HL Deb 27 February 1963 vol 247 cc81-4

2.45 p.m.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will publish in advance of the debate on March 6 full details of the provisional agreements arrived at in Brussels daring the negotiations with the European Economic Community.]

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME)

My Lords, as I informed the noble Earl on February 13, preparations are being made for a history of the negotiations, but I cannot yet give a date on which this might be published. Nor can I yet say whether or not it will include the texts of the provisional agreements reached during the negotiations, which are documents confidential to the conference as a whole and to the seven Governments which participated in it. As I said on February 13, I want to help the noble Earl and the House to have the fullest information possible, and I propose to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT references to the White Papers and statements on the subject, which contain the substance of all the provisional agreements which were reached.

Following are the references referred to:—

List of White Papers:

Dates of Statements:

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I am obliged to the Foreign Secretary for his reply, and I shall look very carefully at what he circulates in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have very kindly had sent me these various White Papers from time to time, but what is conspicuous about them is the absence from them of what we ought to know. I do not think that discussions on matters which concern the British people, as they do affect them, ought to be confidential just because negotiations have broken down in this matter in the Brussels talks.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, my difficulty is that I do not quite know what the noble Earl is after. Any agreements that were reached at Brussels were provisional and conditional upon the whole agreement being reached. My right honourable friend would then have to decide whether, on balance, it was worth accepting the whole or rejecting it. Whether, in the circumstances of the complete breakdown of the talks, it is desirable to publish provisional arrangements which concern the Commonwealth, which were confidential in the exchanges between Her Majesty's Government and Commonwealth Governments, and which concerned agriculture in this country, I think requires a lot of consideration. I should like to give it much more consideration than I have been able to up to now.

LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH

My Lords, does the noble Earl not think that the nation are entitled to know to what extent Her Majesty's Government were willing to give away what the nation perhaps thinks we ought to retain, and ought not that information to be made available to us?

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I think the noble Lord ought to give this a good deal of consideration. In certain circumstances, if we had secured a complete agreement it might have been worthwhile doing this, that, or the other. But we have not secured the agreement, the negotiations have been broken off and will not be resumed, so far as we can see ahead. Therefore, what one would be doing, if we were to do as we are asked, publish the talks on provisional agreements, would be to publish the texts of agreements which in certain circumstances could have been adopted but which now cannot be adopted. I am not at all sure that that is a wise thing to do.

LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH

My Lords, of course the noble Earl will agree that what is important to those who are deeply interested in this subject is to what extent Her Majesty's Government were prepared to give away what are regarded as vital principles connected with our agricultural policy.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I do not think I agree with the noble Lord's premise at all. Everything would have depended on the final outcome of the negotiations, and there was still, for instance, the question—the big question—as to what arrangements we might have made about New Zealand. I do not know what arrangements we could have made: I hope that they would have been satisfactory. That is one side of it. The agricultural side is another. I am not saying that we do not want to publish the substance of the negotiations and the provisional arrangements—and they are really in the White Papers which the noble Earl has in his hand. What I am not at all sure about is the form in which we should produce the final history of the negotiations.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I see what the Foreign Secretary is driving at. On the other hand, when he referred to the Commonwealth, some of the information in these Papers includes successes which were obtained in getting what the Commonwealth wanted with regard to tea duty, jute and things of that kind. Did they give permission for their results to be published; or what happened in that case? Surely there is nothing really confidential at this stage which ought to be withheld from the people of this country. How can we judge day by day, as we go along, whether or not what the Government are doing now is right unless we know what they actually did up to the date of the breakdown of negotiations?

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I think the noble Earl has a point here, and certainly I think Parliament should be aware of the substance of the provisional arrangements which were made. But I must insist that these were all the time dependent on the whole arrangement being satisfactory—all the time. That was always understood, and Parliament would have had to judge the whole effect and not on one or other provisional arrangement. Therefore, when we present the history of the negotiations we must be quite sure that we do not (and I take it the noble Earl does not want us to do this himself) convey the impression that because we were able to arrive at a provisional arrangement on something, pending the successful conclusion of negotiations, we are necessarily committed to the same kind of arrangement in the future.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I am much obliged, and I certainly do not want to do that. On the other hand, we have to face great problems in regard to British agriculture within the next few weeks. We have to consider the Price Review and what the promises are for the future. Yet we know practically nothing except the one general statement that we were willing, apparently, to adopt the system of agriculture which prevails in the European Economic Community.