§ 11.30 a.m.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government the circumstances in which they have agreed to pay an additional £33 million to the E.E.C. as part of the cost of making supplementary payments to European farmers.
EARL FERRERSMy Lords, this results from acceptance on July 24 by the Council of Ministers of a supplementary Community Budget for expenditure consequential on decisions previously taken under the Common Agricultural Policy.
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, will the noble Earl be kind enough to tell the House why this Statement was not made in this House yesterday, since at noon yesterday the Minister responsible for the negotiations made a Statement in the House of Commons? Is the noble Earl not aware that at three o'clock yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said (this was in answer to my noble friend Lord Blyton) he had no knowledge of the Statement that had been made in the House of Commons but that he would make inquiries? Is he not aware that there is a strong suspicion that the Government wanted to keep this quiet for the simple reason that the agreement by the Minister at Brussels, reached only the night before, to pay £33 million as part of £400 million to subsidise the storage of cereals and butter which is eventually going to Russia was directly contrary to every- 1941 thing that was said from the Government Benches the previous night, because the policy is directed not to giving the people of this country cheap food but to making their food dearer?
EARL ST. ALDWYNMy Lords, on the noble Lord's question as to why the Statement was not repeated in this House, I must take some blame for this. When Statements are notified there are, as a rule, discussions through the usual channels as to whether or not a Statement to be made in another place should be repeated in this House. That does not in any way absolve me from deciding. If the other Parties would like the Statement repeated, then it is always done; if they do not particularly require it, then it is left to me to decide whether or not it should be given. These are the circumstances that arose yesterday. If I did wrong, then I must take full responsibility.
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, what the noble Earl is saying in plain English is that he consulted with the Opposition Front Bench and they agreed that the Statement should not be made. That statement absolves him and is an honourable one; but so far as my noble friends are concerned it is disgraceful. It is a disgrace that will rest on their shoulders, and reflects on the rights of this House as a whole. I submit to the Government—
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, then I ask the question: do not the Government agree that this House has a right as a whole and that it should not be left to the convenience of the few because they have followed contrary policies here and they want to keep it quiet?
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, before my noble friend replies—
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord wishes to intervene to stop what might become a rather embarrassing situation. Since, in a sense, this question, in its present form, is addressed as much to the Opposition Front Bench as to the Government, perhaps I may have the leave of the House to reply and speak not in the form of a question. The noble Earl the Government Chief Whip was extremely fair in 1942 his statement, and he took, as my noble friend Lord Wigg admitted, the major responsibility. It is quite true that the major responsibility rests on the Government, and the consultations through the usual channels do not absolve the Government from their responsibility to the House. At the same time, it is exceedingly difficult, either for the Leader of the House or for the Government Chief Whip, to decide whether or not repetition of a Statement is desirable. The House has in fact charged the Leader with this responsibility.
I was not aware of what transpired yesterday, and it so happened that I was not consulted. However, this is not the point, because my noble friend Lord Wigg seemed to imply that it was the fact that a different policy was followed here from the one that he himself wishes to follow that influenced the decision. I must rebut this. In fact, my noble friend Lord Beswick—with whom I have not discussed this matter—no doubt took into account the usual considerations, including the fact that the Statement had been made in another place, that there was an urgent debate and that, on the whole, the House does not like its debates interrupted more than necessary.
It may well be that there was an error of judgment in this matter, but I must say to noble Lords that this is an onerous responsibility which I think the usual channels try to discharge in the best interests of the House, and very much taking into account the views of those with whom they are not in agreement. This was a factor that I, when I was Leader of the House, used to pursue. One often asked whether a Statement was wanted when one may not have wanted it, but one would agree if there was a demand. I do not know the precise circumstances in this case, but I must defend my noble friend Lord Beswick, and indeed the Government Chief Whip, and conclude that they acted in what they regarded as the best interests of the House.
§ LORD SHINWELLMy Lords, leaving aside the silting up of the usual channels, a matter which might be dealt with on another occasion, does not the Minister agree that the matter of an additional expenditure of £33 million is a worthy subject to put before your 1943 Lordships' House? Will the Minister recall that only the other day, when the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, asked the Government to agree that those whose suffer from the affliction of blindness should be relieved from the imposition of V.A.T. on the cost of a wireless licence, the Government declared that they could not afford it? They could not afford that, but they can afford, at the behest of the Commission in Brussels, to subscribe another £33 million.
§ VISCOUNT AMORYMy Lords, will my noble friend the Chief Whip and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, accept that most of us in this House feel that the usual channels perform a difficult job with exceptional success?
§ LORD SHINWELLMy Lords, will the Minister—
§ LORD SHINWELLMy Lords, there is no question of "Order!". I want the noble Earl to reply to my question. I see no reason for the intervention of the noble Viscount opposite.
