EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY (DIRECT ELECTIONS) (Hansard, 17 May 1976)

HC Deb 17 May 1976 vol 911 cc1177-86 1177

§ Motion made,

§ That Mr. George Reid, Sir Anthony Royle and Mr. David Steel be members of the Committee on Direct Elections to the European Assembly:

§ That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to report from time to time and to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House:

§ That Four be the Quorum of the Committee.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)
The Question is,
That Mr. George Reid—

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrewshire, West)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. During the earlier points of order—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am proposing a Question in accordance with the instruction of the House.
The Question is,
That Mr. George Reid, Sir Anthony Royle and Mr. David Steel be members of the Committee on Direct Elections to the European Assembly:
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to report from time to time and to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House:
That Four be the Quorum of the Committee.

§ Mr. Buchan
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point of order is not connected with this motion but with the previous Adjournment motion. During the earlier points of order, it was explained by the Leader of the House that the purpose of that debate—and we thank him for it and understand that the situation is not his fault—was in order that the Minister of Agriculture would understand the feeling of the House on the issue.

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§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am the servant of the House. The Business Resolution set out one-and-a-half hours for the debate on New Zealand butter, and that time has now expired. That business has therefore been concluded.

§ Mr. Buchan
But, with respect—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. That business has been completed. We are now on the next business, and if the hon. Gentleman has anything to say on that next business I am prepared to hear him.

§ Mr. Buchan
With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it was precisely because the business had passed that I raised this as a point of order. If the business had not passed I would have raised it as an intervention. The point of order I am putting is whether—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is not able to raise a point of order on business which has already passed. We are now discussing the question of the Select Committee. I am prepared to hear the hon. Gentleman on that, but not on some other point of order.

§ Mr. Buchan
In that case, may I raise a point of order on the question of the Select Committee? I wonder whether an opportunity can be taken by the Leader of the House in introducing this subject to let us know what message he will be conveying to the Minister of Agriculture—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting a little further out of order. That point would certainly not be in order on this issue.

§ Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)
On a different point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On 12th May at col. 614 of the Official Report, when you put the larger motion, of which that on the Order Paper today is a fragment, you indicated that you intended to put separately the Question or the remaining members of the Committee and separately the Question on what were then paragraphs three and four of the motion. May I inquire why it is that that procedure which you indicated and which you were interrupted in the course of carrying through is not applied this 1179 morning and why, therefore, the Question which you have proposed to the House is not initially limited to the first two lines of the motion which stands on the Order Paper in the name of the Deputy Chief Whip?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
If it is for the convenience of the House that the motion should be dealt with line by line or clause by clause, that can be done.

§ Ordered, That Mr. George Reid, Sir Anthony Royle and Mr. David Steel be members of the Committee on Direct Elections to the European Assembly.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.)

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to report from time to time and to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

§ 2.8 a.m.

§ Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)
In view of the lateness of the hour and the fact that this is the second instalment of this debate I do not wish to speak at length. I believe that a further debate on the subject is important and could be helpful. There are a number of issues that should be further explored before the Select Committee is set up. There are some answers to which we are entitled from the Government before this important Select Committee sets out on is work.
I appreciate that the debate is restricted to the words on the Order Paper, which relate basically to the powers of the Committee to send for persons, papers and records. These are important powers and it is important to know exactly how the Committee can exercise them and what constraints might be placed upon it. Certain very important matters could flow from the proceedings of the Committee. Considerable consequences for this country and for our electoral arrangements could certainly flow from them. While, clearly at a later stage, it will be for the House to decide upon these arrangements. presumably through legislation, undoubtedly the recommendations of the Committee will carry great weight when we come to prepare that legislation. It is important to know that the Select Committee will be considering certain matters and will have the power to make recommendations to the House 1180 based on a considerable amount of information that it might be empowered to obtain.
I presume that the Leader of the House will be replying. That is something I would welcome because I am sure that he will do his utmost to give us full answers.
My first question concerns the future position of Members of the European Assembly, or European Parliament, if that is what it is to be called. Presumably the status and the remuneration of European Members of Parliament is a direct consequence of the electoral arrangements which the Select Committee has to consider.
The importance of this, I hope, will be self-evident. Certainly it has already been suggested that Members of the European Assembly could be very highly remunerated persons. There has been talk of salaries of some £20,000 per annum. The other day I even heard a suggestion that it could be £30,000 per annum. I am told that it will be the mean or the average of salaries paid to members of existing national Parliaments in Europe, and certainly it seems that, whatever the figure, the Members will be very highly paid persons.
The same argument applies to their expenses. It is said, too, that they will have a very large staff. Comparisons are made with senators of the United States. If this is to be the case—

