HC Deb 12 December 1974 vol 883 cc760-2
Q2. Mr. Tebbit

asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Trade in London on 26th November 1974 on EEC questions represents Government policy.

Mr. Edward Short

I have been asked to reply.

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Tebbit

May I give the right hon. Gentleman an easy question today? Will he tell the House whether there is agreement between the Secretary of State for Trade and the Prime Minister whether the question to be put on the EEC referendum ballot paper is to be decided in this House or down the road at a Labour Party conference? Which is it to be?

Mr. Short

All of the hon. Gentleman's questions are easy. The questions in the referendum—if there is to be a referendum—will be in the legislation which will have to be passed by this House.

Mr. Jay

Is my right hon. Friend aware that a summit conference of the EEC has been held this week? Since the official communiqué from that conference says that the Government have gone far, first, to surrender the right to the veto in EEC decisions and, secondly, to agree to direct elections to the EEC Parliament by 1978, and as neither of these is consistent with the Government's election pledges, are we at least to have a statement today on that summit conference?

Mr. Short

My right hon. Friend is quite wrong. If he reads the document carefully he will see that the Prime Minister reserved our position on all the points on which we are renegotiating.

Sir David Renton

Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Prime Minister to consider having a referendum on the question whether there should be a referendum on the EEC?

Mr. Short

I regret that 1 did not point out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) that the Prime Minister hopes to make a statement in the House on Monday on the summit conference.

Mr. Skinner

Is my right hon. Friend aware that in his speech the Secretary of State for Trade referred to the massive tenfold increase in our trading deficit with the rest of the Common Market since our entry? Since we as a party went united into the Lobby against the tariff reductions in the import levies that commenced on 1st January 1974, will my right hon. Friend ask all of our comrades to go into the same Lobby again to defeat the reductions on 1st January 1975?

Mr. Short

There is an accrued trade gap with the EEC countries, but our exports to all eight countries have improved considerably since 1972 and continue to do so. There is another factor—our considerable invisible export trade with Europe. We have no particulars about that, but it is nevertheless so.

Mr. Heath

The Lord President's statement on trade with the EEC is accurate. Will he not go further and say that the allegations made by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade, which have been repeated in somewhat different form by his hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), are in no way substantiated by the analysis of Department of Trade statisticians which appeared in the departmental publication Trade and Industry at the end of October? Does that not show that all the statements made by the Secretary of State for Trade are completely unjustified?

We sympathise, of course, with the Prime Minister in his illness, and understand why he cannot make a statement today, but it is not very satisfactory that we should wait almost a week after the summit for a statement. Would it not have been possible for the Foreign Secretary to make a statement before then?

Mr. Short

The Foreign Secretary has not yet returned. The Prime Minister is anxious himself to report to the House on the conference.

Forward to