Sitting of 27 June 1986

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Orders of the Day

  European Communities (Amendment) Bill
  Considered in Committee [Progress, 26 June]
  [MR. ERNEST ARMSTRONG in the Chair]
  9.36 am
  Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I should like your advice. As you probably remember, in the early hours of this morning, the Government sought to report progress. When a Government Whip or Minister seeks to report progress, is it in order for that issue to be debated, or is it in order only if the motion is moved by a Back Bencher? This morning, when the Minister or Whip sought to report progress, 1 rose immediately to my feet because I was well aware that the House wanted to debate this important issue. I know that the Government are concerned to get the business, but I know that many hon. Members wished to continue the debate. When I rose to my feet, the motion had been moved but no debate took place. Is it possible for a debate to ensue only when a Back Bencher asks to report progress?
  The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): The motion to report progress is debatable.
  Sir Edward du Cann: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I wonder whether it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we were to ask for a statement about the Government's intentions in relation to the allocation of time for the remainder of this measure. A number of us find ourselves in some difficulty. We had, I thought, a clear understanding with the Government that time would be given yesterday for the Committee stage, and again today. Now we see that there is an arrangement between the usual channels for the Third Reading to be taken late on Tuesday.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: There has been no arrangement.
  Sir Edward du Cann: It is on the Whip that the Third Reading will be taken on Tuesday.
  Yesterday, of the nine groups of amendments for discussion, only one was completed, and one is still being debated. It is felt by many of us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) has just
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  remarked, that this measure is of the greatest constitutional importance, and it is obviously necessary that a full allocation of time be given to discuss it. However, arbitrarily it seems to me, and certainly without any discussion with my hon. Friends on the Back Benches, the Government curtailed the discussion this morning. That put us in some difficulty, because there is then an obligation upon us, if we are to complete our business today, to do it in very much less time than we had anticipated would be available to us.
  There has been no time wasting or filibustering on these Benches. There has, instead, been a strong expression of opinion about what is an extremely significant measure. In these circumstances, and because the Government have curtailed discussion, there is an obligation on them to provide adequate time for our continuing discussions, and I hope that we shall have an announcement this morning to that effect.
  The First Deputy Chairman: The Government Front Bench will have heard what the right hon. Gentleman has said. It is not a matter for me.
  Mr. Spearing: I shall not pursue that point, Mr. Armstrong, but it might be convenient if the Government would let us know whether they wish to pursue the business motion of which notice has been given before the usual time of moving it.
  I wish to raise two separate points of order, and I hope that it will be possible for the Minister to comment on them. The first arises from the ruling of the Chairman of Ways and Means yesterday as reported in Hansard at column 487. I raised the issue of the memorandum from the Minister of State, Treasury relating to the proposal for the European budget to rise to the 1.4 per cent. VAT ceiling. Quite properly, and with the help of the House, the Minister referred to that in her reply. In doing so, she gave us a great deal of additional information relating to the Government's attitude to that proposal and what would, happen on 16 and 17 July when the proposal reached the Council of Ministers. The Minister looks a little puzzled. I merely want to ask her whether she will convey to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the fact that for purposes of scrutiny the House and the public will need a supplementary memorandum to the inadequate one already tabled to enable the House and the Scrutiny Committee to do their job in that respect. Will she give an assurance—
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is raising a point of order with me, but I have not heard anything yet which is in my jurisdiction.
  Mr. Spearing: I have not concluded my point of order. It arises from yesterday's ruling by the Chairman of Ways and Means relating to this important matter.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Further to the point of order of the right hon. Member for Taunton (Sir E. du Cann), Mr. Armstrong. May I suggest how the House could be assisted by the Leader of the House, who is present, obviously for the purpose of seeing that the business is embarked on properly. I have no complaint against the Government reporting progress last night; that was obviously the right course for them to take. Those in charge of Government business at that time took into account the fact that there had been much more extensive debate on these questions than the Government may have

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  thought likely. That being the case, the only way to solve some of these problems is for the Government to take that into acount.
  Would it be possible for us to have a statement from the Leader of the House about his intentions regarding the motion on the Order Paper which is to be moved at 2.30 pm? If we wait until then to discover what the Government's intentions are, it will be extremely inconvenient for many hon. Members, especially as this arises from a matter which occurred only late last night.
  In the interests of the Chair and the House generally, would it not be desirable for the Leader of the House to make a statement about the motion which might influence our discussions later today? I do not know whether the motion is tabled as a type of sanction—I know that that is not the type of filthy language which the Leader of the House would like to be used at this time—but there is an element of sanction in it because if the proceedings do not go as fast as the Government wish they may move that motion. However, if the Government have the same experience in today's debate as they had last night, they will come to the conclusion, properly, at 2.30 pm to report progress and ask leave to sit again. They made that decision wisely last night and it will be perfectly open to them to do so today at 2.30 pm. I ask the Leader of the House to assist the Committee by saying that he will adopt at 2.30 pm the same wisdom as someone did on his advice late last night.
  The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I find almost irresistible the attractions of any proposal by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). He knows perfectly well that I am anxious to get started and have a good, robust, constructive debate. The progress that we make must in a sense determine the attitude at 2.30 pm.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: Further to that point of order. Mr. Armstrong. Would it be possible for you to appeal to the Leader of the House—
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The Leader of the House has heard the exchanges. If the point of order is on the same point, given the judgment of the Leader of the House, we should move on.
  Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. As I said to you on a previous point of order, I rose to speak last night when the Whips proposed that we should report progress. I wished to debate the issue because it was most important —
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I was not present last night, and if the hon. Gentleman failed to catch the Chairman's eye it is, not a matter to be discussed this morning. I call Mr. Dennis Skinner.
  Mr. Marlow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Many hon. Members want the issues to be debated properly —
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I called Mr. Dennis Skinner. I shall come back to the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow).
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Since you were not present last night, may I explain that the Government obviously were in great
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  difficulty in keeping at least 100 hon. Members in the House to move a closure successfully? The Whips were running round the building and on to the Terraces trying to get Tories out of bars, and it became apparent around midnight — [Interruption.] It is perfectly true. The Government suddenly realised that they could not close the debate in which my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) was speaking at the time, especially as they knew that several other formidable Back Benchers were prepared to take part in a debate of momentous consequence for the British Isles and its people.
  For that reason, the Government decided, arbitrarily and without any consultation with Back Benchers or through the usual channels, to get rid of nine hours debating time between the hours of midnight and 9.30 am. They forfeited of their own accord nine hours of debating time. Now they have the cheek to tell my right hon. and hon. Friends today that they must rush through this extremely important matter, which gives tremendous power to the European Community and removes power from the British people, by 2,30 pm. Since you, Mr. Armstrong, and your mates must sit in the Chair throughout these proceedings, you have a duty to ensure that power is not handed over from the Government to the Common Market. Indeed, the power of the Speaker is also marginally affected by handing over power to the Common Market. You, Mr. Armstrong, together with Mr. Speaker and the rest, have a vested interest in ensuring that the matter is properly debated, that more time is allocated, and that we do not debate Third Reading on Tuesday but continue the debate at 2.30 pm today.
  The First Deputy Chairman: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern for the occupants of the Chair, but I remind the Committee that the motion to report progress was carried last night. I must act on that.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. In view of our obligations to the staff of the House, as well as to ourselves, would you consider it fair for you as Chairman to ask the Leader of the House to give some indicaton to us of what progress he thinks would be reasonable —
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The Leader of the House has been present throughout these proceedings and he has made a statement to the Committee. We are talking in debating time, and I think we should move on.
  Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Have you any status in the decision to move the business motion at 2.30 pm? Can you decide whether it should be moved or must it be put before the House if the Government wish to move it? As hon. Members have said, many of us wish to debate the issue properly at a time when hon. Members are present to debate it and when we do not have commitments elsewhere. As you are aware, this is a major constitutional issue and it would be completely inappropriate—
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not raising a matter for decision by me. I can either accept or refuse a motion to report progress, but we shall decide that when we arrive at the appropriate time. We must not look too far ahead. We should get on with the debate.
  Mr. Spearing: This is my second point of order, Mr. Armstrong. May I preface it by assuring you that I did not wish to trespass upon the rules of order. Therefore, for your assistance, may I make a preliminary inquiry?
  When we are in Committee upstairs—where we have a more orderly and timely debate — it is possible for hon. Members to raise with the Chair undertakings which Ministers have given and then pursue them at the next sitting of the Committee. Yesterday, as reported at column 532 of the Official Report, the Minister graciously gave me an undertaking. Since you thought, Mr. Armstrong, that my inquiry relating to a ruling of the Chair—which I should have thought would be taken upstairs in Committee as a proper point of order — was not a proper point of order, is it now in order for ale to raise a point of order on the first two lines of column 532, which relate to an undertaking, or half an undertaking, which the Minister gave yesterday and which is now germane to our future business?
  The First Deputy Chairman: That is not a matter of order. The Minister said that she would write to the hon. Gentleman if there was some disagreement on the matter.
  Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I hope that the Minister will provide that information before the clause stand part debate. That is a point of order. I hope that the Minister will agree to do that.

  European Communities (Amendment) Bill

    Clause 1
    Mr. Foot: I rise to continue the debate that was curtailed last night. Before the Leader of the House departs, I should like to emphasise that I am not complaining about the Government's actions last night. That was a perfectly proper way to proceed, assuming that they did not thereby seek to deprive us of time that would otherwise have been available for debate. Knowing the Leader of the House as well as I do, I do not imagine for a moment that he wanted to curtail the time for debate. He has just said that he wishes to see the fullest and most proper debate on this matter.
    I remember some of the full debates in which the right hon. Gentleman has been involved, and I do not suppose for a moment that he intends to invoke the strange procedure involved in moving the motion tabled for 2.30 pm. I am not saying that this has not been done before, and I have no doubt that there are precedents for most things in the House. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will have some of his most skilful minions examining the precedents. However, it is not convenient for the general conduct of the business of the House that we should have to wait until 2.30 pm to know the Government's intentions on how we are to proceed.
    To wait that length of time will cause inconvenience to Ministers and others. We know that this afternoon the Government will have the greatest difficulty in producing 100 Members without Ministers being in the House. How
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    many ministerial appointments will have to be cancelled today if the Leader of the House insists on keeping the matter open until 2.30 pm?
    The Leader of the House does not have to state the Government's intentions now. He can do that at 11 o'clock, or he could inform the Minister who is in charge of the Bill about the Government's general intentions. I hope that the Minister will have a say in the matter. I am sure that the hon. Lady could give the Government excellent advice on this as on other matters. I only wish the Government would take her advice more frequently.
    I hope that the Leader of the House will not try to move the motion at 2.30 pm, as that would be an infringement of courtesy. Over the weekend I hope that he will consider the proposal that we made at the beginning of the debate before there was any lengthy discussion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) made the point yesterday, when the business statement was announced, that it was improper to have the Third Reading of the Bill taken late at night next week. We protested about that. If that was wrong at 3.30 yesterday afternoon, it is even more wrong now. Much larger debates have arisen over this subject than people had foretold. This has happened frequently in the history of this House. The House can adapt itself to that and I hope that the Leader of the House will consider these matters, rather than move the motion on the Order Paper at 2.30 pm, because if he were to do so it would be an improper use of such a power and could make our previous debates unsatisfactory.
    I hope that by 11 o'clock this morning the Leader of the House will give us an opportunity to hear the Government's intentions.
    Mr. Marlow: Hon. Members may have a certain amount of sympathy with the Government wanting to extend the business beyond 2.30 pm today if they had not curtailed the business last night. However, having curtailed the business last night—
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman's point is not relevant to the debate.
    Mr. Foot: I understand the point expressed by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). However, I do not regard the Government's actions as ungenerous. Usually when the Government move to report progress at such an hour they are recognising that there has been so much debate that there must be another time for it to proceed. When such a motion is generally accepted by the House, it is understood that the Government will not come forward the following day and cut the time. If that was not understood, the hon. Member for Northampton, North would rightly have a grievance about losing the time for the debate.
    Some of us thought that we could have debated the matter fully yesterday. However, we did not think that that would best serve the House. We assumed that the Government, having moved to report progress, would return and allow adequate time to discuss the matter. I have said enough now to emphasise how important I believe it is for the future decent conduct of this business for the Government to tell us that they will not try to abbreviate the debate at 2.30 pm and thereby deprive us of a proper opportunity to debate the matter.
    It is only right that I should state immediately how much of a debt the Opposition and the House owe to the

