§ 3.50 p.m.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I would take the present opportunity to repeat a statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal about the recent Ministerial meetings in the negotiations with the three European Communities. I must also apologise on behalf of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary Who had hoped to perform this function, but who is not able to do so. I should say, before coming to the statement, that your Lordships will also wish to know that a more detailed account of these meetings to which the statement relates is being published later this afternoon as a White Paper.
My Lords, the statement is as follows:
§ "At the Ministerial meeting with the European Atomic Energy Community in Brussels on November 14, the Chairman, on behalf of the Six member Governments and the President of the Commission, replied to the opening statement which my right honourable friend, the Lord Privy Seal, had made on July 3. The texts of these replies were later published by the Community, and English translations will shortly be placed in the Library.
§ "Discussions between officials began yesterday with an examination of the Treaty, chapter by chapter. The next meeting of Ministers will be arranged through the Deputies.
993§ "The Ministerial meeting with the members of the European Economic Community was held in Brussels on November 15, 16 and 17. Agreement was reached on alternative arrangements for those Commonwealth countries which decline the offer of Association. First, the opportunity to associate with the Community would remain open. Secondly, the enlarged Community would declare its readiness to negotiate commercial agreements with any of these countries wishing to do so. Thirdly, there would be a very gradual application of the Common External Tariff to all the exports of these countries. Fourthly, the Common External Tariff on tropical hard woods, which are of major interest to Ghana and Nigeria, should be reduced from 10 per cent. to nil. Fifthly, it would be the policy of the enlarged Community to work towards commodity stabilisation agreements where practicable.
§ "It was agreed that an offer of Association should be made for Aden with the addition of a protocol dealing with the export of petroleum products from Aden to the Community. There was a full discussion of the problems affecting Malta and the High Commission territories. Ministers will consider solutions to these at a future meeting.
§ "Ministers discussed processed agricultural products from Canada, Australia and New Zealand for the first time. The Lord Privy Seal was able to agree with the Community that its offer of a very gradual application of the Common External Tariff would be an adequate arrangement for some of the smaller items. The Lord Privy Seal maintained our proposals for tariff reductions and duty quotas on others. Ministers will revert to this subject later.
"Ministers also discussed for the first time the possible arrangements for mutton and lamb. It was agreed that the proposals of the Community for the application of the Common External Tariff by stages combined with the possibility of suspension of the duty under Article 25 (3) of the Treaty of Rome should be studied further.
§ "The Community stated that they were not in a position to discuss the 994 agricultural finance regulation with us. A brief discussion did take place on our request for nil duties on newsprint and aluminium.
§ "It was arranged that the next Ministerial meeting will take place from December 10 to 12 followed by a meeting from December 19 to 21.
§ "In Luxembourg on November 19 negotiations were continued with the European Coal and Steel Community. Ministers noted the interim report of their officials who had not been able to conclude their examination of possible incompatibilities between arrangements in the United Kingdom for the coal and steel industries and the Treaty of Paris. The officials will continue their work on these subjects, together with two additional ones: a study of sea transport from the point of view of the pricing rules of the Treaty, and an examination of the level of the external tariffs on steel. The next Ministerial meeting will be on January 15."
§ My Lords, that concludes the statement.
§ 3.55 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, in respect of this Common Market, once more we have had a statement from the Government that is much more remarkable for what it does not say than for what it does say. So far as British agriculture is concerned, it is left again completely in the dark. So far as I can tell from the statement, there seems to have been some discussion on certain matters affecting the Commonwealth, but it is difficult to pick it out, and we shall not know how much more detail we are going to get from the White Paper until your Lordships see it in the Printed Paper Office. But I am much concerned about the Commonwealth—for instance, the references made in the statement to lamb and mutton. They do not take us very far. It seems to me that there might be a slight easement, but that may all be reconsidered—I cannot tell from the statement that is made. If the representatives of the Commonwealth do not know any more than that which is set out in the statement and in the White 995 Paper to follow, then I should think they will be pretty upset.
