefield	Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Bidwell, Sydney	Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Armstrong, Ernest	Biffen, John	Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)
Ashley, Jack	Bishop, E. S.	Buchan, Norman
Ashton, Joe	Blenkinsop, Arthur	Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Atkinson, Norman	Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Body, Richard	Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Booth, Albert	Cant, R. B.
Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)	Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur	Carmichael, Neil
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Parker, John (Dagenham)
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	John, Brynmor	Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Clark, David (Colne Valley)	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.	Pendry, Tom
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)	Pentland, Norman
Cohen, Stanley	Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)	Perry, Ernest G.
Concannon, J. D.	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)	Jones,Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn(W.Ham,S.)	Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.
Crawshaw, Richard	Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)	Prescott, John
Cronin, John	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Kaufman, Gerald	Price, William (Rugby)
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard	Kelley, Richard	Probert, Arthur
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)	Kerr, Russell	Rankin, John
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)	Kilfedder, James	Reed, D. (Sedgefield)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Kinnock, Neil	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Lambie, David	Rhodes, Geoffrey
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Lamborn, Harry	Richard, Ivor
Deakins, Eric	Lamond, James	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey	Latham, Arthur	Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	Leadbitter, Ted	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Dempsey, James	Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&R'dnor)
Doig, Peter	Leonard, Dick	Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)
Dormand, J. D.	Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold	Roper, John
Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Rose, Paul B.
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Duffy, A. E. P.	Lomas, Kenneth	Rowlands, Ted
Dunnett, Jack	Loughlin, Charles	Russell, Sir Ronald
Eadie, Alex	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Sandelson, Neville
Edelman, Maurice	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	McBride, Neil	Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Ellis, Tom	McCartney, Hugh	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
English, Michael	McGuire, Michael	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Evans, Fred	Mackenzie, Gregor	Sillars, James
Ewing, Henry	Mackie, John	Silverman, Julius
Faulds, Andrew	Mackintosh, John P.	Skinner, Dennis
Fell, Anthony	Maclennan, Robert	Small, William
Fisher, Mrs. Doris(B'ham,Ladywood)		Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	McMaster, Stanley	Spearing, Nigel
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Spriggs, Leslie
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	McNamara, J. Kevin	Stallard, A. W.
Foley, Maurice	Maginnis, John E.	Stoddart, David (Swindon)
Foot, Michael	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Ford, Ben	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Strang, Gavin
Forrester, John	Marks, Kenneth	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Fraser, John (Norwood)	Marsden, F.	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Freeson, Reginald	Marshall, Dr. Edmund	Swain, Thomas
Garrett, W. E.	Marten, Neil	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Gilbert, Dr. John	Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy	Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)
Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)	Mayhew, Christopher	Tinn, James
Gourlay, Harry	Meacher, Michael	Tomney, Frank
Grant, George (Morpeth)	Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert	Torney, Tom
Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)	Mendelson, John	Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)	Mikardo, Ian	Urwin, T. W.
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)	Millan, Bruce	Varley, Eric G.
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Miller, Dr. M. S.	Wainwright. Edwin
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Milne, Edward	Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)
Hamling, William	Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Hardy, Peter	Moate, Roger	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Harper, Joseph	Molloy, William	Wallace, George
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Molyneaux, James	Watkins, David
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Weitzman, David
Heffer, Eric S.	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)	Wellbeloved, James
Hilton, W. S.	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Hooson, Emlyn	Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)	White. James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Horam, John	Moyle, Roland	Whitehead, Philip
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Whitlock, William
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Murray, Ronald King	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Huckfield, Leslie	Oakes, Gordon	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Ogden, Eric	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)	O'Halloran, Michael	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)	O'Malley, Brian	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Oram, Bert	Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Hunter, Adam	Orme, Stanley	Woof, Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Oswald, Thomas
Irvine,Rt.Hn.SirArthur(Edge Hill)	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Janner, Greville	Paget, R. T.	Mr. James A. Dunn and
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Palmer, Arthur	Mr. John Golding.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena	Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
NOES
Adley, Robert	Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)	Awdry, Daniel
Alison, Micheal (Barkston Ash)	Astor, John	Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Atkins, Humphrey	Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

