Policy Integration (Hansard, 18 December 1974)

§ 28. Mr. Jay
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in what respect the Government propose to integrate the United Kingdom more closely with EEC policies in January 1975.

Mr. Callaghan
Certain transitional changes occur on 1st January 1975 under the Treaty of Accession. Some tariff changes designed to improve the Community's generalised scheme of preferences also take effect on 1st January.

§ Mr. Jay
As my right hon. Friend is a great defender of his party's election manifestoes, is he aware that our manifesto for the last election pledged that during the process of renegotiation there would be no further moves towards integration, particularly as regards food subsidies? Is it not inconsistent with that pledge for the Government to introduce an order, which we have not yet even debated, to raise a number of food taxes and levies on 1st January 1975?

Mr. Callaghan
I am not only a defender of the manifesto; I was also in a humble way part-author of it, and I have a clear recollection of what was put in and why, and what it meant. We are fulfilling our commitments under the treaties, but we are agreeing to no new processes of integration. The two things are different. The total impact of the change in duties will be a small net reduction in duty, amounting to 01 per cent. of consumer expenditure, taking into account both food and non-food items. In the case of certain food imports it will amount to 01 per cent. of consumer expenditure on food, but the total result is a decrease in duty.

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
As the House devolved certain areas of decision making, including agriculture, fishing and education, to the Scottish Office, is not the fact that the Government countenance the increasing practice of Ministers going to negotiate and discuss such subjects in the absence of a Scottish Office representative a sign that there is a new process of integration taking place, if not sabotage of the Scottish Office?

Mr. Callaghan
I would not pretend that I could wholly represent Scotland, but I represent Wales in particular, England in general and Scotland with very great willingness. Therefore, unless we are to send four Ministers to deal with Northern Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland, or even five if we count Cornwall, I am sure that the hon. Lady will have confidence in me to represent the Celtic areas of the country.

§ Mrs. Ewing
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
If the hon. Lady wishes to raise a point of order, will she do so at the end of Questions?

§ Mr. Rifkind
In determining the desirable degree of integration, will the right hon. Gentleman take into account a recent survey of 220 leading British companies which showed that only four of them believed that they had suffered more harm than good as a result of our membership of the EEC and that none of them wished Britain to leave the Community?

Mr. Callaghan
Whatever may be the views of individual companies or hon. Members, the decision will rightly be taken by the British people at the end of the day.

§ Mr. Spriggs
Will my right hon. Friend always take it for granted that he represents the British nation as a whole when he goes to Europe to renegotiate or whatever happens on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? I ask him never to agree to sell the right of veto in the Common Market.

Mr. Cailaghan
We shall have a debate on these matters tomorrow. Because there is a motion on the Order Paper, and because I think that the question of sovereignty is very important, I intend to write out rather carefully what the position is and to give it to the House, if I catch your eye, Mr. Speaker. In the meantime, however, let me say that there is no question of our veto having disappeared or being likely to disappear.

§ Mrs. Ewing
On a point of order. May I ask for your protection, Mr. Speaker, of Scotland's constitutional position in this House? Unlike Cornwall and some other parts of the British Isles, we have a devolved set of powers to the Scottish Office. The answers which I have received yesterday and today have thrown those devolved powers, which are a constitutional fact, to the wind.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am willing to try to protect the hon. Lady and anybody else. But I have to administer the Standing Orders, and I do not think that what the hon. Lady has said raises any point under them.

§ Mr. Dalyell
On a point of order. With some seriousness, Mr. Speaker, may I ask for your protection from "phoney" points of order raised by the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), who raises them repeatedly to get publicity in the Scottish Press?

§ Mr. Speaker
The difficulty about a "phoney" point of order is that one cannot tell whether it is phoney until it has been made.