South Africa (Hansard, 13 June 1990)

§ 1. Mr. Simon Hughes
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he intends any change to the policy of Her Majesty's Government on the subject of sanctions and South Africa; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mr. Douglas Hurd)
Our policy is unchanged. We want to see the abolition of apartheid and the peaceful transition to a democratic multiracial system in South Africa. We shall maintain our policy of encouragement and pressure on all sides to enter into negotiations on a new constitution. I welcome the decision of the South African Government to lift the state of emergency, except in Natal.

§ Mr. Hughes
Does the Secretary of State accept that there is widespread recognition in South Africa that sanctions have been one of the key contributory factors to the present and welcome change in the position of the South African Government? Does he further accept that the appropriate response from the Government and European Community would be to retain the present structure of sanctions until the remaining legislation and obstacles to negotiations are finally removed, and to respond, as and when negotiations develop, to the creation of a new constitution by the removal of sanctions during that period? Prompt action would be inappropriate.

§ Mr. Hurd
We are not planning to remove all sanctions, but we see the need to give practical proof that we are encouraging President de Klerk in the dramatic steps that he is taking, at great risk to himself and his party, towards a new South Africa without apartheid. I believe that those moves are irreversible.

§ Mr. Burt
Is my right hon. Friend encouraged by the successful talks that are taking place between the business community and the mass democratic movement ill South Africa, including the African National Congress? Does he agree that the need is to maintain pressure on the South African Government for the speediest possible reforms? It is only through political reform and change that we shall lay a sound economic basis for the future of South Africa, as all sides wish.

§ Mr. Hurd
The right mix of pressure and encouragement must be achieved. The business community in South Africa is well placed to do that. It has recognised for a long time that an apartheid South Africa is bad for investment and bad for the prosperity of all South Africans.

§ Mr. Anderson
The Foreign Secretary said that the Government are not planning to remove all sanctions, yet the Prime Minister said in the House: I believe that there is now no place for sanctions"'.—[Official Report, 22, May 1990; Vol. 173, c. 167.] It is not our job to drive a wedge between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but will he use his considerable skills to reconcile what are, on the face of it, fundamentally different propositions?

§ Mr. Hurd
The Prime Minister has often defended, at the European summit and in the House, the step-by-step approach that we are practising. We are moving step by step to encourage the South Africans as they move, while maintaining pressure on them. The sanctions issue is becoming yesterday's argument. It is no longer the most effective means of pressure. The pressures that we have exercised have shown themselves to be effective.