Batsford, Brian	Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	Murton, Oscar
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Grylls, Michael	Neave, Airey
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)	Gummer, J. Selwyn	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Gurden, Harold	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Benyon, W.	Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	Normanton, Tom
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Nott, John
Biggs-Davison, John	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	Onslow, Cranley
Blaker, Peter	Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)	Hannam, John (Exeter)	Osborn, John
Boscawen, Robert	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Bossom, Sir Clive	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Bowden, Andrew	Haselhurst, Alan	Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Braine, Sir Bernard	Hastings, Stephen	Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Bray, Ronald	Havers, Michael	Parkinson, Cecil
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Hawkins, Paul	Percival, Ian
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher	Hayhoe, Barney	Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Heath, Fit. Hn. Edward	Pike, Miss Mervyn
Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Heseltine, Michael	Pink, R. Bonner
Bryan, Sir Paul	Hicks, Robert	Pounder, Rafton
Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus,N&M)	Higgins, Terence L.	Price, David (Eastleigh)
	Hiley, Joseph	Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
Buck, Antony	Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)	Proudfoot, Wilfred
Burden, F. A.	Hill, James (Southampton, Test)	Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Holland, Philip	Quennell, Miss J. M.
Campbell. Rt.Hn.G.(Moray & Nairn)	Holt, Miss Mary	Raison, Timothy
Carlisle, Mark	Hordern, Peter	Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert	Hornby, Richard	Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Cary, Sir Robert	Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia	Redmond, Robert
Channon, Paul	Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)	Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Chapman, Sydney	Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)	Rees, Peter (Dover)
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher	Hunt, John	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Chichester-Clark, R.	Iremonger, T. L.	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Clark, William (Surrey, E.)	James, David	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Clegg, Walter	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Cockeram, Eric	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Ridsdale, Julian
Cooke, Robert	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Cooper, A. E.	Jopling, Michael	Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)
Cordle, John	Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine	Rost, Peter
Cormack, Patrick	Kershaw, Anthony	Royle, Anthony
Costain, A. P.	King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)	Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.
Critchley, Julian	King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Scott, Nicholas
Crouch, David	Kinsey, J. R.	Sharples, Richard
Crowder, F. P.	Kirk, Peter	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Dalkeith, Earl of	Kitson, Timothy	Shelton, William (Clapham)
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutslord)	Knight, Mrs. Jill	Simeons, Charles
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Knox, David	Sinclair, Sir George
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj.-Gen.James	Lambton Lord	Skeet, T. H. H.
Dean, Paul	Lamont, Norman	Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Lane, David	Soref, Harold
Dixon, Piers	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Speed, Keith
Drayson, G. B.	Le Marchant, Spencer	Spence, John
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Sproat, Iain
Dykes, Hugh	Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)	Stainton, Keith
Eden, Sir John	Longden, Sir Gilbert	Stanbrook, Ivor
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Loveridge, John	Steel, David
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Luce, R. N.	Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)
Elliott, R. W. (N'ctle-upon-Tyne,N.)	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)
Emery, Peter	MacArthur, Ian	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.
Eyre, Reginald	McCrindle, R. A.	Stokes, John
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	McLaren, Martin	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom
Fidler, Michael	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy	Tapsell, Peter
Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampslead)	Macmillan.Rt.Hn.Maurice (Farnham)	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)	McNair-Wilson, Michael	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)	Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)
Fookes, Miss Janet	Maddan, Martin	Tebbit, Norman
Fortescue, Tim	Madel, David	Temple, John M.
Foster, Sir John	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret
Fowler, Norman	Mather, Carol	Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)
Fry, Peter	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald	Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon.S.)
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.	Mawby, Ray	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Gardner, Edward	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Tilney, John
Gibson-Watt, David	Meyer, Sir Anthony	Tratford, Dr. Anthony
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Mills, Peter (Torrington)	Trew, Peter
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)	Tugendhat, Christopher
Glyn, Dr. Alan	Miscampbell, Norman	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.	Mitchell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire,W)	Vickers, Dame Joan
Goodhart, Philip	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Waddington, David
Goodhew, Victor	Money, Ernle	Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)
Gorst, John	Monks, Mrs. Connie	Ward, Dame Irene
Gower, Raymond	Monro, Hector	Warren, Kenneth
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)	Montgomery, Fergus	Weatherill, Bernard
Gray, Hamish	More, Jasper	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Green, Alan	Morrison, Charles	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	Mudd, David	Wiggln, Jerry

