Common Energy Policy (Hansard, 12 January 1976)

§ 12. Mr. Marten
asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement about the Common Market energy policy.

§ 20. Mr. Patrick Jenkin
asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with the progress being made with the formulation of a European energy policy.

§ 21. Sir A. Meyer
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he next expects to meet the Energy Ministers of the EEC.

§ Mr. Benn
The date of the next Council of Energy Ministers has not yet been 14 fixed, but I would expect it to take place during the next month or so. Since the June Energy Council good progress has been made on the work required for the further development of a Community energy policy. Proposals on the main issues are being prepared for submission to the Energy Council. I have, in addition, proposed that Energy Ministers should meet informally to exchange ideas and this proposal has been welcomed.

§ Mr. Marten
Does the Secretary of State believe that it is possible to have an effective common energy policy, particularly in terms of pricing, without Community control of the sources of energy? Have we, as a country, not set our faces against that?

§ Mr. Benn
Frankly, very little progress has been made with energy policy. When I attended the Energy Council meeting in the summer I discovered how little progress had been made. I suggested at that meeting—the idea was widely welcomed—that it would be better to start at the other end and examine together the energy policies of member States, so that we could appreciate the problems and, where there was an overlapping of interest, could build on secure foundations of common interest. That approach was welcomed and has provided a new start. When the informal meetings that I have proposed take place, I hope that we shall seek to make sense of the complicated patchwork of different interests.

§ Sir A. Meyer
Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that when matters of common energy policy are discussed in European fora he will give top priority to representing our national interests rather than to strengthening his power base within the Labour Party?

§ Mr. Russell Kerr
Cheap.

§ Mr. Benn
When I told a meeting in Bridgwater that the whole energy policy of the Continent of Europe, if not of the world, was being delayed to allow me to make my presentation, it was received as a joke and was welcomed in that spirit. I was amazed at the way in which the Opposition revealed such a lack of a sense of humour and, indeed, tabled a laborious Early-Day Motion—which shows how little they understand of the way in which these matters are dealt with.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson
Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he will not listen to the siren voice of the EEC in its efforts to boost North Sea oil production to 180 million tons per year? Will he give a further assurance that it will not exceed a rate of 110 million tons a year—the figure adopted by the Government?

§ Mr. Benn
The hon. Gentleman will know that some of the proposals put by him and his colleagues to decrease oil production substantially would lead to serious unemployment. If he assumes that our depletion policy should reflect our own assessment of our national interest, that is sensible, but it is also my job to try to find a basis of common interest constructively within Energy Council meetings.

§ Mr. Jenkin
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the opinion of the journalist who reported the Secretary of State's remarks in Bridgwater is that they were not intended to be wholly jocular, but were intended to reflect the continuing dispute in the Labour Party over its attitude to the Common Market? Will he now give an unconditional assurance to the House that he will pursue the policy that has been approved by the referendum—a referendum of which he was the principal instigator—so that we may play our full part in Europe? Will he bend all his efforts to securing a European energy policy that is in the interests of the whole of Europe as well as of this country?

§ Mr. Benn
Although it is not my practice to complain, I must tell the House that my words were misquoted. Only The Times in London reported them as having been made in Bridgwater. Everybody present on that occasion would have known the spirit in which my remark was made. During the period when the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) and his party were in office, no progress at all was made in developing energy policies within the EEC. The only way in which any policy can be made to work in this country, as well as in the EEC, is to see that it reflects the real interests of those concerned. That is the basis on which I made my proposal, and it has been widely welcomed.