HC Deb 19 October 1988 vol 138 cc884-7
10. Mr. Spearing

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement relating to the overall outcome of meetings of the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community which have occurred since 29 July last.

Mrs. Chalker

There has been one Foreign Affairs Council, on 26 September. I represented the United Kingdom, accompanied by my hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development. The main issue discussed was the Community's negotiating mandate for Lomé IV. With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will circulate a fuller statement in the Official Report.

My ministerial colleagues will, I am sure, be reporting to the House in the usual way on the outcome of councils for which they are responsible.

Mr. Spearing

Will the right hon. Lady tell us something about the Internal Market Council that met on 29 September? Cannot that council create legislation applicable to this country, even if it is against the wishes of the Government and the House, by virtue of qualified majority voting? Has not that highly centralised authority of the emerging European union come about only because in 1986 she, on behalf of the Government, signed the Single European Act, with the active encouragement and endorsement of the Prime Minister?

Mrs. Chaiker

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary attended the Internal Market Council and will report in detail on it. It is fair to say that during the past two years the Community would not have made such progress on the single market without qualified majority voting. That has been in the interests of the people of this country.

The Single European Act was the first update of the Treaty of Rome, and there is nothing in it to cause me anything like the elevated concern that the hon. Gentleman expresses, both in the House and elsewhere. Without the Single European Act and the qualified majority voting that applies to many internal market issues, this country's position would have been far worse on many occasions. To name but one, the Commission forwarded our views about the export of British-made Nissan cars to another Community country. That is one way in which we have made the internal market work better.

Mr. Gow

Has my right hon. Friend committed to memory the excellent speech of our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at Bruges? Will she ensure that that speech is the first item on the agenda at the next meeting of the EEC Council of Ministers? Will she arrange for a signed copy to be sent to our right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath)?

Mrs. Chalker

In the knowledge that we are all fallible and that sometimes we all forget, I took the precaution of ensuring that I have with me a copy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's speech. I commend it to every hon. Member. Any Prime Minister who speaks so clearly for the needs of this country, by saying that our destiny is in Europe as part of the Community, has our fullest support. I shall ensure that all those attending council meetings are aware of her speech, although I am sure that most of them are already aware of it.

Mr. Cryer

Are not the Prime Minister's words at variance with the deeds of the Government? Are not the Government capitulating to every demand of the Common Market, including the payment of £4.7 billion since 1984 and the development of a trade deficit in manufactured goods of £10 billion? Does she think that 1992 and the complete harmonisation of the internal market will help, or hinder, that?

Mrs. Chalker

The completion of the internal market will help this country no end. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has not learnt sufficient about it to know that already.

Mr. Aitken

In view of her warm endorsement of the Prime Minister's fine speech, would my right hon. Friend care to comment on today's rather puzzling report in the Daily Express? It stated that Mr. Delors' speech to the TUC conference was approved in advance and ticked as innocuous by Foreign Office representatives. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that, if there is any showdown between British and German interests at a future Council of Ministers, the Bruges speech will be the text of our foreign policy?

Mrs. Chalker

If there is any need to have a discussion with our colleagues at future councils—whatever councils they may be—if we have disagreements, we shall express them most clearly, as we always do. I tell my hon. Friend that when any TUC speaker shows his speech in advance to the Foreign Office, I will really think that he is living in never-never land.

Sir Russell Johnston

While we are on the subject of speeches, has the Minister noticed yesterday's speech by Dr. Helmut Kohl, the German Conservative Chancellor, who warmly commended European economic and monetary union and spoke of a social Europe? Is it not the case that, despite what the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) said earlier, the Prime Minister's Bruges approach is a solitary one and is not supported by any other European leader?

Mrs. Chalker

I know of Chancellor Kohl's pragmatic approach to the Community, which he expressed quite fully in his speech yesterday. We do not agree with every word that every other European leader says, but we certainly have more in common with our German colleagues in pursuing the right path for Europe and for our respective countries than we shall ever have with the hon. Gentleman's party or the Labour party.

Mr. Ian Taylor

Has my right hon. Friend taken note of the various measures that the Government have already introduced, which are well ahead of those of our European friends in terms of showing our Europeanness? In particular, has she congratulated the Chancellor on introducing ecu-denominated debt in the summer, an issue that was so dramatically successful that other Governments are now thinking of following suit?

Mrs. Chalker

My hon. Friend is perfectly correct. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposals last year, earlier this year, and again at the meeting in Berlin have been fundamental in persuading a change of mind in some other Governments towards solving the problems of middle income debtors. It is interesting to note that Britain is the first country to contribute in full to the $75 billion of the general capital income increase in resources for lending to middle income debtors. All that has happened thanks to a Conservative Chancellor in Britain.

Mr. Kaufman

In her Bruges speech, which the right hon. Lady has commended, the Prime Minister stated her opposition to, the abolition of frontier controls, the creation of the European super-state, the centralisation of power in Brussels, with decisions taken by an appointed bureacracy and the concentration of power at the centre of a European conglomerate, and said that Britain's parliamentary powers must be preserved. As every one of those changes that the Prime Minister opposes is now entrenched in United Kingdom law through the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986, which the right hon. Lady forced through the House of Commons on a guillotine, will the right hon. Lady now apologise to the Prime Minister and introduce legislation to repeal the European Communities (Amendment) Act?

Mrs. Chalker

No, Sir.