Wilkinson, John	Woodnutt, Mark
Winterton, Nicholas	Worsley, Marcus	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.	Mr. Marcus Fox and
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard	Younger, Hn. George	Mr. Kenneth Clarke
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

Amendment accordingly negatived.

It being after half-past Seven o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to Order [2nd May] to put forthwith the Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Question put, That the Clause stand part of the Bill: —

The Committee divided: Ayes 273, Noes 264.

Division No. 247.]	AYES	[7.40 p.m.
Adley, Robert	Emery, Peter	Kershaw, Anthony
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Eyre, Reginald	King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)	Fidler, Michael	Kinsey, J. R.
Astor, John	Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)	Kirk, Peter
Atkins, Humphrey	Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)	Kitson, Timothy
Awdry, Daniel	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Knight, Mrs. Jill
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)	Fookes, Miss Janet	Knox, David
Balniel, Lord	Fortescue, Tim	Lambton, Lord
Batsford, Brian	Foster, Sir John	Lamont, Norman
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Fowler, Norman	Lane, David
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)	Fry, Peter
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Galbraith, Hn. T. G.	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Benyon, W.	Gardner, Edward	Le Marchant, Spencer
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Gibson-Watt, David	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Biggs-Davison, John	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Blaker, Peter	Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	Longden, Sir Gilbert
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)	Glyn, Dr. Alan	Loveridge, John
Boscawen, Robert	Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.	Luce, R. N.
Bossom, Sir Clive	Goodhart, Philip	McAdden, Sir Stephen
Bowden, Andrew	Goodhew, Victor	MacArthur, Ian
Braine, Sir Bernard	Gorst, John	McCrindle, R. A.
Bray, Ronald	Gower, Raymond	McLaren, Martin
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher	Gray, Hamish	Macmillan.Rt.Hn.Maurice (Farnham)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Green, Alan	McNair-Wilson, Michael
Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)
	Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	Maddan, Martin
Bryan, Sir Paul	Grylls, Michael	Madel, David
Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus,N&M)	Gummer, J. Selwyn	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Buck, Antony	Gurden, Harold	Mather, Carol
Burden, F. A.	Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Halt, John (Wycombe)	Mawby, Ray
Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray&Nairn)	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	Maxwetl-Hyslop, R. J.
Carlisle, Mark	Hamilton. Michael (Salisbury)	Meyer, Sir Anthony
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert	Hannam, John (Exeter)	Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Cary, Sir Robert	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Channon, Paul	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Miscampbell, Norman
Chapman, Sydney	Haselhurst, Alan	Mltehell,Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshir,W)
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher	Hastings, Stephen	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Chichester-Clark, R.	Havers, Michael	Money, Ernle
Clark, William (Surrey, E.)	Hawkins, Paul	Monks, Mrs. Connie
Clegg, Walter	Hayhoe, Barney	Monro, Hector
Cockeram, Eric	Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Montgomery, Fergus
Cooke, Robert	Heseltine, Michael	More, Jasper
Cooper, A. E.	Hicks, Robert	Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Cordle, John	Higgins, Terence L.	Morrison, Charles
Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick	Hiley, Joseph	Mudd, David
Cormack, Patrick	Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)	Murton, Oscar
Costain, A. P.	Hill, James (Southampton, Test)	Neave, Airey
Critchley, Julian	Holland, Philip	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Crouch, David	Holt, Miss Mary	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Crowder, F. P.	Hordern, Peter	Normanton, Tom
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hornby, Richard	Nott, John
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)	Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia	Onslow, Cranley
d'Avlgdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigale)	Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid,Maj.-Gen.James	Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)	Osborn, John
Dean, Paul	Hunt, John	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Iremonger, T. L.	Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Dixon, Piers	James, David	Page, John (Harrow. W.)
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Parkinson, Cecil
Dykes, Hugh	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Percival, Ian
Eden, Sir John	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Jopiing, Michael	Pike, Miss Mervyn
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Pink, R. Bonner
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine	Pounder, Rafton
Price, David (Eastleigh)	Sinclair, Sir George	Trew, Peter
