EARL ST. ALDWYNMy Lords, my right honourable friend the Lord President of the Council is making a Statement in another place this afternoon on E.E.C. information. With the leave of the House, I will arrange for this Statement to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT in accordance with the Seventh Report of the Procedure Committee.
The Statement was as follows:
"Mr. Speaker, with your permission I should like to make a Statement about the provision of information to the public about entry into the European Economic Community.
" The House will recall that the decision to make application for membership of the Community was approved by the House by a majority of 426 in 1967. Therefore both the previous Government which decided to make this application and the present 659 Government have felt it right to put out information at important stages in the negotiations. The Labour Government issued its White Papers and this Government issued a White paper at the conclusion of the main issues in the negotiations.
" There have been widespread demands for information to the public. In response to these, as was announced by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on June 28 and by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland on July 5, the Government decided to issue along with the main White Paper a free short version which covers the same ground.
" So far as Parliament was concerned, the Government decided exceptionally to make twelve free copies of the main White Paper available to each Member, and this decision has been widely welcomed in the House.
" The Labour Government issued a series of free Factsheets in 1967. The present Government has also issued a series of eleven Factsheets on Britain and Europe on generally similar lines.
" Before deciding to take this course the Government naturally considered the relevant precedents for making available information on important public issues, including a number of cases from the time of the previous Administration.
" The Government concluded that there was ample justification from past practice for giving the country clearly and simply the information which has been so widely demanded and for reporting to the nation the outcome of the negotiations which had been initiated by a decision of the House with an overwhelming majority."