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    Minister of State for dealing with these matters. As we have read, she has had a strenuous week in other respects. The Government could not deal with this crisis or the South African crisis without calling on her services. She has performed her duties with great skill and courtesy throughout and I hope that her influence will be used to ensure that there is no abbreviation of the debate of which she has been the master—or should I say the mistress?
    That compliment is genuine. All of us have appreciated the way in which the hon. Lady has dealt with the matter. After all, she was the only Government Minister to deal with the issue. It was extremely ungallant of the Government to leave her alone. Perhaps she insisted on being left alone, and I can understand that, knowing her companions at the Foreign Office as I do. Perhaps the hon. Lady said that if she was capable of dealing with Mr. Tambo, she was capable of dealing with the House of Commons. None the less, it was very ungallant of the Government to leave the hon. Lady to deal with this matter without any support or possibility of relief. I hope that she will not be left in the same situation today, even though the Opposition much prefer her to deal with these issues, rather than any other Minister of whom we can think.
    Towards the end of our proceedings yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) made a remarkable speech. He established in greater detail than had been presented to the House before the estimate on trade grounds — and the estimate in relation to the "internal economy", in the words of the hon. Member for Northampton, North who moved the amendment, of the consequences of our entry into the Common Market in 1975. My hon. Friend described the consequences for our economy in manufacturing industry and employment. He especially referred to the effect upon different industries. All of us can remember how we were assured that entry into the Common Market was required to ensure that we sustained trade and employment. But the Government went even further than that and, along with others who campaigned for British entry into the Common Market, claimed not only that by entering the larger market would we protect our trade but that such a step was necessary to protect our employment.
    10 am
    The last 10 minutes of the speech made by my hon. Friend last night were devoted to emphasising how the Bill, if it were passed in these terms, could affect the future actions of a new Labour Government. He described what action would be available to a new Labour Government and how those actions might be impaired, or at any rate governed in some respect, by the measures that we take now. Everything that my hon. Friend said on that matter is of great importance. I am not asking my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) to answer all the detailed matters, but I do ask that the leaders of the Labour party should consider carefully the list of items that he mentioned, some aspect of which others have taken up, and consider how we will deal with them.
    It makes a difference whether the Bill is passed. That is one reason why we are opposing it. We think that that is a proper way to deal with it. It does not mean that the matter could never return in future, but if by some
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    misadventure the Bill is passed, it is all the more beholden upon my right hon. Friends, not necessarily now, but in future weeks and months, to consider the complications and extra burdens that a new Labour Government would have to undertake and what releases we would have from the shackles which we shall fix upon ourselves if we pass the measure today. My hon. Friend's speech was of great importance in that regard, quite apart from his survey of what has happened over the past 11 years since we entered the Market.
    Mr. Spearing: Is not the position even more serious than that? Is not the whole thrust of the debate on the internal market that the Government have stated unequivocally that they wish to see what they call "progress" and are throwing away a treaty veto in order to achieve it? Is it not the case that any legislation with which they agree and vote to accept will make citizens of the United Kingdom and the House subject to it, and that any future Government, who may not think that that is "progress" and who may wish to change it, will not be able to do so because of the treaty obligation? Does that not interfere with the freedom of the British people?
    Mr. Foot: It does. It is one of the intrinsic difficulties of membership of the EC that some of us who have opposed entry into it have always seen. It takes away from the House of Commons and the British people some of the rights which they have assumed to be theirs from the whole of their history and transfers the decisions elsewhere.
    One of the complaints that we made earlier was that in future that transfer is to be made on a larger basis than it has been even over the past 10 or 11 years. One of the major aspects that govern the Bill, as well as partly governing the clause, is the abrogation of or injury to Britain's power to exercise a veto against actions which we think are injurious to us in some form or another. That touches on what my hon. Friend said.
    I advise all hon. Members to study my hon. Friend's speech carefully. He listed the series of injuries done to Britain's trade and economy over the past 11 years. He is not claiming that all those injuries and inflictions that we have had to suffer were due to entry into the Common Market — of course not —but we were told that entry into the Common Market would be a safeguard against many of them. Instead of that, it has intensified them.
    As the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) so often emphasises, it is strange that we should be proposing to enlarge those powers at the very moment when the institution shows every sign of being bankrupt. That would be a strange way to proceed. Even so, what is the answer to my hon. Friend's case? How is it that none of the undertakings, advantages and expectations for trade, industry and employment has been fulfilled?
    In particular, I emphasise the undertaking which I remember most vividly in the referendum campaign. Posters appeared in my constituency, as they did in most others, advertising "Jobs for the boys in Europe". I think that it was the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) who said that only one boy got a job, and he was here yesterday — the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins). When the Government moved to report progress yesterday, they abolished his Adjournment debate. Perhaps that was the motive behind their abrupt action, or perhaps it was only a by—product. But "Jobs for the boys in Europe" was intended to have a quite different

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    meaning. In my constituency those are not matters of flippancy, because jobs for the boys—the girls, too, I am glad to say—is the most urgent question of all.
    That poster was a sign that if we went into the Common Market jobs would be provided for the boys and girls on a scale that would not otherwise be possible. That was perhaps the first full display of' the use of the kind of publicity methods that we have had in modern times. A few years later the Conservative party machine adopted similar methods in the 1979 election. Anyone who looks back at the publicity methods that were adopted during the referendum campaign will see—I am giving only one example — how the whole weight of modern publicity was brought to bear upon the British public to persuade them that if they went in they would have a range of protections, and that if they did not go in the disadvantages would be enormous. That case was presented with every power of publicity at the command of the great rich resources which those who campaigned for entry had at their disposal.
    Mr. Hugh Dykes: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has just described the Community as bankrupt. Is that not perhaps the wrong word to use in the context of a budget that does not have a debt ratio, unlike those of the member states? For example, is he aware that the aggregate deficits of the member states exceed £100 billion, because they can raise debt? The Community budget does not have that power, so it is the only virtuous budget in Europe in that sense, because it has no debt ratio. That aggregate deficit of all the member states is probably about five times the size of the Community budget.
    Mr. Foot: If the hon. Gentleman's susceptibilities are injured by the word "bankrupt", I am happy to change it. Even the hon. Gentleman will agree that the economic and financial condition of the Common Market is pretty parlous. It is certainly not what would have been expected by those who thought that the Common Market was operating in the highly successful way that we were told at the time of the referendum. Many hopes have been disappointed.
    In particular, the proposition that something successful would be done to deal with the appallingly wasteful, useless and ungenerous common agricultural policy has not been realised. So far from that happening, the CAP has got into deeper and deeper straits and we have present examples of how that has happened. The hon. Gentleman passionately believes in the Market and has put his case powerfully over this period, but even he would agree that the Common Market presents great new problems. This is a strange moment for us to be deciding to go in deeper still.
    To return to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, why has that happened? One of the protections which some devised—it was not solely of British devising—to try to deal with the changes, which were an essential part of the campaign during the referendum, was that on every occasion emphasis was placed both on the power of veto, which was there under our provisions for entry, and on how the House of Commons could recover anything that we had forfeited if we so wished. Those matters were emphasised in every possible way precisely because the Government and those who backed entry believed that it was highly necessary to
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    assure the British public that those rights would be retained. Other people had some understanding of this as well.
    Sometimes I think that the Government ought to take some lessons from the French. The French discovered, perhaps a little earlier than we did, that the old treaty of Rome form of the Common Market held real dangers for national sovereignty and for the choice that they wanted to keep in their own hands. For that reason, following the pressure, or imagination—whatever we like to call it—of President de Gaulle the Luxembourg compromise was invented. It was invented by President de Gaulle for much the same reason as Voltaire said he had to reinvent God. The French are good at such contrivances, and at times they are necessary.
    The French have lessons to teach us in these matters. All their philosophers are politicians, and most of their politicians are philosophers. They would never let the national interest of France lapse into the hands of mere lawyers, as we often do. Therefore, when there was a crisis in the Common Market which seemed to impair the right of the French Government to exercise their hold on affairs in the way that they thought was necessary, the Luxembourg compromise was invented. It had to be invented to protect what people thought was there before, but about which there had been great dispute.
    Nobody knows better than the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) that there has always been a dispute about what is intended in the Market. Is it intended that it should proceed to economic and European union, to a federal state of some form? The hon. Gentleman supports that proposition, but when we went into the Common Market denials were made from every quarter that that was the intention.
    The background to the Bill is that in some of the other countries many of the people who pressed for this kind of measure favour an advance to a form of European union and a much greater abrogation of national rights than we have previously accepted. At times the Prime Minister and other Ministers have taken sanctuary in the Luxembourg compromise. If they want to see it changed and to see a departure from all its protections of tradition and custom, they ought to have a proper debate in the country and generally about the advantages of that change. A major change like that should not be pushed through in some kind of disguise in a Bill of this nature, especially when the accumulated evidence of almost every economic prophecy about what would happen and what would be available to us if we went into the Market has been destroyed by practice.
    Some of us used to think, and used to be so instructed at school, that Conservative Governments were pragmatic and liked to move step by step and not to take adventures in unknown courses. My Hon, Friend the Member for Walthamstow told the Committee yesterday of the injury that we have sustained under the system that has been inflicted on the British economy. I am not saying that the Common Market is the sole cause of the injury, but the Market did not provide any protection against it, though the claim made on its behalf was that it would do so. In the light of that experience, the Government have come forward with a Bill which makes it look as though we have not learnt a single lesson from all our experience and should proceed to give even greater powers to a new European Community.