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.	Skeet, T. H. H.	Tugendhat, Christopher
Proudfoot, Wilfred	Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)	van Straubenzee, W. R
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis	Soref, Harold	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Quennell, Miss J. M.	Speed, Keith	Vickers, Dame Joan
Raison, Timothy	Spence, John	Waddington, David
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James	Sproat, Iain	Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter	Stainton, Keith	Ward, Dame Irene
Redmond, Robert	Stanbrook, Ivor	Warren, Kenneth
Reed, Laurance (Bollon, E.)	Steel, David	Weatherill, Bernard
Rees, Peter (Dover)	Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Rees-Davies, W. R.	Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M	Wiggin, Jerry
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon	Stokes, John	Wilkinson, John
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom	Winterton, Nicholas
Ridsdale, Julian	Tapsell, Peter	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)	Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)	Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)	Woodnutt, Mark
Rost, Peter	Tebbit, Norman	Worsley, Marcus
Royle, Anthony	Temple, John M.	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret	Younger, Hn. George
Scott, Nicholas	Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)
Sharples, Richard	Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon. S.)	Mr Marcus Fox and
Shelton, William (Clapham)	Tilney, John	Mr. Kenneth Clarke.
Simeons, Charles	Trafford, Dr. Anthony
NOES
Abse, Leo	Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Dempsey, James	Hunter, Adam
Allen, Scholefield	Doig, Peter	Hutchison, Michael Clark
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Dormand, J. D.	Irvine,Rt.Hn.SirArthur(Edge Kill)
Armstrong, Ernest	Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)	Janner, Greville
Ashley, Jack	Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Ashton, Joe	Duffy, A. E. P.	Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Atkinson, Norman	Dunnett, Jack	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Bagier, Gordon, A. T.	Eadie, Alex
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Edelman, Maurice	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)	Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	John, Brynmor
Baxter, William	Edwards, William (Merioneth)	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
	Ellis, Tom	Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	English, Michael	Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)	Evans, Fred	Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Bidwell, Sydney	Ewing, Harry	Jones,Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn(W.Ham,S.)
Biffen, John	Faulds, Andrew	Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Bishop, E. S.	Fell, Anthony	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Fisher,Mrs.Doris (B'ham,Ladywood)	Kaufman, Gerald
Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	Kelley, Richard
Body, Richard	Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Kerr, Russell
Booth, Albert	Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	Killedder, James
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur	Foley, Maurice	Kinnock, Neil
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)	Foot, Michael	Lambie, David
Bradley, Tom	Ford, Ben	Lamborn, Harry
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)	Forrester, John	Lamond, James
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)	Fraser, John (Norwood)	Latham, Arthur
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)	Freeson, Reginald	Leadbitter, Ted
Buchan, Norman	Garrett, W. E.	Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)	Gilbert, Dr. John	Leonard, Dick
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)	Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)	Gourlay, Harry	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Cant, R. B.	Grant, George (Morpeth)
Carmichael, Neil	Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)	Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)	Lomas, Kenneth
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)	Griffiths, Will (Exchange)	Loughlin, Charles
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Clark, David (Colne Valley)	Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Hamling, William	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Cohen, Stanley	Hardy, Peter	McBride, Neil
Concannon, J. D.	Harper, Joseph	McCartney, Hugh
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	McGuire, Michael
Crawshaw, Richard	Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	Mackenzie, Gregor
Cronin, John	Heffer, Eric S.	Mackie, John
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Hilton, W. S.	Mackintosh, John P.
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard	Hooson, Emlyn	Maclennan, Robert
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)	Horam, John	McMaster, Stanley
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	McNamara, J. Kevin
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Huckfield, Leslie	Maginnis, John E.
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Deakins, Eric	Hughes, Mark (Durham)	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E.)
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)	Marks, Kenneth