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to have your ruling about the matter, because it obviously affects what we discuss. I suggest that we are discussing a very narrow question indeed—whether papers should be sent for, and so on. The hon. Gentleman seems to be entering into general questions of merit which might have been in order in the earlier part of the discussions, but we are now discussing a very narrow point. I am not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman has not the right to raise it if he can, but I should have thought that it must be done within the rules of order.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I was waiting to see whether the hon. Gentleman brought himself into order very speedily. I hope that he will do so.

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§ Mr. Moate
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that the point that I am about to make will be seen to be in order, because if it was out of order in this context it might be said that it was out of order for the Select Committee to consider it, and that would be a very serious matter. As I understand the situation, the matter to which I have just referred might well be decided by the existing European Assembly and not even influenced by the national legislatures—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. There is nothing in the paragraph which we are discussing which is in any way connected with what the hon. Gentleman is saying.

§ Mr. Moate
My whole purpose, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is to ask whether the Select Committee would have power to summon before it persons in the European Assembly currently engaged in preparing proposals for the remuneration of Members of the European Parliament. This is of fundamental importance. If this is a matter upon which the Select Committee is competent to judge and make recommendations to the House, one wishes to be assured that it has the power to summon those who apparently have the responsibility, if that is the case, for making recommendations of this kind.
I hope not only that you will accept that that is in order in the way I have framed it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but that the Leader of the House will confirm that that power exists.
My next point concerns numbers. Clearly the electoral arrangements—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is referring to the debate that we had on the first day that we discussed this Order. There is nothing now in order in relation to that.

§ Mr. Moate
Again it is a question of the exercise of power to summon persons or to obtain papers or records relevant to the matters I am discussing. I hope that, with regard to remuneration, I have established the point that I should like to know whether the Select Committee is empowered to summon such people. I should like to know whether it has the power to summon persons to comment on the taxation to which Members of the European Parliament will be liable. Again, we are seeing the build-up of a 1182 privileged class of international persons who are very highly paid and very lowly taxed. Has the Select Committee the power to bring before it persons concerned with the tax levied on European Members, whether they be in this country or abroad?
Again, I hope that that will be seen as a point to which the Select Committee will give great attention. If it has not the power to summon such persons, the situation will hardly be tolerated by this House or by the people of this country when they see such matters upon such sensitive issues escaping from the influence of the United Kingdom Parliament. I hope very much that the Leader of the House will confirm that the Committee is so empowered to summon such people before it.
May I turn to another matter upon which I hope that the Select Committee will have the power to summon persons before it, and that concerns very directly the electoral arrangements—the number of Members of the European Parliament. We know that there will be a variety of options—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at the original motion. I think that he will find the answers contained there.

§ Mr. Moate
If, by that, I am to understand that the Committee has such powers on all these matters, I am very content. If that is your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so be it. I had expected to receive it from the Leader of the House. But I am concerned to ensure—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman had his opportunity to raise these matters when paragraph 1 of the motion was dealt with. We are now down to about paragraph 6, and this is a very narrow point about sending for persons and papers.

§ Mr. Moate
Then I have endeavoured to make the points that I sought to make, namely, I wished to receive confirmation from the Leader of the House that the Select Committee would have such powers to summon people before it to deal with such matters as the numbers, and I was about to say even to summon persons from, say, Greece, because the Greeks might wish to become members 1183 of the EEC. Will the Select Committee have the power to send for witnesses from Greece to seek their views on the number of Members they would like to see representing Greece in the European Assembly?
On all these crucial issues, which must be translated at some stage into legislative arrangements for the United Kingdom, I trust that the Select Committee will see that it has power to summon people before it and the duty to deal with these matters when it comes to making recommendations to the House of Commons.