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    We are told that there are some disputes between the Minister of State's Department and the Prime Minister. The hon. Lady shakes her head. The Prime Minister did not want the Bill either. She gave a number of undertakings to the House about her attitude on this matter. If the right hon. Lady had had the question taken out of its content and put to her at any time whether she wanted to depart from the Luxembourg compromise and to undermine the veto that had previously been exercised, I am sure that she would have told us about it on numerous occasions.
    10.15 am
    Mr. Eric Forth: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. If we take it that that is the case, can he speculate on what it is that has persuaded my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to change her mind and to allow herself and her Government to be persuaded to agree to this further step in European integration? It would be helpful to the Committee if we heard from the right hon. Gentleman on that matter.
    Mr. Foot: That is a question that should be addressed to the Minister of State. She is much more in the mind of the Prime Minister than I am. A short time ago I asked whether there was any difference between her and the Prime Minister on this subject, and she vehemently shook her head. I took that to mean that she was in absolute agreement with the Prime Minister on this matter. The hon. Lady will have to explain to the House why the Government have departed from the clear indications that the Prime Minister gave on this subject.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: Whatever may be the Prime Minister's enthusiasm for this Single European Act as it stands, one thing is absolutely clear. It is that her passion throughout the affair is to achieve the completion of the internal market. The article which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to delete is the one above all which helps Britain to attain that objective.
    Mr. Foot: I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer). If I did not say so earlier, I should like to make it clear now that one of the reasons why some of us thought it was so unwise to go into the Common Market under the conditions that we were offered was that it combined, uniquely, two disadvantages for this country — a highly protectionist agricultural system and a free trade industrial system. Anything devised to suit Britain would have gone in the opposite direction, because we have lengthy industrial experience of what is necessary to sustain our industry, even at times of great world depression.
    Usually we have had to resort to some form of protection for industry, but over the years we devised a system of agriculture that suited us admirably and could be carried through at some, although not very heavy, expense to the taxpayer. That expense was certainly not greater than the expense that has to be borne now. I do not think that the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West accurately reflects the attitude of the Prime Minister on these matters. I presume that at some stage even she realised how dangerous it was to go into the Market with those two factors against us. They were bound to be against us and are the main reason for the appalling figures
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    recited to the House yesterday. We went into an institution, an apparatus, an economic arrangement, which was contrary to the interests of this nation. The more that is illustrated, the more necessary it becomes to cling to the veto.
    Mr. Spearing: Is not the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) mistaken about the internal market? Article 100 of the treaty of Rome is an adequate instrument for the completion of the internal market, but it requires unanimity, and that is a guarantee. The Bill destroys unanimity on the creation of the internal market. The hon. Gentleman agrees with me. Can my right hon. Friend, with his knowledge of history and of the House, tell me of any Bill being brought before the Parliament of the United Kingdom which the Government and all their supporters did not want to bring before the House? That undoubted fact, which my right hon. Friend has already adequately illustrated, shows the real political power of the European Community on the lines that we were talking about yesterday. The real power of the Community over the House is that it has required an unwilling Government to bring this wretched Bill before us.
    Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend has made some powerful additions to the argument that I am seeking to make. The Government did not want to introduce the Bill, or at any rate sections of the Government did not want to do so. The Minister of State says that she is in absolute agreement with the Prime Minister. Neither she nor the Prime Minister wanted to bring in the Bill.
    Mr. Marlow: I am a little concerned, because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) is a powerful advocate. I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to be misled or to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West, who is obviously concerned about the internal market. The Prime Minister has always been of the opinion that we must go ahead with the internal market. Despite that, she said that the Bill was unnecessary, so she was going to get what she wanted without the Bill. Despite, therefore, what my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West said, the Bill is irrelevant. The Prime Minister does not think that the Bill is necessary.
    Mr. Foot: I concur with the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps the Minister of State will read out the works of the Prime Minister. We shall then be able to judge whether they apply to this very different situation.
    Until a few months ago the Government said that the Bill was unnecessary and that they did not want to go through all the travail, so they handed over the matter to the Foreign Secretary and said, "As you were able to get the original Bill through without anybody understanding it, why do you not produce this one?". Therefore, the Foreign Secretary drafted the Bill. We can see his fingermarks all over it. He is the most skilled draftsman that we know. He produced a Bill whose explanatory memorandum creates even more confusion. Usually an explanatory memorandum assists poor, benighted creatures like right hon. and hon. Members who cannot understand legal language, but in my opinion this is not the best and most explicit of explanatory memoranda.
    The Foreign Secretary's speech made it clear that the Government want to minimise its impact, and some of us were deceived into thinking that it was a minor Bill, but

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    the more we look at it, the more far-reaching it becomes. The Foreign Secretary introduced a Bill to alter the European Communities Act 1972. That Act took us into the Common Market and led to the application of different forms of law from those that had hitherto applied here. The first amendment to the Act was accompanied by EEC documents and the Government said that they would push it through, as though it were a trivial matter.
    I hope that the Minister of State is now convinced— she has heard the whole debate, which is more than can be said of any other Member or supporter of the Government—and that she will tell the Government that the House of Commons does not want the Bill. The more we examine it, the more we think the Prime Minister's judgment was correct and that she should have stuck to it even more solidly than she did originally. We do not want the Minister of State to be put in the undignified position of defending an indefensible Bill. Therefore, I ask her to go back to the Cabinet, where I hope she will have as much sway on this topic as she so obviously has on many others.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    The First Deputy Chairman: Mr. Ron Leighton.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman moved the amendment. I should have thought that he would wait until the Minister had replied before he spoke again. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the selection of speakers is really a matter for the Chair.
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I moved the amendment very briefly. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will want to reply fully to all the points that have been made. There are various points that I wish to make that I did not make originally, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would prefer to hear them before she replies to the debate.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The selection of speakers is a matter for the Chair.
    Mr. Ron Leighton: This debate on the internal market is the most important debate on the economic side of the argument. The political arguments are more important, but the internal market is the essence of the Bill. Therefore, it is right and proper that it should be thoroughly scrutinised.
    The reason for moving away from unanimity and losing the veto is to obtain the completion of the internal market. Justification for the Bill lies in the push for the internal market, but I ask myself what the internal market has done for us. The most comprehensive answer to that question was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) last night. In a remarkable speech he gave a wealth of detail that demonstrated that the internal market has been disastrous for British trade. Therefore, we have to consider whether the extension of the internal market will do this country even more damage.
    It is not much good listening to the advice of those who originally told us that if we joined the Common Market we would gain great benefits from it. They have been proved wrong. Now they want to compound the damage and push us even further and deeper into the Common Market.
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    On the philosophy of the internal market, we have to consider, as the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) did, the philosophy of free trade. Free trade has many advantages, but it is difficult to find any part of the world where there is perfect free trade.
    Why are we so interested in the internal market instead of the international market? The United Kingdom has always looked at the whole world as its trading area. It has not adopted a parochial attitude and looked only at one part of one continent. Although we have been in the Common Market for all these years, only a minority of our trade is with the EEC. The greater part of our trade is still with the international market. If we believe that free trade is so advantageous and beneficial, why do we not look to free trade on a worldwide basis instead of erecting barriers like the common external tariff between ourselves and, for example, New Zealand?
    Mr. Eric Deakins: The completion of the internal market could entail a further deepening of industry's great psychological disadvantage. When we had a Commonwealth, which was a kind of free market, with tariff preferences throughout it, our industry concentrated almost exclusively on the United Kingdom home market and the Commonwealth and neglected all other world markets.
    We went into the Common Market because it was a much larger market and, unlike the Commonwealth, it was a growing market. We were told that prosperity in the Common Market was increasing, that growth rates were much higher than ours and that there would he great opportunities for British industry. However, Britain's entry did not change the psychology of British industry. It regarded this new market as the be-all-and-end-all of its production and marketing, whereas the Japanese and the Germans have always regarded the world as their oyster.
    On the size of the home market, why is it that Japan, with a home market of just over 100 million people — which is less than half the size of the Community—can still knock spots off all Community industry when it comes to trading on world markets? Is not the lesson for us that it is not the size of the internal market that matters but the efficiency with which one conducts one's economy and industry?
    Mr. Leighton: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Japan is an extremely good example. It is an offshore island, but it does not have the advantage of the oil, gas and coal reserves that we possess. I do not believe that Japan has any natural energy resources, yet it takes a worldwide view. By economic means Japan is achieving what it could not achieve by military means. It conducts its trade worldwide. It does not believe that there should be an internal market. The belief that Britain should look towards a small internal market has handicapped British industry. Our world trade has been handicapped by the higher price of British food now we are in the EEC'.
    To think philosophically about free trade, if that is what we need in the internal market and the EEC is the way to obtain it, the only major policy that the EEC has achieved is its common agricultural policy. Where is the free trade in the CAP? There is no free trade at all. It is the most awful, rigid, protectionist policy of all, and it is highly detrimental to the interests of this country.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) explained that ever since the repeal of the corn

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    law it has been in our national interest to have world trade in food and not to look to an internal market. We are far better off importing our food from the prairie countries than from the internal market of western Europe. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow has said, concentration on the internal market has disrupted our trading arrangements. We have not gained.
    10.30 am
    It is all very well to have opinions, as there were in the referendum, but I am not interested in opinions. I am interested in the facts—empirical evidence. The evidence we have is of the great damage and injury that has been done.
    Norway was in a similar position to the United Kingdom with regard to the referendum. Norway, Sweden and Austria, which are even smaller countries than Britain, have done extremely well. They did not have to agree to the harmonisation of all their domestic arrangements. They did not have to give up their self-government and sovereignty to achieve economic success. They did the opposite, and they are now extremely prosperous and successful.
    We have not gained from the internal market. Do we really want to encourage it? Is it something that we want to push along? As has been explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), article 100 gives us the possibility of extending the internal market, but on a voluntary basis. The things that countries wish to do voluntarily, by co-operation, can be done under article 100. The Bill, through article 100A, makes it compulsory. The Government are under the fond illusion that they will get only the harmonisation that they want and think is helpful to them. But, under the majority of 45 requirement, other nations will have views which are in their national interest.
    Mr. Spearing: My hon. Friend has lighted on a fundamental, philosophical and constitutional question. Article 100 permits genuine international co-operation which requires the assent and consent of every individual party of their own free will. Changing that to article 100A on the internal market means that even France and Germany combined, or Britain and Germany combined, cannot stop being compelled to do something against their will by a majority — perhaps all of the southern European states. Surely that can convert something which could be co-operative into a supranational authority.
    Mr. Leighton: My hon. Friend has an awesome mastery of the details of such matters. I always bow to his superior knowledge on such matters. I am only too happy to confirm what he said. He was right when he said that I had put my finger on a deep, fundamental, philosophical point. That is a habit of mine. I agree with him.
    We are internationalists. I am pro-European, pro-American, pro-South American, pro-Asian and pro-African. Perhaps I should define what an internationalist is. The word "inter" means between. Therefore, the word means between nations. It presupposes the existence of separate, different and distinct nations. It does not mean merging a recognisable entity into what I think Sir Winston Churchill called a sludgy amalgam. It means presupposing the existence of historic nations being democratically self-run, but co-operating together voluntarily. That is what we believe in.
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    We believe in co-operating, not just with a little group of nations in one part of one continent, whose citizens are of one race and colour. I do not know what Mr. Tambo thinks of them. It must look to him like a club for retired and redundant imperialists. Our co-operation must be worldwide. The internationalism of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) is circumscribed and parochial. He is obsessed by this little part of the world. He wants to merge our self-government into a puny organisation which is causing us so much grievance and economic damage. He would cut us off from the rest of the world and the rest of the continent. That is the opposite of internationalism. I think that he owes it to the Committee to justify himself.
    Sir Russell Johnston: The hon. Gentleman is saying, "I love humanity, but do not ask me to get on with my next door neighbour."
    Mr. Leighton: That is not the case. The policy that we advocate will safeguard the Commonwealth. We take our hats off to the Minister for the work that she is doing. Unless we have a sane policy, we may damage links with the countries with which I want us to get on well.
    We want internationalism and co-operation on a voluntary basis. We want self-governing countries to cooperate together. We do not want them merged into supranationalism. We do not want some bureaucratic body, which is unelected, unaswerable and unaccountable, somewhere overseas, handing down regulations and taking away democratic self-government from individual nations. That is a philosophical point.
    I return to the question of the internal market and free trade. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Member for South Down said about Germany and the Prussian Zollverein. That was an exemplar of such an arrangement. This is not the first time that attempts have been made to unify western Europe to create an internal market. After all, we had the Holy Roman empire of Charlemagne. Napoleon had quite a good shot at doing it, but without great success. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of the Third Reich. Whatever else Adolf Hitler did, he had a good shot at unifying Europe. For many years, it was unified.
    Sir Anthony Meyer rose—
    Mr. Leighton: I shall give way in a moment. All previous attempts at unnatural unification have not done well.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is probably the first time in the history of nations that free nations have voluntarily come together to combine their strength without any external compulsion whatever?
    Mr. Leighton: That is not quite right. When the European Parliament elections were held, less than a quarter of the population of this country bothered to vote. I do not think that the shifting of the focus of loyalty of the peoples of Europe has gone to that supranational bureaucracy which the hon. Gentleman holds in such high regard. I do not believe that the people of Germany, France and Britain have transferred their loyalty from their own national Parliaments to a strange body which perambulates between Brussels and Strasbourg. I do not