Marsden, F.	Pentland, Norman	Stoddart, David (Swindon)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund	Perry, Ernest G.	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Marten, Neil	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch	Strang, Gavin
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy	Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Mayhew, Christopher	Prescott, John	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Meacher, Michael	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)	Swain, Thomas
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert	Price, William (Rugby)	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Mendelson, John	Probert, Arthur	Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)
Mikardo, Ian	Rankin, John	Tinn, James
Millan, Bruce	Reed, D. (Sedgefield)	Tomney, Frank
Miller, Dr. M. S.	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)	Torney, Tom
Milne, Edward	Rhodes, Geoffrey	Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)	Richard, Ivor	Urwin, T. W.
Moate, Roger	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Varley, Eric G.
Molloy, William	Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy(Caernarvon)	Wainwright, Edwin
Molyneaux, James	Robertson, John (Paisley)	Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)	Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Roper, John	Wallace, George
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)	Rose, Paul B.	Watkins, David
Moyle, Roland	Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)	Weitzman, David
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Rowlands, Ted	Wellbeloved, James
Murray, Ronald King	Russell, Sir Ronald	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Oakes, Gordon	Sandelson, Neville	White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Ogden, Eric	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)	Whitehead, Phillip
O'Halloran, Michael	Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)	Whitlock, William
O'Malley, Brian	Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Oram, Bert	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Orme, Stanley	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Oswald, Thomas	Sillars, James	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Owen, Or. David (Plymouth, Sutton)	Silverman, Julius	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Paget, R. T.	Skinner, Dennis	Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Palmer, Arthur	Small, William	Wool, Robert
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles	Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Parker, John (Dagenham)	Spearing, Nigel	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)	Spriggs, Leslie	Mr. James A. Dunn and
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred	Stallard, A. W.	Mr. John Golding.
Pendry, Tom

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[SIR MYER GALPERN in the Chair]

Mr. Molloy

On a point of order, Sir Myer. We are rapidly approaching, if we have not already reached, a situation of abysmal absurdity in the Committee stage of the Bill. The whole idea of a Committee stage is to enable hon. Members to express apprehensions or doubts with regard to the drafting of a Bill and to table Amendments. Does any hon. Member know of a Bill of such importance, of such tremendous calibre, with its effect on the nation and the House, that has never been amended?

In the previous debate we heard arguments both by those who are passionately in favour of our joining the Common Market and by Members opposed to them, whose views converged on certain aspects of the Bill which they felt should be changed. We have been going through the farce of putting arguments in support of Amendments. Various Ministers have sometimes admitted the validity of the Amendments, but despite the importance of the Bill the Government have decided that, come what may, there will be no Report stage, and so all the arguments and Amendments have been completely disregarded from the very beginning. If from the beginning the Government did not intend to have a Report stage, the Committee stage is an utter farce. The nation will regard it as such, and the status of the House will be lowered.

Therefore, as we are approaching the end of this farcical, unrealistic Committee stage, to try to save the name of the House an approach should be made to Mr. Speaker and the Government Front Bench to say that we cannot go on in this ridiculous way, having a Bill which must be immaculate in every respect—every dot and comma. I do not think there has been a precedent in the history of Parliament. [Interruption.] Notwithstanding that the question of whether Britain joins the EEC obviously affords amusement to some members of the Government Front Bench, there are those with grave apprehensions, and many hon. Members who are in favour of entry but are worried about certain aspects of the Bill, and would like to see it changed. Therefore, official representations should be made, so that we know that even in these last days of the Committee stage there may be a possibility of having very important Amendments made in the right and proper manner, in accordance with our rules of procedure.

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Gentleman has correctly stated the purpose of a Commitee stage, but while the Chair has certain authority and powers they do not include the right to compel the Government to take a certain course of action.