Apparently some applications for relief from the Commonwealth have actually been dealt with, and one or two things settled. But the kind of treatment expected to be meted out seems to me, again, to be remarkable. It is already fairly common knowledge, for example, that there will be tariff relief in respect of tinned kangaroo meat and tinned rabbits. But when it comes to an important business like the Canadian business of salmon, the answer from the Community is, "No". How far this is going on in regard to other matters I do not know, but I become more and more anxious at this policy of giving snippets of information, which mean almost nothing at all. We fear that suddenly, perhaps, we shall be faced in Parliament with a fait accompli which we have had not had time sufficiently to study.
There is reference in the statement to certain "smaller items"—that these will be dealt with. What are these "smaller items"? Why cannot Parliament know what they are? I think that perhaps what strikes me most from a major point of view is the reference to the fact that the Community stated that they were unable to proceed to consider the financial control in agricultural matters; so nothing was done. Yet all the rumours that from time to time emerge would seem to show that France is taking an attitude which would make it quite impossible to get a satisfactory easement of the British agriculture position. If that is so, why do the Government not tell us? That is the remarkable thing.
So far as I can understand the present position, the practical attitude of France at the moment is that there can be no continuation of deficiency payments from the year in which entry is made into the Economic Community, if such entry is made. Where do we go from here? What on earth can farmers be doing at the present time in making their plans on how they are to do things? I beg the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House to take these matters to his colleagues in the Government, and to say how difficult it is for us to deal with these questions at all, with these snippets of information which we are getting from time to time.
§ 4.10 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I think that the noble Viscount's criticism is rather misleading. It is, of course, true that the statement does not contain information of large concluded agreements, and to that extent I would agree with him that it is more remarkable for what it does not say than for what it does say—because the policy of the statement is to say what has happened, not what has not happened. The noble Viscount is just confusing himself by describing this process as "snippets of information", because the insinuation there is that something has happened which nobody is allowed to know. That is wholly without foundation. The purpose of the bulletins which have been made from time to time is to give the House reliable information of what has happened. The reason why there is nothing about British agriculture in this one is because the questions affecting United Kingdom agriculture were not dealt with at the meetings of November 15, 16 and 17. There are, of course, large problems to be dealt with in this field, and they no doubt will play a very large part in the remaining stages of negotiations.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHWhy were they not dealt with?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMThe noble Viscount should get nothing but reassurance from the fact that there is nothing in this statement about them. The reason is that they were not dealt with at those meetings. I think, therefore, that this criticism is really without foundation. The same, broadly speaking, is true of the other field which the noble Viscount covered in relation to the Commonwealth. The statement says exactly what has happened in relation to lamb and mutton. If he wants to know what were the smaller items which were settled, no doubt that can be ascertained for him, although I have not the information here. I take it they were not mentioned because they were relatively so small.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, I should like to thank the Lord President for his statement, which I think is quite satisfactory so far as it goes. I would also add that I consider the offer to be very generous to the countries of 997 the Commonwealth, who have so far declined association, and I personally would urge them to accept the offer that is now made. May I ask the Lord President this question: is it not a fact that the former French Colonies had the same difficulty in accepting association, but that, when it was fully explained to them, they finally accepted it?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMI am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said in the first part of his supplementary. I think it is a good offer, but I cannot give him confirmation of the point he put to me about the French Colonies because I am not sufficiently familiar with the background on that matter.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, in view of the heavy amount of Business before the House to-day it would be inadvisable to go into great detail on this, because we have to consider the convenience of the Members of the House. But I think we ought to be given a fairly firm assurance that we can have an early day for discussion of the White Paper, when perhaps we shall obtain some more information. When Mr. Heath addressed the Farmers' Club he had a great reception because he made a very clever political speech, but he did not spend five minutes on British agriculture. We have got nothing out of that. We have had no answer to the firm calculations of the economists of the National Farmers' Union as to what is the real effect. The Government take no notice of them; they do not tell us anything. All these things would have to be debated, and perhaps there should be a time fixed for a debate upon the White Paper.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMIf the noble Viscount cares to fix a date through the usual channels, there is no reason why he should not exercise the rights which are certainly and undeniably open to him. I must remind him that we discussed the Common Market fairly recently, last week, and I gathered from his criticism of the statement that not enough had happened since then to warrant a further discussion.