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    think that they ever will. The hon. Gentleman is part of a dwindling minority who thought that would happen. It has not happened, and it will not happen.
    Mr. Deakins: Is not the dilemma that the Government are facing over the internal market a practical rather than a philosophical one? The Government believe in the Community and in co-operation between nation states in the Community. That is on the record from the Prime Minister and others over the years. There are a few federalists in the Cabinet, and the Foreign Office is full of them.
    The fact is that it is unity not just by means of cooperation between nation states. The Zollverein, which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) yesterday, showed that one can achieve political unity most easily, not by military conquest, not by religious unification, but by economic unification, which then leads, almost automatically, to political unification. Of course, Bismarck had to fight a few wars against Austria and France because they objected to the unification of Germany, but, leaving that aside, unification was completed without the need for military force. However, it was then needed to keep out Austria and to stop France attacking the new German nation.
    It seems to me that the Prime Minister is in a dilemma. If she believes in unification of some sort by means of nation states, to go about it by creating a completely free internal market, a unified economic structure, will lead not to that sort of unity, hut to the sort that the Prime Minister professes she does not want—the unity of one European Government, some sort of federal Government.
    Mr. Leighton: I agree with my hon. Friend. The point is that after the second world war, the federalists in Europe tried to jump straight away to political unity. That foundered on the rearmament of Germany. Then the federalists decided to adopt the ploy of seeking to integrate the economies of western Europe. They thought, "If only we can integrate the economies, political union will follow willy-nilly." Therefore, the object of the economic union was not intrinsically to get the economic effects; it was a secret weapon, perforce to bring along the so-called political union. It was conceived as a three-stage rocket. First, economic union, secondly, monetary union, leading inexorably and inevitably to political union.
    To use the vivid word of the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), that was the phantasmagoric concept of the federalists. Incidentally, they have all died since—de Gasperi, Adenauer and even Spinelli. They have all gone. There are one or two troglodytes still stuck around on these Benches, but there are not many of them left now. That is because in this country we learned from empirical evidence. The British are pragmatic, and life will come through all those theoretical designs eventually. Life will assert itself.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is not the hon. Gentleman barking up the wrong tree in talking about the possible dangerous consequences of a free internal market? That could be a good thing as long as we are not protectionist towards the rest of the world. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the existing rules and directives virtually guarantee free trade within the Common Market, but that it simply is not happening? The real fear that we should have is that another host of harmonisation directives, which will now
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    come forward, will not solve the basic problem. That free trade is simply not happening, despite all the laws, guarantees and directives.
    10.45 am
    Mr. Leighton: Exactly. The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on it. Where is the free trade? That brings us to the philosophical point raised by the right hon. Member for South Down. Free trade has many benefits, but where does it exist in this imperfect world?
    The example of the Zollverein is instructive to us. The idea was to have internal tree trade, in the Prussian federation or whatever—
    Sir Russell Johnston: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Leighton: I should like to develop this point. I have been trying to deal with the Zollverein for the past 10 minutes. I have been generous in giving way, but I shall do so after I have tried to draw some sort of conclusion from the lesson of the Zollverein.
    The idea was that internal—not external—free trade would unify the German-speaking people. I do not want to criticise Bismarck. The hon. Member for Harrow, East, who is just leaving the Chamber, and I are members of the Anglo-German parliamentary association. We travel to Germany quite often. The Germans are looking for national heroes. They have been a bit short on the ground recently, in both East and West Germany. The hon. Gentleman and I went to East Germany and learned much. East Germany is making a national hero of Martin Luther. The East Germans are looking to all sorts of people in their past. The hon. Member for Harrow, East may leave now if he wishes. I just wanted him to hear that point.
    I think that the exemplar that the Germans should go for is Bismarck. I think that he was the most successful German of all. He was the last German to win a war. In fact, he won three wars. He also anticipated Lloyd George in introducing elements of the welfare state. I am sure that the right hon. Member for South Down knows all about this, but I should like to jog his memory.
    That free trade did not prevent Bismarck from nationalising the railways. He built the railways in Germany as a state-owned enterprise. There was no playing around with leaving to the entrepreneurs or market forces. I suppose that one reason why he built the railways was to transport the German army, but another was to help and build up the protected German steel industry in the Ruhr. The steel that was used to construct the railways came from the Ruhr. Bismarck did not import it, although he could have done so more cheaply from the United Kingdom in those days. It was a form of planning. The right hon. Member for South Down probably will not go along with that, but he knows that some of us in the Labour party take that view.
    Most countries pursue their national interest. As has been said before, our national interest is in free trade in food. We do not have that. We have rigid protectionism. I am sorry to have to say this, but I suspect that there should be a limited amount of temporary protectionism to help our manufacturing industry, if we are to keep and develop it.
    Mr. Spearing: Is it not important to emphasise what is not a philosophical point alone, but one of major political

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    importance? With regard to a voluntary co-operative integrated market, there has been unanimity up to now, so it serves the purpose of the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer). But the change in status now envisaged in the Bill, to which we referred earlier, from an agreed integrated market to one of centralised authority puts the philosophy of the Zollverein, enunciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), on a European scale and past a particular critical point. That is a matter not just of philosophical importance for the integrated market, because the political control of that integrated market is now, by treaty, outside the control of the House of Commons and with centralised political authority in Brussels.
    Mr. Leighton: Let me emphasise, if there were any doubt,—I think I speak for my hon. Friends—that I am in favour of the maximum amount of friendly relations with the countries of western Europe and with countries all over the world. We want a voluntary, not a compulsory, basis. We want to keep our domestic self-government.
    When we look at the internal market, the relevant document is No. 7674, which is sometimes known as the Cockfield Green Paper. It starts off with the philosophy behind this approach. It then goes on to the details. I should like to make a brief comment on the philosophy and then look briefly at some of the details.
    The very first paragraph states:
    "Unifying this market (of 320 million) presupposes that member states will agree on the abolition of barriers of all kinds, harmonisation of rules, approximation of legislation and tax structures".
    Why should we agree to the approximation of legislation? Will that not hamper, harass and restrict what the House of Commons can do? Surely we should have freedom to decide what is best for this country. Why should we have approximation of tax structures? That will prevent a British Chancellor bringing in his own Budget. It is an absurd idea. Why should anyone agree to that?
    Paragraph 4 states:
    "The Treaty clearly envisaged from the outset the creation of a single integrated internal market free of restrictions on the movement of goods; the abolition of obstacles to the free movement of persons, services and capital; the institution of a system ensuring that the competition in the common market is not distorted; the approximation of laws … and the approximation of indirect taxation in the interest of the Common Market."
    Why should not this Parliament decide on indirect taxes in this country? Surely that should be the responsibility of the elected representatives of the British people. It should not be decided somewhere else. What is the point of coming here if we do not have power to decide our own direct and indirect taxation?
    Article 100 of the treaty deals with the harmonisation so close to the Government's heart. It provides:
    "The Council shall, acting unanimously"—
    that is the important point—
    "on a proposal from the Commission issue directives for the approximation of such provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States as directly affect the establishment or functioning of the common market."
    So there is already provision to carry out harmonisation if it is thought right and practical and in everyone's
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    interests. Article 100A, however, moves to the qualified majority. That is why we have the Bill, although the Prime Minister did not really want it. It is because the Council decided by a qualified majority. The mere fact that we have the Bill is a good example of how the system would operate.
    I will deal with just one or two of the 300 detailed items that it is proposed should be harmonised. On page 23 the annex refers to harmonisation of income tax. Is that really necessary? Do we have to agree that income taxes throughout western Europe must be harmonised? The taxation of the British people is one of the greatest powers of the British Parliament. If that power were lost, the British people would be taxed in amounts and by methods not agreed by the House of Commons. Taxes would be levied on our people by institutions not elected by us or answerable to us. Is not that perhaps the greatest loss of power for this place? The history of this country and of the House of Commons has centred on the taxation of the British people. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent will recall what happened with the imposition of ship money. This goes back through the whole history of this country. If we lose the power to tax the British people, what power shall we have left?
    Page 24 sets out a proposal on training in general medical practice. There are three stars against that proposal. Perhaps the Minister will get a note from her advisers so that she can explain what that means. I know that foreign doctors emigrating to the United States have to take a further medical examination. Most British doctors pass. I have nothing against Italian doctors, but I am told that only 50 per cent. of them pass and the others have to undergo further training. I hope that the Minister will explain the meaning of the proposal on page 24.
    Page 28 contains a proposal to co-ordinate certain aspects of national laws regulating advertising on radio and television. There is a major debate in this country about how television should be financed, but that is a matter for us to decide. How can it be necessary, or even possible, to co-ordinate this throughout 12 countries, and what possible advantage could there be in trying to do so? Surely that should be thrown out as a petty and laughable proposition.
    Time is pressing and we do not want long speeches, so I shall give no more detailed examples. I have shown how petty many of them are. When they are not petty, they are extremely dangerous, because they take away historic rights. It is our job to look after our people—no one else will do it—and it is for the Parliaments of other countries to look after their people. It is appalling that we should even consider giving up the tools and the powers that we have.
    Finally, I wish to consider just one form of' harmonisation. When the right hon. and learned Member for Dover (Mr. Rees) gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on harmonisation of taxes on alcohol, he said:
    "I was engaged during several periods during the time I served in the Treasury on the relationship of the duties on wine and beer; there were infraction proceedings brought against the United Kingdom, and it was felt necessary to respond to pressure from the Commission. The charge was that we were over-severe in our duties on wine, not being to any considerable degree wine producers, and a bit too easy on the duties on beer, which was to discriminate against producers in other parts of the European Community. Now we met the case by holding steady, or raising by an infinitesimal amount, the duties on wine, and raising duties

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    on beer fairly considerably, and the political case which was made against us on a variety of occasions was that we were taxing the working man's drink".
    If we do not produce wine and wish to place a certain excise duty on it—I have no strong views whether the duty should be high or low—why should our Parliament not decide that? Why should we be told by institutions outside this country what the excise duty on our people"s beverages should be?
    It is extremely interesting to note the advice of the right hon. and learned Member for Dover to the Commission and to those in power on how to bring about the harmonisation of indirect taxes. As putting value added tax on fish and chips had great political difficulties, he suggested a different way to implement these political decisions. He said:
    "I think that the European Court may be the most likely engine of advance, in that if you can relate fiscal development to certain generally applicable principles"—
    principles which exist in the treaty, which says that there should be approximation of excise duties and indirect taxes —
    "and if the Court demonstrates that it is prepared to hand down decisions against individual countries, individual governments, you may get a little movement in that way. I instance, since it was a decision against us, the wine-beer infraction proceedings."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman is therefore saying, "I want to change indirect taxes. I find it politically sensitive, delicate and difficult, so I should like the European Court to help me by ordering me to make a change so that, when I appear before the House of Commons, I do not have to justify, convince and persuade — I can merely say that those political judges have handed down a decision which I am instructed to follow and there is nothing that I can do about it." In evidence, the right hon. and learned Gentleman added:
    "There are perceptible pressures from that source, and if I were a member of the Commission I would be seeing how far one could advance matters by that route."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman has just left the Treasury, where lie found it difficult to tax British fish and chips, which is not very popular, especially with my constituents. He regards the European Court as the engine of progress. We do not want that. Indeed, it is intolerable. It is anti-British and runs entirely contrary to our philosophical approach and traditions. It is a disgrace. We should throw the whole thing out.
    11 am
    Mr. Biffen: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. It may assist the House if I respond to the points that have been made with regard to the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
    If the House has concluded consideration of the Committee stage of the Bill by 2.30 pm, no problem arises. A situation may also arise when, at 2.30 pm, it would be a reasonable expectation that the Committee stage of the Bill could he concluded reasonably soon after 2.30 pm without undue inconvenience to hon. and right hon. Members and the staff of the House. In those circumstances, it would be the intention to move the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. If that were clearly not the case, however, the Government would wish to state their intentions, and I would therefore propose to do that at 2.30 pm.
    Mr. Peter Shore: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. That is perhaps a
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    slightly less clear expression of the Government's intentions than we normally get from the Leader of the House.
    Mr. Biffen: Oh no.
    Mr. Shore: It nevertheless sends a signal to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who arc taking part in this important debate and gives some idea of the Government's thinking. Most importantly, it gives some indication to the staff who will possibly be greatly inconvenienced by the House sitting beyond 2.30 pm.
    It would be very helpful if vie had some idea from the right hon. Gentleman, even at this stage, of whether he intends to move progress. We are still dealing with the second batch of amendments. I agree that they are difficult and important ones, but there are no fewer than seven other groups of amendments to be considered, and there will be debates on clause stand part. I do not think that it is reasonable to expect it to be possible to envisage the termination of those debates anywhere near 2.30 pm or, indeed, for some considerable time afterwards. If the right hon. Gentleman addresses himself to that, does he not have to face the House with a decision about whether he will move progress at 2.30 pm, or shortly afterwards, or whether he will let the debate run on for a considerable time?
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    The First Deputy Chairman: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to raise a matter further to the point of order?
    Mr. Marlow: This is a business statement, so assume—
    The First Deputy Chairman: No; it is a point of order.
    Mr. Marlow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong.
    Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend is in danger of getting like David Owen.
    Mr. Marlow: I very much resent the implications of my right hon. Friend's remark. This is a matter of major constitutional significance. The Government curtailed debate last evening and there are many groups of amendments yet to come. Many right hon. and hon. Members will wish to participate in some of our later debates and they naturally have commitments later this afternoon and this evening. We all know that that happens. As we have a constitutional Bill of such significance, importance and magnitude, and as the Government decided to curtail debate last night despite the fact that many of us wanted to continue, would it not be a constitutional outrage for the Government to try to continue debate of the Bill over the weekend?
    Mr. Skinner: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Would it not have been more sensible for the Leader of the House to have come to the Dispatch Box to tell the House that, as with last night, he and his friends have great difficulty in whipping up more than 100 Tory Members who are more or less slaves to the Common Market and will troop through the Lobby to close debates?
    The purport of what the Leader of the House said—it needs spelling out—is that the Government will wait until they see whether they can get more than 100 Tory Members to troop faithfully through the Lobby to close a debate. If that happens, and the Government can put

