HC Deb 31 March 1976 vol 908 cc1303-6
34. Mr. Skinner

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next expects to meet the EEC leaders; and if he will make a statement.

41. Mr. Banks

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next intends to meet his EEC colleagues.

Mr. James Callaghan

I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave earlier to the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford).

Mr. Skinner

I cannot understand why this Question was not linked with the others my right hon. Friend has just answered. When he next meets the EEC leaders, will my right hon. Friend, in his capacity as Foreign Secretary or any other capacity, convey to them that British miners, among many other workers, are getting more than a little dissatisfied at having to pay higher prices and taxes in order to assist the removal of mountains of surpluses of various foodstuffs, especially as there are 30 million tons of British coal which the Common Market countries are refusing to get rid of?

Mr. Callaghan

The reason the Questions were not linked was that I understood that there was a request some time ago that not too many Questions should be linked. I am perfectly willing to go back to the old system, which is more convenient to Ministers and less convenient to hon. Members. I will not convey the point of view expressed by my hon. Friend to the European Council leaders because I do not think that it accurately reflects the situation.

Mr. Banks

When he meets his colleagues tomorrow, will the Foreign Secretary discuss with them the need for a relationship to co-ordinate policies and actions on international affairs such as those adopted towards Angola and neighbouring countries?

Mr. Callaghan

This is a matter for continuing discussion. We did not wholly succeed on Angola, but that was not the fault of this Government. I am very much in favour of closer co-ordination, although naturally some countries, and on occasions we would be among them, would not wish to stifle individual initiative.

Mr. Spearing

Since my right hon. Friend has dismissed any support for federalism from the Government in particular and the country in general, will he tell the EEC leaders tomorrow that the Government are not in favour of the suggestion in the Tindemans Report that powers of legislation should be given to a directly elected European Assembly? Will he not agree that the combination of these two matters is a distinct step towards the federalism which he has disavowed?

Mr. Callaghan

This is a little like recooking yesterday's cabbage. The Government's position on giving legislative powers to the European Assembly was made quite clear in my speech and other speeches from this Box earlier this week. The powers of the European Assembly will be the powers it now has under the Treaty.

Mr. Gorst

When the Foreign Secretary meets his opposite numbers, will he try to persuade them to get together to reverse the vile and abhorrent resolution of the United Nations on anti-Zionism? Is there not something which could be done by European leaders to alter that resolution?

Mr. Callaghan

I am not sure to which resolution the hon. Member is referring, though there have been some against which we have found it necessary to vote because of their anti-Zionism. However, I do not think that this would be a profitable subject for discussion at Luxembourg. There is constant contact among the ambassadors of the Nine at the United Nations when these matters are coming before the Security Council.

Mr. William Hamilton

Does my right hon. Friend recall that one of the recommendations, if it can be called that, in the Tindemans Report is that prominent European leaders should address the European Assembly and that their addresses should be followed by debates on matters of European concern? When he becomes Prime Minister next week, will my right hon. Friend be averse to that kind of visit or in favour of it?

Mr. Callaghan

My hon. Friend asked me a question about this in my capacity as Foreign Secretary a week or two ago. My attitude is the same today. I would be ready to address the European Assembly if it thought that that would be profitable and useful. That will continue to be my attitude as long as I remain Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Dykes

As the Foreign Secretary and the acting Prime Minister will be anxious to repeat to the other leaders in the EEC their assurance yesterday that they will not fall out of line with other member States on the timetable for direct elections, does that not inevitably mean that our domestic preparations must be terminated by August at the latest?

Mr. Callaghan

I shall be able to give a better answer to that next week after I have seen how the other countries regard the proposal. The line we should adopt, and which I would propose to adopt in view of yesterday's debate, is to be ready to move as fast as the other countries move. That is a balanced statement, because I am not yet sure how far all the other countries are ready to move, but we must certainly keep up with them.

Mr. Atkinson

Does my right hon. Friend accept that this is not a question of recooking yesterday's cabbage, but he is cooking up a complicated thesis which I should like him to try to unravel? I understand him to have said that he is agreeable to direct elections to the European Parliament with Treaty powers, that he is against federalism and that he thinks that Europe must move much more quickly towards economic unity. Are not those three together a basis for the federalism to which my right hon. Friend is opposed?

Mr. Callaghan

I do not think that I phrased that last point in the way my hon. Friend put it. If there is to be economic integration—and how better could the Community start than by tackling the problem of structural unemployment, which is likely to dog Western Europe and wider areas for the next four or five years?—my position is that there will have to be common action on these matters which will need to precede monetary union. That is not quite the way my hon. Friend put it.

Mr. David Steel

In view of the Foreign Secretary's experience as a candidate in an election, may we take it that when he next meets EEC leaders he will not be proclaiming the virtues of the first past the post system? In view of the Minister of State's discourtesy to us last night, will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the Select Committee will have sufficiently wide terms of reference to discuss direct elections?

Mr. Callaghan

My right hon. Friend last night was asked to give way at two minutes to 10 o'clock when he was in the middle of his peroration by an hon. Member who had not been present during the debate. I see nothing discourteous in that, except on the part of the hon. Gentleman who was trying to interrupt him. The question of voting systems will be a matter for the Select Committee to consider if it so wishes, although I do not depart from my own view that our existing system will best serve the people of this country.