European Commission (Hansard, 14 June 1989)

§ 3. Ms. Mowlam
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next expects to meet the President of the European Commission; and what matters he expects to discuss.

§ 8. Mrs. Dunwoody
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next expects to meet the President of the European Commission; and what matters he expects to discuss.

§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe)
I next expect to meet the President of the Commission on 26 and 27 June at the meeting of the European Council when discussion will extend to the entire range of business before the Council.

§ Ms. Mowlam
When the Foreign Secretary meets the President at the European Council meeting, how will he justify the Government's decision this week to veto the EC directive to provide more child care, parental leave and flexible working arrangements for working parents in this country? Does he accept that those improvements are 892 needed now, and by 1992 they will be essential, or will he follow the Government's usual policy of assuming that if they are in a minority of one they must be right?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
This is one of many issues in which progress can be, should be and has been achieved on the basis of national responsibilities. We must think carefully before we seek to transfer responsibility to the European Community. That is the fulfilment of a principle that the President of the European Community will recognise—the principle of subsidiarity, which leaves it to the nation states to do those things which are best done by them.

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
When the Foreign Secretary meets his fellow Ministers, will he support the Chancellor's view of our joining the European monetary system or the Prime Minister's view?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
I will support the view expressed by both of them. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said at a press conference on Monday: It is not a question of whether we join the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS, it is a question of when. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said many times—I heard her say it at the launching of our manifesto —that: The policy is exactly the same as it was. We shall join when the time is right.

§ Mr. John Marshall
When my right hon. and learned Friend sees the president of the Commission, will he confirm that he disagrees with Dr. Barry Seal's view that Britain should leave the Community?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
I do not know for whom Dr. Seal speaks—he certainly does not speak for the British Government or the British people.

§ Mr. Wells
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it would be entirely wrong for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or for him to discuss the outcome of the Delors report on European monetary union unless a debate had been held in the House before the Prime Minister's attendance at the European Council and her meeting with the Commission?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
There will be a number of opportunities for debate on those matters in the House and in the European Council. It will be for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to work out how they can best be reconciled.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
Would the Foreign Secretary support a move towards greater uniformity in voting practices in Europe? Would it not now be appropriate for him to talk to the Prime Minister and for the Prime Minister to talk to the Leader of the Opposition with a view, for example, to convening a Speakers' Conference to consider proportional representation and fixed-term Parliaments? I think that it is time that we thought about that.

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
That is not a matter for a multinational Speakers' Conference. It has been considered by the European Parliament, and its report has been rejected; that is where the matter now rests.

§ Mr. David Nicholson
Will my right hon. and learned Friend point out to the President of the European Commission that Britain is already showing the way to a real social dimension by generating jobs in their hundreds of thousands through policies of enterprise and growth?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
I have pointed that out to the President and, with my hon. Friends, will continue to do so on every possible occasion. Unemployment in Britain has fallen for 33 consecutive months, and the number of jobs created between June 1983 and June 1987—the last period for which records are available—is larger than that in the whole of the rest of the Community put together, for exactly the reasons that my hon. Friend has given.

§ Mr. Kaufman
When the Foreign Secretary meets the President of the Commission, will he specify the items in the proposed social charter that have led the Prime Minister to describe it as "Marxist"?

§ Sir Geoffrey Howe
The right hon. Gentleman will recollect that many provisions in that document provide for substantial increases in the representation of organised trade unions on the boards of companies—an object that the Labour Government were trying to escape 20 years ago. In the past 20 years we have managed to shuffle off many problems and thus enhance the success of our economy. It would be entirely foolish for us to accept such prescriptions and to follow the right hon. Gentleman in the opposite direction.