§ 2.18 a.m.

§ Mr. Neil Marten (Banbury)
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) has been alongside me in our discussions of the Common Market over a number of years, and perhaps this is the moment to pay tribute to him for what he has just said.
We are discussing persons and papers, so I shall confine myself and remain strictly in order. On the question of persons, if the Committee should wish to summon an official of the EEC Commission, for example, can the Leader of the House tell us how far our writ and right runs? Can we compel a member of the Commission to come here? Secondly, can we compel Ministers of foreign Governments to come before the Select Committee? If that were possible, we should have some very interesting and diverse views expressed by the various Ministers on direct elections.
Could we, for example, summon the Vice-President of the Common Market Assembly, who I gather is another of these Communists in the organisation out there? I have in mind Commissioner Spinelli, for instance. It would be interesting to get the views of the. Communist Spinelli, Vice-President of the European Parliament.
Then there is Mr. Patijn, the initiator of the proposal in February 1973 or 1974 that we should have a European Parliament. He was the initiator of the size of it and the way it was to run. Could we call him as a witness? Could we call the Gaullist Party representatives who want 198 seats and no more? They are obviously blocking the whole thing—bless them—and they are very relevant to the Committee because the Govern- 1184 ment have said they wish to proceed speedily.
I have heard a rumour that the Government want the Committee—which is meeting later today although this motion has not yet been passed by the House—to produce an interim report by 24th June. That seems an extraordinarily early date to me and there would be no chance of achieving it if we had Gaullist Party representatives giving evidence because they are blockers par excellence.
Shall we be able to ask the Foreign Office for the papers it circulated among officials who cooked up this project within the Foreign Office's dream of federalism?
May we have the minutes of Council of Ministers' meetings? If there is one thing our Committee should get its hands on it is the minute book of the Council of Ministers' discussions about how many seats there should be in the Assembly. Could we call the Foreign Secretary before the Committee? Perhaps he could tell us what happened last week at the casual, but secret, get-together for a weekend in the country to discuss direct elections to the European Parliament.
I do not wish to detain the House. It is getting rather late. But this is the sort of information we ought to have before approving the motion.

§ 2.22 a.m.

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)
I am most grateful for the determination of the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) not to detain the House. I hope that he will excuse me if I take just a minute or two to reply.
Most of the matters raised by the hon. Members opposite would have been more aptly raised on the broader motion which we discussed the other day, but as a number of points have been raised, I shall answer them as briefly as I can. The best and most elaborate answer may be found in "Erskine May", which describes the meaning of the words we are discussing. Pages 644, 645 and 646 also cover the fascinating question of calling witnesses from overseas.
It will be seen that the Committee has been given the most extensive powers 1185 which a Select Committee can have. Select Committees decide their own procedure. The terms of reference which the House passed the other day are not rigid. The Committee could range wide in seeking the information it requires.
I am doubtful whether the Committee has the power to summon foreign heads of State or Commissions or even spirits from the vasty deep". All these characters are not under the general surveillance of this Parliament. Of course, invitations could be issued and I dare say many of the witnesses would be only too eager to give extensive information. But that would be on a voluntary basis.
The Committee will have the powers normally laid down for a Select Committee and on that basis I hope that the House will approve the Government's proposal and agree that, whatever criticisms there may have been of the motion, the Government were right in deciding, first, that a matter of such importance should be examined by a Select Committee and, secondly, that we should have terms of reference satisfactory to the whole House. That is what we have sought. I think that the whole House 1186 has agreed that our terms of reference are the right ones.
I know that there has been some dispute about the actual membership of the Committee. These are always invidious issues. It might have been quite an easy solution if my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. Member for Banbury had both been put on the Committee. I acknowledge that that might have eased the situation. That casts no reflection on the other members of the Committee. I hope that the House will now proceed to allow the Committee to get on with its work.

§ Question put and agreed to.

§ Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons. papers and records, to report from time to time and sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House.

§ Ordered,

§ That Four be the Quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]