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    enough pressure on those Members to stay here long enough, the Government will battle on. The truth, however, is that there are not all that many Tory Members out of nearly 400 who are prepared to come to work on a Friday to back the Common Market to take us deeper into that mire. That is what the Leader of the House has had to say. He should have been more open and frank with you, Mr. Armstrong, and made the problem clear.
    The right hon. Gentleman ought to say now that we will finish at 2.30 pm and that he will allocate another nine hours to make up for those which were lost last night, because the Government could not hold their troops here, so that we can debate the Bill properly, as befits its importance.
    Mr. William Cash: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I sat through the whole of yesterday's debate, but I have not made a speech—I am waiting until we reach the next batch of amendments. Long speeches diminish the constitutional significance of the debate and prevent other arguments on other amendments from being made in a reasonable time. I wish that hon. Members would take account of the fact that others wish to speak.
    Mr. Foot: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. It is not really convenient to the House to have such matters dealt with on a point of order. The arrangement raises difficulties for the Chair and for the House as the method by which questions can be put to the Leader of the House is quite arbitrary.
    I hope that in future, when the Leader of the House makes statements about business, he will make a statement so that the circumstances in which hon. Members ask questions are clear. We had a similar difficulty a few months ago. If we accept that this process is tolerable, we shall have it more and more. It constitutes a precedent, so future proposals about business will be made on points of order when nobody can be sure whether a question is in or out of order.
    Presumably it is in order to ask the Leader of the House questions on a point of order. The Opposition Front Bench has done that, so, theoretically, Back Benchers can do the same as there could not be a distinction between the Front Bench and the Back Benches. Contrary to what has been said, I think that the right hon. Gentleman was his usual explicit and honest self.
    Mr. Biffen indicated dissent.
    Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He is learning the arts very late in life. Some of us wish him well in that because he is part of our balanced ticket and we want him to thrive in the new personage that he has taken on. He is learning these Machiavellian ways late in life. He must be very careful. I take what he said at face value; I do not mean that in a facetious sense. He was his usual explicit, honest self. Important matters have still to be discussed. It is impossible for us to finish our debates by 2.30 and I took the right hon. Gentleman's explicit, honest statement to mean that he had made up his mind that the Prime Minister's motion will not have to be moved at 2.30 and that therefore he will have to make a statement at about that time explaining when the rest of the Bill will be considered. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will
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    learn the lesson and will make adequate time available for the completion of the Committee stage and, of course, for a proper Third Reading debate. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman sees the wisdom of that course. I am sure that if he did not he would jump to his feet and deny what I have said. I do not think that he will do that.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Further to the point of order. Mr. Armstrong. Will the Leader of the House make a further statement about what he regards as reasonable progress by 2.30? To help us further in our debates, will he explain the Government's intentions if satisfactory progress is not made by 2.30?
    Mr. Alan Williams: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. You will recollect that on several occasions Mr. Speaker has made it clear, not only to Back Benchers but to the Leader of the House, that he disapproves of controversial statements being made under the guise of points of order, thereby limiting the freedom of hon. Members to challenge them.
    What happened this morning was a contempt of Mr. Speaker and of you, Mr. Armstrong. I ask you to consider that aspect. I am surprised that the Leader of the House chose to make his statement in that form. It was a business statement.
    We are in an absurd position. The remarks by the Leader of the House do not bear analysis. He said that, having lost, on the Government's decision, nine hours of debate, we have less than three and a half hours to debate seven different issues.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: He did not say so.
    Mr. Williams: He did. He said that he expected to be able to conclude the Committee stage fairly soon after 2.30. He is saying that he expects us to complete seven debates in three and a half hours. If there were a vote on each issue, that would take one and three quarter hours of the three and a half hours, so for the seven debates we would he left with less than one and three quarter hours and only 15 minutes would be left for each of the seven debates. That is manifestly ludicrous and unattainable. It is grossly unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to leave the staff so uncertain about what is to happen to them later today.
    The Leader of the House knows that the target that he has set can never be attained. He has a responsibility, if not to us because it could be said that it is our duty to be here on a Friday, then to those who support us in the Palace of Westminster. He must let them know exactly what is happening so that they can inform their families and make contingency arrangements.
    11.15 am
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Further to the point of order, because such it is, Mr. Armstrong. By custom, the House has permitted members of the Government to make statements in the guise of points of order. The House is being very unfair to the Leader of the House. At 9.30 this morning it was clear that hon. Members wanted some indication of whether we should be sitting beyond 2.30 this afternoon. That point has been clarified by the right hon. Gentleman's statement.
    The right hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced parliamentarian, knows very well the chances of dealing with seven groups of amendments and three Questions on clause stand part between now and 2.30. He said that in

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    the event of our not being in sight of completing the work the House will not be kept sitting too long after 2.30. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has, as he normally seeks to do, discharged his promise to the House and left us in no reasonable doubt about the arrangements which have to be made.
    Mr. Spearing: Further to the point of order, Mr. Armstrong. Is not the difficulty partly caused by confusing our normal procedures in the House, as the House, with our procedures in Committee? Assuming that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is correct—I share his view about the courtesy displayed by the Leader of the House—we should have some further indication of when the Committee might be sitting again.
    Procedure-wise we are upstairs, although we are sitting downstairs. In Committee upstairs, points of order are raised about sitting again. Indeed, a Minister can convey to the Chair and the Committee on a point of order when the Committee will sit and when meal breaks will be taken. We are in a similar position.
    I appreciate what I think the Leader of the House has told us. Would it be in order for him, as a leading member of the Committee, to say when the Committee might sit again, in the event of the Committee rising some time before tea-time today—I put it no more exactly than that?
    If the Leader of the House wishes to change the advertised Third Reading in his business statement, a further business statement is required. I would expect such a statement to be made to the House next week. Would it be in order for the Leader of the House, before the day is out, to tell us when leave to sit again might be proposed?
    The First Deputy Chairman: I think that we might now proceed with the debate.
    Mr. Marlow: I shall be brief. When I introduced the debate, I asked a few questions. The Minister took note of them and will want to answer them fully. As the debate has proceeded a few more questions have occurred to me. They should be answered before we vote. I think it sensible to make my remarks before my hon. Friend the Minister gets to her feet.
    I draw attention again to the point that was so ably illuminated by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) about article 28, which states:
    "Any autonomous alteration or suspension of duties in the common customs tariff shall be decided by the Council acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission."
    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is on the other side of the English Channel discussing with the Heads of other Community countries the question of trade with South Africa. We are all aware that the Prime Minister takes the view that tough economic sanctions against South Africa would be wrong in principle and counterproductive in practice. We are also aware that many individual Community countries might feel very differently, not only on the moral questions involved, but on the practical questions. We must also consider the question of advantage for one state against another. Certain forms of economic sanctions against South Africa might advantage France, Italy or perhaps Holland, but be of great disadvantage to the United Kingdom.
    The article states:
    "Any autonomous alteration in the common customs tariff shall be decided by the Council acting by a qualified majority".
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    What is the common customs tariff? Is it a tariff around the Community which applies equally to all countries in the rest of the world, or could it he a tariff which the Community applies against a country, a group of countries or a region?
    If that were the case, what could an "autonomous alteration" be? Could the Commission suggest that we should have a special tariff against South Africa, and could that be agreed by a qualified majority? If so, what is happening in The Hague could be rendered irrelevant. What the Prime Minister is trying manfully—perhaps I should say womanfully—to prevent happening could be forced on the United Kingdom. Opposition Members and I probably have different views on what my right hon. Friend is trying to do. I notice that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is not in heir place, but the Government Whip is scribbling away and I am sure that we shall have an answer to this important question. I do not intend to take up the time of the House with irrelevancies. I believe that this is a relevant matter.
    New article 100A, referring back to freedom of movement within the Common Market and the approximation of the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action, says:
    "The Commission, in its proposals envisaged in paragraph I concerning health, safety, environmental protection and consumer protection, will take as a base a high level of protection."
    I read that extract quickly. Let me read the paragraph more slowly and leave bits out. I shall stick to one relevant part. I am not sure whether hon. Members are aware of the significance of the point that I am about to make. The article says:
    "The Commission, in its proposals … concerning health".
    Health? When we joined the Common Market we were told that it was about free trade within the Community. Earlier this week the European Court gave judgments on social payments. No indication was given at the time of the referendum, during debates in the House or in the European Communities Act 1972, that social payments would be decided by a European institution.
    In the House and in the Select Committee on European Legislation we have considered measures from the Community relating to environmental policy. There was nothing in the treaty about environmental policy, but those issues have been put forward by the Community and are being considered by it. Now we find in the Single European Act that environmental policy is a new part of the treaty.
    Mr. Cash: I do not mean to criticise, but perhaps some people were a little disingenuous in the early stages of the consideration of the 1972–73 legislation and did not consider the treaty in its full context or examine it with the care that it warranted. They should not be so surprised to find that these things are happening now. I do not disagree with many of the matters in the treaty, but people should not be as surprised as they have been.
    Mr. Marlow: That is why it is so important that we debate the issues properly now and look at the Act line by line. Each group of amendments on this measure is more significant than four or five major Bills that are going through the House. We did not give adequate consideration to previous legislation, and it is vital that we examine proposed legislation properly. We must scrutinise it carefully and look at every line, every word, and every