EARL FERRERSMy Lords, may I answer the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell? The answer is simply that under the European Communities Act we have our obligations to the European Economic Community, and one of those obligations was to accede in the supplementary budget which was requested; and this is what was done.
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, as perhaps the only person in this House who does not agree with the noble Viscount who spoke, may I ask, in an interrogative form—although I notice that the rules of order are applied somewhat unevenly—whether the noble Earl is aware that I, for one, do not agree that the two Front Benches do a good job? What they do is a job of convenience to themselves.
§ LORD WIGGShout as much as you like, that is my view and I shall express it inside this House and outside it. This House represents a certain number of sectional interests—
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, the noble Lord from the Front Bench was allowed to make a small statement and I ask for the same right, to make a similar statement. The issue here is one of transcendental importance. Noble Lords may dissent, but it was a Statement by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the House of Commons. Are the Government aware that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a Cabinet Minister, went to the House of Commons and made a Statement which was acutely controversial, in which he was expressing the residual power that remains in the joint Houses of Parliament? He was saying that, without the Cabinet being consulted, at the instance of the French, £33 million had to be paid by the British taxpayer as part of a sum of £400 million.
§ LORD WIGGAre the Government aware that this is what he said: that part of the £400 million, expressed in Monetary units, was to store butter and to store wheat to prevent its coming on the market, in order to keep prices high, and that this House only passed—
§ LORD WIGGIs the Minister aware that this House and another place passed the European Communities Act only on the affirmation by the Government in both Houses that the residual powers, or some residual powers, rested in this House and in another place? In fact, this House is nothing more than a rubber stamp.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, before anyone answers, may I ask my noble friend whether he recollects that the Companion to the Standing Orders states that neither Starred Questions nor supplementary questions must contain expression of opinion?
§ LORD WINDLESHAMMy Lords, I brought my copy of the Companion to the Standing Orders into the Chamber with me to-day, because I thought that we might have some exchanges of this sort. The Government Chief Whip has said that if he slipped up in this matter after making consultations he takes responsibility for that, and I certainly share that responsibility. As Leader of the House, my job is to help the interests 1945 of all Members—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and to the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, who has put down a Private Notice Question to-day—and it is extremely difficult to reconcile all the interests of the Front Benches and the Back Benches. But I assure the noble Lord that my job is to try to do that, and if we slip up we shall try to discuss the matter in a friendly, responsible way. It seems to me that we have taken this Question as far as we can to-day. The noble Lord may wish to return to it on other occasions, but I think we should move on now.
§ THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEMy Lords, before we move on, is it now possible to ask about points of fact arising out of the Question? Because so far we have delivered ourselves only to speeches on procedure.
§ LORD WINDLESHAMMy Lords, that is a perfectly fair point. We have now spent 45 minutes on four Starred Questions, but if there are a number of questions on points of fact I know that by noble friend Lord Ferrers is prepared to answer them. But if noble Lords wish to proceed with the rest of the Business, I think it would be a good idea to do so.
§ THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEMy Lords, can my noble friend who answered the Question originally say what, to date, is Britain's total net contribution to the E.E.C. Budget this year?
§ THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEIs my noble friend aware that there is a question here of whether or not the Government's forecast in paragraph 93 of the White Paper (Cmnd. 4715), issued before we passed the European Communities Bill, has been exceeded? Some of us are very anxious about that.
EARL FERRERSMy Lords, I know that my noble friend will accept that the costs of the Common Agricultural Policy are not precisely predictable, as indeed were not the costs of the agricultural policy which we used to support in this country. That is the reason why a supplementary Budget has been requested, and the Council of Ministers have decided that this is the right course to adopt. With regard to the other part 1946 of my noble friend's question, there will be an opportunity of debating this matter when the public expenditure White Paper is considered.
§ LORD WIGGMy Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord the Leader of the House will accept my personal thanks to him for the courtesy he has shown me to-day. I should much prefer to play the game in that way, and I always try to play it according to the rules. But I am not having one set of rules for me and another set of rules for everyone else.
§ LORD DAVIES OF LEEKMy Lords, will the noble Earl include in Hansard the percentages of this Community Budget which we shall be expected to pay by the 1980's, because my information is that it is an opened-ended arrangement? Finally, will the noble Earl agree that now we are trapped, as some of us predicted, and have we not thrown away the great asset of the largest food producing and buying country in the world for this shadow, rather than substance, of joining the Community?
EARL FERRERSMy Lords, with regard to the first part of the question of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, if he is prepared to put down a Question, either for oral Answer or for written Answer, I will certainly provide the information. With regard to the second part of his question, I cannot agree that the Government have been trapped by a shadow, as he described it. We have our obligations to the Community, and the noble Lord will be glad to know that in discussing the agricultural policy with the Community earlier this year, my right honourable friend was able to get agreement that the whole of the Common Agricultural Policy should be reviewed.