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    possible meaning of the words. If it not debated and amended now, it will be out of our grasp for ever. There will be nothing that we can do about it.
    The treaty will allow the Commission to make proposals on health matters. The Community will be able to have a health policy. Does that mean that we will have a mountain of wheelchairs? Does it mean that we will have a saline drip lake? Does it mean that if someone manufactures thalidomide he will get a guaranteed price from the Community for as much thalidomide as he cares to produce? How will the health policy start and develop?
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I am trying to relate the hon. Gentleman's comments to the amendments before us and I am having great difficulty in doing so. The hon. Gentleman must come back to the amendments.
    Mr. Marlow: Article 18, which sets out new article 100A, would be deleted by amendment No. 49. The article includes provision for the Commission to make proposals on health. It is there in black and white. The National Health Service is safe in the hands of the Conservative Government, but will it be safe in the hands of the Commission in Brussels? The power is there in black and white. There is no doubt about it. The Community, the Commission, and the European Assembly — with its enhanced powers—have the power to start providing a Community health service. Think of the bureaucracy, the muddle and the waste of money.
    Will our Health Service be reduced to the low standards of other Community countries? Will harmonisation mean that we have to put up with the bureaucracy and extravagance that exist in other parts of the Community? The provision of health care in other Community countries is lower than in this country, yet those countries spend more on their health care. If we harmonise, will we harmonise their extravagance and waste? Do we want that?
    The Community has a disastrous common agricultural policy. What will happen if it has a common health policy? Where will the money come from? Will the CAP get out of control, or will it become more extravagant? If we have a common health policy and a common agricultural policy, will we not be robbing the hospitals to pay the farmers?
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) said, a number of matters were not discussed when we considered the European Communities Act. The public were not made aware of the powers that we were giving to the Community. They are here in black and white in a treaty signed by the Government. We are giving powers to the European Community over the health of our nation.
    I am also worried about the preamble to the Single European Act. How significant is this preamble? What does it mean? What is its relevance? If disputes arise—an individual may wish to take a case to court because he believes that European law is not being applied in one country—will the preamble have any status or validity?
    Mr. Cash: I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would remember that that question arises on a later batch of amendments. It is becoming tedious to some hon. Members to have to wait to speak on matters that arise on later amendments. If everything is pushed up into earlier
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    amendments, proper consideration will not be given to important issues at the relevant time. That often happens when there is a filibuster.
    The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) is not present, but I wish to put on record the fact that it helps enormously if hon. Members speak to the right amendments at the right time, and do so briefly.
    Mr. Marlow: I am sorry that my hon. Friend has made those comments, at some length. It is not my intention to speak at length. I heard my hon. Friend the Minister of State say that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford was right. All these issues that we are debating are affected by the veto, the preamble and majority voting. It is irrelevant for the Minister to say that we shall be coming to those issues at a later stage. The veto is relevant to what we are discussing, as is the preamble. How can we take a vote on the amendment without knowing the relevance of the preamble and the veto to it? It is no good saying that we shall come to it later. We must know now, because we shall take a vote now, and if we do not have the information to take the vote, it is not a proper vote. These points have also to be addressed at this earlier stage.
    11.30 am
    My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford made a point about the relevance of debating the preamble. We see that there is a hook in it on which the Community can hang its health policy. The preamble says:
    "Determined to improve the economic and social situation by extending common policies and pursuing new objectives".
    The "social situation", "common policies" and "new objectives" show that the preamble will be ammunition for, or a weapon in the hands of, the European Court. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reply to this point. First, we have the fact that the Commission and the Community can have a health policy, and now, from within the preamble, which is a matter of great moment when justice is considered in the Community, we have it reinforced. My hon. Friend should tell us about that.
    Another point of some consequence involves a little mental arithmetic, which even at this time of the morning does us no harm. All these issues on the internal market and external tariffs will be decided by majority voting. The total number of votes within the Community for that vote is 76. We have 10 votes. Greece, Spain and Portugal between have 18 votes and with Italy they have 28 votes. That means that the Mediterranean countries can control, and decide on, any vote.
    Mr. George Foulkes: The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the fact that we now have to block three countries to obtain a qualified majority, but the assumption that the Mediterranean countries will always have the same interests in any matter is not necessarily the case, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree. Will he also accept that, on internal market matters, it may be that Spain and Portugal, the new members, will agree with Britain? I am not saying that that invalidates the case that the hon. Gentleman is making, but does he not agree that it is important not to spoil the case by implying that the Mediterranean countries will always gang up on us? We may have a coincidence of interest. I do not want the hon. Gentleman to spoil his good case by making a blanket attack on the Mediterranean countries.
    Mr. Marlow: I am certainly not making a blanket attack on the Mediterranean countries, but there may be

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    circumstances in which they will gang up on us. It may be that there is a high level of protection against imports of fruit and foodstuffs grown in the Mediterranean countries. I am sure that, like myself, the hon. Gentleman has the interests of the United Kingdom consumer at heart. The north Europeans may wish to lower the tariff so that we can get the benefit of better and cheaper foodstuffs from outside the Community, but there may be a blocking minority. The qualified majority would be able to stop the rest of us from lowering such tariffs.
    There is an even more significant aspect, and that is that we have a population of about 55 million. We have 10 votes. Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal have an aggregate population that is less than that of the United Kingdom. Equally, it is less than the population of the Federal Republic of Germany. Between them, those countries have 28 votes.
    Mr. Skinner: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not into proportional representation.
    Mr. Marlow: No, I am not.
    Those countries have the ability to block Germany and us, and in many ways, separately as well as together, we are much more important economically to the Community than many of the other countries individually, even on a size-for-size basis. Together, let alone individually, West Germany and the United Kingdom do not have the ability to block. Each Irish citizen has five times the voting power of each British citizen. Heaven knows, but each citizen in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has 50 times the voting power of each one of our constituents.
    On Friday it is my habit, provided that there is no business in the House in the afternoon or evening, to take my advice bureau and to go out with a few of my friends to knock on doors, find out how people feel, and perhaps go into a few pubs or clubs in Northampton to speak to the people. I invite my hon. Friend the Minister, one evening before too long, before the Bill becomes an Act, to come with me on one of those sessions and knock on doors and go round the pubs and clubs in Northampton. She can then briefly explain to the people of Northampton how she can justify, as I am sure she can, for she is eloquent, a transfer of power to the European Community that is such that the people of Ireland have five times as much voting power as they have, and how seven small countries with a lower aggregate population than ourselves have three times as much power when it comes to voting.
    How can my hon. Friend justify the surrender of power from this House to institutions in the Community, knowing that the small countries of the Community will have 28 votes between them and that they have a vested interest in European unity rather than in working together within Europe? They want to move towards a federal Europe. I understand that my hon. Friend is not in favour of a federal Europe. We know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is adamantly against a federal Europe, and we are grateful for that. We know that the overwhelming majority of British people are against a federal Europe, but the voting figures that we have make it almost inevitable that, drip by drip, slowly, day by day, we will mover closer towards a federal Europe. That is what the voting figures mean.
    If my hon. Friend the Minister believes that that is not the case, perhaps she will agree to my request and come
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    to visit the robust citizens of Northampton and explain to them how what is there in black and white is not black and white at all but a fable, untrue, and will not have the effect that I have suggested. I am sure that it will take all my hon. Friend's considerable eloquence to put that case. 1 look forward to her accepting that invitation.
    Mr. Skinner: I was going to make a further protest about parliamentary time, but in view of what the Leader of the House has had to say, or not say, I shall wait a little longer. I am tempted, although I might not do it, to move a closure myself to see whether the Government have 100 Members here. My guess is that we would be able to make it abundantly clear that what the Leader of the House has had to say is all "kid and cod 'em".
    Mr. Foulkes: Bluff.
    Mr. Skinner: I agree with my hon. Friend.
    There have been several references to the Prime Minister's role, but I think that a few people have got it wrong. Several times, from both sides of the House, the Prime Minister has been spoken of as somehow being against the Common Market really in her heart. I do not believe that. This is the same woman who marched, with the ex-Tory Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), into the Lobby against the Labour party 36 times. We had longer debates then than we are having on this issue. Several days were set aside almost every week and the whole process went on for months before we passed the European Communities Act.
    I do not accept the idea that the Prime Minister is going to the Common Market battling away for the people of Britain. She does a pretty good propaganda job getting that message across, but it is untrue. She is content to see people such as the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) fronting, as she has been doing last night and today. The right hon. Lady does not mind the hon. Member for Wallasey doing the dirty work while she is giving the impression to the BBC and the ITV that she is battling for Britain in the Common Market. She has the Common Market blood in her veins, just as much as the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), who lined his pockets at the expense of the Common Market, the ex-leader of the SDP, who could not even stay here last night for his Adjournment debate. The Speaker had given—
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying from the amendments and he should not make allegations against any other Member.
    Mr. Skinner: Following what has been said about the Prime Minister and her attachment to the Common Market, and following the speech made by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), I think I am allowed to comment on the Prime Minister's relationship with the Common Market and all the gallivanting round Europe that she does. Every time she steps on that plane she spends taxpayers' money, yet she complains that Derbyshire county council does not have enough money for this, that and the other and accuses it of spending too much on home helps and social services. She loves to get on that plane and gallivant off to Europe, spending taxpayers' money. That is relevant to the debate.
    When the British people hear the words "Common Market" they cringe. It is common all right. It has cost us

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    a small fortune and the Prime Minister is as much up to the neck in it as the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup who dragged Britain in. It is right for me to make a passing comment about another pro-Marketeer who has the Common Market in his blood, the right hon. Member for Hillhead because people like him who were in the Labour party walked into the Lobby with Tory Members to start this tawdry, rotten process.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is a practised parliamentarian and knows that he can allude to all sorts of matters, but he must relate his remarks to the amendments.
    Mr. Skinner: I am.
    The First Deputy Chairman: The hon. Gentleman is not doing that and I am listening carefully—[Interruption.] Order. I am in an extremely tolerant mood, but the hon. Gentleman must deal with the amendments under consideration.
    Mr. Skinner: One of the amendments seeks to delete article 15. Article 15 is in the legislation because people such as the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, the Prime Minister and the ex-leader of the SDP joined together to take Britain into the Community and to sign article 15 with all the other obnoxious articles.
    The right hon. Member for Hillhead should be present today. Where is he? He could not even turn up last night to take part in the Adjournment debate which the Speaker had allocated to him. Earlier in the day the leader of the SDP, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), complained that he could not ask a second supplementary question, yet his mate did not turn up for a debate when he got one. The right hon. Member for Hillhead had been allocated, not merely a question, but half an hour's debate. What hypocrisy.
    Mr. Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Skinner: No, I am not giving way. Well, go on then, if you want.
    Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a referendum took place under the auspices of the Labour Government in 1975 which settled many questions to which the hon. Gentleman has referred? Does he accept that many hon. Members would entirely repudiate his wholly unwarranted attacks on the Prime Minister?
    Mr. Skinner: Tory Members like to bathe in glory by telling their constituents that the Prime Minister is battling in Europe for the British people, when all the time she is agreeing to this new extension of the Common Market and to get Britain deeper and deeper into it. I am not conned by all that silly nonsense, even if the hon. Gentleman is. He is one of the few Tory slaves who has turned up this morning because the Whips told him to do so. Last night the Whips were running round all the pubs and bars in the House trying to get Tory Members to stay.
    Mr. Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman sit down? He made a personal allegation against me, Mr. Armstrong, and I wish to reply to it, if I may.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the hon. Gentleman raising a point of order because, if so, that is what he should say.
    Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman made a personal allegation against me, Mr. Armstrong. Although the hon. Gentleman has only just arrived in the Chamber today, I sat here all of yesterday. I am here entirely of my own volition and certainly not because the Whips have asked me to attend. I entirely repudiate what the hon. Gentleman says, and I ask him to retract it.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The Committee would be helped if we could get on with the important amendments under consideration.
    Mr. Skinner: I was present last night and I saw the hon. Gentleman trying to raise a point of order then. He should attend that class which I have told the Speaker to set up for the right hon. Member for Devonport. It will enable them to raise points of order, to speak when they cannot raise a point of order and to raise a point of order and speak at the same time. They need a few lessons. I thought that the hon. Gentleman had more sense than to want to join a class with the right hon. Member for Devonport. The hon. Gentleman was present all last night and listened to goodness knows how many points of order and interventions, and he has heard a further 20 points of order this morning, yet he still has not got the drift and does not know how to do it.
    The Prime Minister tries to kid the British people that she is not in favour. She is not here to vote today and she was not present yesterday. She is leaving it to the Minister to do all the dirty work. That is why the Government are in trouble today and why they cannot move the closure. All the time that I have been speaking and when my hon. Friends were speaking earlier I expected a Tory Whip to come along with the full authority of his office and stop the debate.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: I wish one would.
    11.45 am
    Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman wishes that the Whip would close the debate? But he is on our side. He probably has the same idea as me and knows that the Government cannot close the debate because they do not have 100 hon. Members present. That would blow the gaff and we would deal with the matter another day.
    When we were debating why the treaty of Rome was being extended, I heard the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) say that it was because of back-door deals. I think I heard him say that it was a kind of quid pro quo for the Hillsborough agreement and the Anglo-Irish treaty. That is the sort of thing that happens in the Common Market. Leaders get together and ask, "What do you want then?", and one says, "I would like to have majority voting because the veto does not fit in with the Common Market." When the right hon. Member for Hillhead was President—at that time he was called Roy Jenkins — he wanted majority voting. All Common Market people want majority voting because they want to arrogate power to themselves. They do not care from whom they take that power. Because it is difficult to sell majority voting in Britain, especially to our Parliament, the leaders say, "Well, I tell you what, Prime Minister, we could perhaps deliver something else. We could help with the Irish". That is how matters are dealt with.
    That is what leaders will be doing now when they are supposed to be talking about sanctions against South Africa. I will bet diamonds that they do not talk about

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    sanctions alone. They will haggle and barter. The millions of black people in South Africa may well be furthest from the minds of the people in The Hague, who will be concocting some sinister deal. Then in another 12 months we shall be debating some issue and an hon. Member will ask where it has come from. It may well have come from The Hague.
    Mr. Deakins: My hon. Friend's point is made in rather different language by the Comptroller and Auditor General in the National Audit Office report entitled, "Achievements and Costs of the Common Agricultural Policy in the United Kingdom." Paragraph 8 states:
    "the practice has evolved of the Council adopting by general consensus an overall package of decisions, which each Member State considers is on balance likely to be more favourable (or less unfavourable) to its interests than any other which might be negotiated."
    Does that not prove my hon. Friend's point?
    Mr. Skinner: I have not read the document to which my hon. Friend has referred. My hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) and for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) have read all these documents and they study the fine print. I simply listen to them when they make formidable speeches and that allows me to get the drift of what is happening. However, I believe that I have expressed the case better than the Comptroller and Auditor General.
    The Government are twisting the issue; they are bluffing and conning. They are telling the public that they have a clever way of putting matters up for discussion without informing them about the subject. The people in the Common Market are expert at doing that. That is why that principle came from the belly of the wets who sit on the alliance Benches. The Social Democrats are the original Common Marketeering types why try to bluff their way through politics and avoid the class conflict in society. We might all wish lo remove class conflict, but we cannot. We have to say yes or no on occasion. We should not fudge and mudge. The Common Market is the apex of fudging and mudging.
    That fudging and mudging is exemplified in the documents which my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow reads. We are supposed to be discussing amendments Nos. 5 and 6 and article 15 and all the other points that have been raised. I have examined today's Order Paper. The Leader of the House continually tells us that there is not sufficient parliamentary time to debate certain matters. There are more than 1,000 early-day motions in the back of the Order Paper, some of which have been signed by more than 150 Members of Parliament. These are important issues. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) has raised an important issue which deserves debate—nuclear power—and he wants to discuss ionisation and other important matters.
    Mr. Cash: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong.
    Mr. Skinner: I see that the hon. Gentleman has got the point and now knows how to raise a point of order.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover is stretching my tolerance. I cannot see that early-day motions are relevant. Which amendment is he referring to?
    Mr. Skinner: You are very patient, Mr. Armstrong. I will tell you why I am making the point about limited
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    parliamentary time. This new treaty will give the opportunity to the clever Dicks in the Common Market Assembly to discuss nuclear power in Britain while Parliament is refused the opportunity to debate it. That is why it is an affront to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North, because he cannot discuss the dangers of nuclear power in the light of the disaster in the Soviet Union. It is an affront to my hon. Friend that he should be told week after week that he cannot discuss nuclear power because of this tinpot debate about the Common Market which will take several days to conclude.
    Mr. Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the unique qualities of this House, which he and I both love dearly, is the system whereby the Opposition have an absolute allocation of time? Does he agree that, if this subject is so dear to his heart and to his hon. Friends, they can use an Opposition day to deal with it? That facility, as he may well know, is not available in the continental political system and is unique to this House. It will remain with us and will be available to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.
    Mr. Skinner: We always come up against that point in the parliamentary Labour party. I would not dodge that point for one moment. However, by giving more power to the Common Market, we give it more chance to debate nuclear power and the ability to make a decision over our heads. We might have difficulty in persuading my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) to use half a Supply day to debate nuclear power, but that does not alter the fact that, under the conditions in the Bill, we will give the European Assembly the power to do the job for us. We should be doing that job in this House.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is not the hon. Gentleman making a poor point? I fully support the amendments, but does he not accept that, if we transfer our power to the European Assembly—as we are doing—the Assembly will have less time to debate matters such as nuclear power and we will have more time?
    Mr. Skinner: I think that the hon. Gentleman has perhaps forgotten what he reminded the House about on many other occasions. The Common Market Assembly does not deal with matters in the way that we deal with them. It has ways and means, even without a debate, lo start a procedure which could result in some harmonisation. Before we knew where we are, we might be subject to some form of nuclear power edict which had arisen not from a major debate in the Common Market but because some clever bureaucrats had put their heads together and imposed it upon us. If the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) wants to travel down that road, he can do so.
    Last Saturday, the Bolsover Labour party asked me what I would be considering in Parliament this week. I said that there were many interesting subjects for debate and that, no doubt, South Africa would be an important issue. I said that towards the end of the week we would be debating the Common Market. They asked me, "Why are you debating that, Dennis?" I told them that some idiots in the Conservative party had decided that the Common Market had been such a complete failure that they wanted to give it even more powers. That is roughly what we are doing.
    The Common Market has failed. Anybody who understands anything about the Common Market realises

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    that it has not worked. We may argue until the cows come home as to whether we went into the Market early enough. But that is not important any more. The important point is, what is happening to the Market now? The Common Market is bankrupt and has been for some considerable time. Here we are today telling the people of Britain that we will give more powers to an organisation which has not got two ha'pennies to rub together. If the Common Market had been a coal mine, the Government would have shut it. The Market is bankrupt, and it is not making any money. While every coal mine has some reserve of coal, the Common Market has nothing.
    I can imagine a conversation taking place between the Prime Minister and the Treasury. It would go something like this: "The Common Market has no money, Prime Minister", and the right hon. Lady would say, "I have told you, if it has no money, shut it." The Chancellor of the Exchequer would say, "It is not a coal mine or a pit. It is the Common Market", and the Prime Minister would reply, "Save it".
    The Common Market is all part of that contradictory economy which the Prime Minister holds dear to her heart. The idea is that, if a pit does not make money, it must close down. If the steel industry does not make money, it should be closed. Similarly, if the railways do not make money, they should be closed and all the people thrown out of work. However, when we come to this Bill on the Common Market, backed up by the Common Market party—the alliance — the Government use a different set of standards and ask how they can bail it out. They decide to use taxpayers' money to give it a fresh lease of life.
    Mr. Deakins: Is not the logic of the completion of the internal market that there will be more closures in the basic industries, because the forces drawing industry and investment to the centre will be enhanced by the freedom of capital movement, freedom of investment, freedom of labour and freedom of services? The peripheral regions in this country will need more Government support — which they will not receive from this Government but which they would hopefully receive from a Government of a different party — to counteract the impact of the internal market.
    I believe that the Prime Minister—and I hope that I do not do her an injustice—does not care about the regions of this country. Only the Labour party cares about the regions. That is why, in these amendments, we are vigorously opposing the completion of the internal market which will make a great difference to the people we represent.
    12 noon
    Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend made similar comments in his speech last night, and he is right. When I go back to my constituency in the north Midlands I will meet the Whitwell miners and their families and it has just been announced that their pit is to be closed. Another 700 or 800 will join the dole queue. When I compare that with what is happening in the Common Market with all the bureaucratic machinery, there is no need to go much further.
    My hon. Friend is right. He remembers, with me, that when we went into the Common Market without the vote of the British people—we only had that afterwards—
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    there was a lot of talk about economies of scale. To be honest, I was not sure at that time what economies of scale were. However, I heard the ex-leader of the Social Democratic party talking about it one day and I thought, "I had better listen to what this lot is all about." Apparently, economies of scale meant that Britain's coal industry would reign supreme. Why? Because we were a coal-mining nation with 300 or 400 years of coal beneath our feet and we would be able to expand our coal industry because we had more than the rest of the Common Market put together. We would be selling tonnes and tonnes of coal to the Common Market and it would be selling us some of its manufactured and other goods in order to balance the books.
    For one half second—only a half second—I thought that it was just conceivable that there might be something in these economies of scale. But what happens? Is the Common Market buying our coal? As my hon. Friend says, not only are they not buying our coal but we have finished up with a manufactured trade deficit—correct me if I am wrong—of about £8,000 million.
    Mr. Deakins: Twelve thousand million pounds.
    Mr. Skinner: There, it has gone up. There is a £12,000 million deficit with the Common Market on manufactured goods. Yet those people have the temerity to come along, now that they have got us into this sludge, into this mess, into this mire, and say "Let us tell the British people that the only way to get out of it is to stop in the betting shop and back and back until all the money has gone." What a crazy thing to do.
    Any sensible politician, or anybody in any walk of life, who runs into a hole would say, "Well, I must cut my losses." That is what the gambler does in the betting shop. He does not go in the next day, the next day and the next day, if he has any sense, because he knows that the bookie will win in the end. He cuts his losses. We are not cutting our losses today.
    Mr. Leighton: If one finds oneself in a hole, is not the sensible thing to do to stop the digging?
    Mr. Skinner: If a person is looking for coal, he keeps digging.
    What I am trying to say is that this is madness; it is lunacy. If only the British people were given a chance to hear what is happening. The trouble is that they are not told. They are given the impression that everything in the garden is lovely. They are not told the truth about it. For instance, every day the headlines should say that there is a £12,000 million manufactured goods trade deficit. It ought to be slapped in front of the British people continually.
    I only hope that the next Labour Government will not go any further down this yellow brick road. It might as well be said. We are all together on these Benches today, just as we were last night, and probably will be until the debate has finished. But now, in the expectation of a Labour Government, we must tell those sloppy people who believe in this road to nowhere in the Common Market that we are going no further. We must overturn any decisions that are carried. We must have none of this business of the Leader of the Labour party standing at the Dispatch Box saying, "I do not like the mess, but I cannot undo it." We must find the ways and means of undoing it in accordance with our conference policy.
    Mr. Marlow: Several of my hon. Friends have been trying to find out what the Labour party's policy is. The hon. Gentleman is well aware of conference policy. Will he tell the House what that policy is and how sure he is that it will become Labour party policy?
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) must not be tempted down that road. It would be completely out of order.
    Mr. Skinner: The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) has asked an important question, Mr. Armstrong. In the course of the few more minutes that I have to speak I might get round to explaining, en passant I have done that twice. It was good the first time, was it not, but there were more people there then.
    People in the Labour party and elsewhere said that they hoped that I would oppose this extension of power. I said that I would. They were concerned about some of the things that they were promised in 1973. They said to me, -Dennis, what has happened to all those wonderful pension plans for our old-age pensioners? Why haven't we got them?" All those people like Shirley Poppins and the rest who took us down the yellow brick road said that one of the attractions of the Common Market was better pensions. They said that our people had the worst pensions in Europe. What happens? The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), who missed his Adjournment debate last night — that was delightful. Even Mr. Armstrong knows it. He is laughing. But where are those pensions?
    Mr. Don Dixon: Does my hon. Friend think that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) will have his pension reduced because he was not interested in the Common Market? He was not prepared to sit here and listen to the debate so that he could have his Adjournment debate afterwards.
    Mr. Skinner: We know what happened. I was just coming on to the fact that all the old people in Britain did not get their increased pension but he got his. We shall have to send in a memorandum, or whatever they do in the Common Market. They have a special way of doing it in 15 different languages. We shall explain that he has not done his job. He could not even stay during the Common Market debate. That really is a crime for a Common Marketeer. One could understand the right hon. Gentleman missing his Adjournment debate, after, say, a debate on the Welsh economy, since he is a Scottish Member of Parliament, but not to be present when we are debating his beloved Common Market really is a crime. He ran away and then missed his opportunity to speak for half-an-hour when the leader of the Social Democratic party had been saying earlier that it was not fair that he could not get a supplementary in.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman is making passing reference, but we really must get to the amendments before the Committee.
    Mr. Skinner: Yes, I am drawing to a close, but the pension is an internal matter.
    Mr Spearing: I hesitate to intervene, Mr. Armstrong, but is it not a fact that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) virtually ran the internal market for some six years?
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) was referring to the absence of
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    the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) on a certain occasion in the House—indeed, he has done it more than once—and that has nothing to do with the internal market.
    Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend has made a fair point. Such people should be here to defend the Common Market instead of leaving that to some of the second-raters, and there are not many of them. They were the champions of Europe—or rather, the Common Market, because it is not all Europe. They were going to save Britain from the continuing problem with the pound. I do not know whether anyone else remembers, but I remember that when we went into the Common Market we were told that there would be no problem ever again with the pound. What happens? Every time the right hon. Gentleman speaks now they want to get us into the European monetary system and some other entrapment within the Common Market.
    What it really means is that the Marketeers have backed the wrong horse. The British people have been conned. We have mass unemployment, which is caused partly by the Common Market and partly by the Government's actions. We have all these people without jobs. We have not got those wonderful pensions for our pensioners.
    We have not abolished standing charges and on an international theme we have not even fed the Third world. I remember the debates when countless people said that the Common Market, together with Britain, would be able to feed the improverished millions in Africa and in central and south America. I am talking about little kids with matchstick legs. It was said that they would be properly fed if Britain went into the Common Market.
    We have had the appalling experience of seeing that this much vaunted Common Market cannot even deliver on an international humanitarian basis. It has failed in every respect. That is why we should say over and over again that we will not give extended power to that bunch in Europe. That is why I will vote for these amendments and fight and fight until we get out of this sorry mess.
    Mr. Tom Normanton: After what I can only describe as one of the most appalling abdications of parliamentary responsibility that I have listened to during my 16 years in Parliament, I shall try, in accordance with your wishes, Mr. Armstrong, to come back to the amendments.
    Before I do so, may I draw to the attention of the Committee the fact that while some right hon. and hon. Members are indulging in utter irrelevancies, on the continent politicians of all persuasions are celebrating the anniversary of the birth of the man who was often described as the architect of the concept of a united Europe — not a confederal or a federal Europe, but a united Europe. I am speaking about Maurice Schuman, and I should like to quote two sentences of his. He said:
    "Europe will not be built in a day, nor as part of some overall design. It will be built through practical achievements that first create a sense of common purpose."
    Mr. Ian Gow: So that the Committee can get the precise flavour of what the late Maurice Schuman said, perhaps you, Mr. Armstrong, will allow my hon. Friend to give it to us in French?
    The First Deputy Chairman: The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not allowed.
    Mr. Normanton: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) for that helpful intervention, but I shall not strain the Official Reporters by quoting it in other than the official language of this Parliament.
    Some right hon. and hon. Members are straining at a gnat in arguing the merits or demerits of the clauses, under the subterfuge of proposing amendments to delete the clauses. Constitutionally the Bill is of minimal significance. The fundamental issue was settled long ago, when Parliament passed by a massive majority, which represented the views on both sides of the House of Commons, the European Communities Act 1972.
    The political issue on which the Committee should concentrate its time and thought is how we can be the more effective in influencing future development in the Community. Europe, and by that I mean the continent of Europe, will develop with or without a blueprint or a design, and with or without Britain's membership. The logic of that leads me to believe that the developments will be much more acceptable to Britain and British politicians on both sides if Britain influences events from within European institutions.
    The contributions to this debate this morning and last night have implied that Britain should never have joined the European Community. Those views are sterile and damaging. We are in, and we will remain in. That is the declaration made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the position from which I, and I believe the Committee, should view the matter before us.
    12.15 pm
    Mr. Bill Walker: At the start of his speech my hon. Friend commented on the abdication of parliamentary responsibility. His suggestion was that it was an abdication of responsibility to make speeches in Committee on matters that worried hon. Members. I thought that the comments earlier in the debate implied that there was an abdication of responsibility in the context of the internal market. Whisky, insurance and banking are important to Scotland. It was said that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), who represents a Scottish constituency, but who appears to know very little about Scotland, did not even trouble to stay here to say anything at all about these important matters.
    Mr. Normanton: I shall not pursue the argument about whether views would have been expressed constructively had the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead, (Mr. Jenkins) been here. That is not the substance of this debate, and I am sure that you, Mr. Armstrong, will be the first to agree with that.
    I want to hear Britain's voice and her views coming through as constructive and positive. I want to see us improving the decision-taking procedures in such areas as —these include a number of matters in the amendment that we are debating — the opening of the Market for goods and services and, out of respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), the products of his glorious country, especially its liquid products. I want to see the decision-taking mechanism in the Community improved to enable the Third world to develop its ability to feed itself. I also want to see the establishment of much greater stability in currency. I want Britain to join the ERM of the EMS, and so does 90 per
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    cent. of British industry. Fortunately, a large number of my hon. Friends and a few Opposition Members also want to see that.
    The Bill is a minnow and falls far short of what is necessary. However, on the basis that half a loaf is better than no bread I shall support its progress in the Lobby and reject every one of the amendments, which could and should have been comprehensively debated in the Chamber had there not been such an appalling abdication of parliamentary responsibility and time wasting through dealing with total and utter irrelevancies. After the passing of the Bill I shall continue to try to influence further developments in and through the European Parliament, where debates are on really important issues and where speeches are much more forward looking than some of the speeches that I have heard from some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen.
    Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman has made some assertions, but may I remind him that the Bill is not about whether we stay in or come out of the Common Market? It is about whether this Parliament provides more power to institutions of the Common Market. The hon. Gentleman thinks that that is too little, but does he agree that clause 3 (4) provides for greater control of the internal market by the European Assembly? That is because, under the requirements of the European Assembly Elections Act 1978, when greater power is given by this Parliament to that Assembly, express permission must be given. Does he agree that to that extent this is a constitutional issue and that the proposal is that power should pass from this House to the Assembly, because the Act says so, and so do the Government?
    Mr. Normanton: I have no doubt whatsoever that the Bill has constitutional implications. That fact is recognised by the usual channels and by the way in which the debate is being conducted on the Floor of the House rather than upstairs. The role of the European Parliament is constantly being ignored. The presence in that institution of representatives who are elected by the same electorate as the electorate who return hon. Members to this House has also been ignored. The perspective that is evident in the hon. Gentleman's argument inhibits the more effective representation of British views and interests in the European Parliament.
    The Bill is a minnow; it does not go far enough. There is all the difference in the world between the objectives for which Maurice Schuman and many continental Socialists strived for so long and what the hon. Gentleman seeks. They strove for a united Europe, or a Europe that is united. There is all the difference in the world between a Europe that is united and a united states of Europe. One is a concept. The other is a legalistic constitutional lawyer's representation of it. As the Bill does not contain many of the points that it should contain, I am content to pursue the ultimate objective of a united Europe, or unity in Europe, by using the channels that are open to each and every hon. Member. My main accusation against Britain in Europe is that we are failing effectively to use the opportunities that were presented to us in the 1972 and in the 1979 Acts, all of which are open to us, with or without the Bill. On the basis that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all, I support the Bill and reject the amendments.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: My hon. Friend is dealing with very broad issues. Does he agree that the free internal market

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    is virtually guaranteed now by previous decisions of the Common Market and the many regulations? The free internal market is not operating because of the actions of national Governments. Does my hon. Friend not accept that to flood this country and others with another host of harmonising directives will not solve the problem? The free internal market is not operating, not because of a shortage of directives, but because member states are not implementing the free internal market?
    Mr. Normanton: Our Commissioner, Lord Cockfield, presented a constructive view of our goal and how we should achieve it. His perspective of the manner in which that objective should be achieved is very different from that which applied in the 25 years before the presentation of this paper. He has set 1992 as the date by which the Common Market, in the commercial sense of that term, should become a reality. However, we are still dragging our feet at national member state level because of the inadequacies and inherent defects of the decision-taking mechanism of the European Community. We should be ill-advised to ignore these points. We are only eight years away from the deadline that was set by Lord Cockfield and the Commission, representing all 12 member states. The Bill is necessary to ensure that the decision-taking process right across the board, but more particularly in the commercial field, can be implemented. I am confident that it will be.
    Mr. Taylor: How?
    Mr. Normanton: I am confident, on the basis of my involvement in one institution of the Community, that it will be possible. Without the Bill, I see no possibility of meeting the 1992 deadline.
    Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I think that the hon. Gentleman referred to his involvement in the European Assembly. I assume that he is a Member of the Assembly. Should he not have declared an interest during his speech?
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. That is a matter for the hon. Member, not for me.
    Mr. Normanton: I abide by your decision, Mr. Armstrong, on that point of order, but the Official Report will show that I was nominated by this House to represent the House when Britain joined the European Community 13 years ago. All right hon. and hon. Members have been well aware of my connection, and I am sure that there is no procedural or constitutional reason for me to waste time declaring that interest, although some hon. Members may wish that to happen.
    Mr. Madden: Further to that point of order, Mr. Armstrong. I apologise for delaying the Committee, but my clear understanding is that there has been a ruling from the Chair on previous occasions that any hon. Member who has an interest, whether or not it is in the Register of Members' Interests, should declare it. If the hon. Member, whether or not he has been nominated, and for however long he has been a Member of the European Assembly, has an interest, he should declare it.
    The First Deputy Chairman: I can only repeat what I said before, that whether an hon. Member declares a particular interest is a matter for him.
    Sir Russell Johnston: Further to that point of order, Mr. Armstrong. No hon. Member of this House who has been elected to another legislature has to declare that interest. That is a matter for the electorate.
    The First Deputy Chairman: Yes. That is why no impropriety has occurred this morning.
    Mr. Gow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Armstrong. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) referred to the European Assembly as a legislature. Is it a legislature?
    Sir Russell Johnston: It will be, if this Bill is passed.
    The First Deputy Chairman: That matter has been debated at length since we first began these proceedings.
    Mr. Gow: The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber is the official spokesman on foreign affairs for the Liberal party, but he may not have been correct when he said that the European Assembly is a legislature.
    The First Deputy Chairman: It is a matter for debate, and it has been debated at length. It is not a matter for the Chair.
    Sir Russell Johnston: I happily accept that it is another Parliament and not a legislature.
    Mr. Gow: The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber, the Liberal party's official spokesman, made a significant error regarding foreign policy. However, it is not uncharacteristic of the Liberal party, even its official spokesman, to make errors. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) explained to the Committee that, in his view, the Bill does not go far enough. He described it as a mouse of a Bill.
    Mr. Normanton: A minnow.
    Mr. Gow: My hon. Friend has moved from animals to fish. It is a matter of deep concern to my hon. Friends and my hon. Friend the Minister that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle, who is a Member of the European Assembly, criticised those who sit on the Treasury Bench. My hon. Friend said that we have not gone far enough. Can my hon. Friend tell the Committee and can he persuade me—that is quite a task—that I should be complaining, not that the Bill goes too far, but that it does not go far enough? How far does my hon. Friend want it to go?
    Mr. Normanton: I am tempted to rise to that bait. I am sure, Mr. Armstrong, that, having caught your eye, you would be most unwilling to see me, as other hon. Members have done so far, proceed on a matter that is completely irrelevant or additional to the direct point of debate, which is an amendment. I think that, during whatever time you are willing to allocate to me, you would wish me to concentrate on the amendment.
    12.30 pm
    I want to see the mechanism of decision taking improved and, above all, to include the opportunity for the directly elected representatives of the British people to make a positive input into that process of decision taking.. I have interpreted and analysed the Single European Act. I have no doubt that the way in which it is applied will reduce the "power" of the European Parliament in an area which this Parliament never had, or seems to be oblivious to the importance of having—the power over spending.

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    We talk of the Budget. The Budget is a vital and fundamental issue to the House of Commons. The House of Commons came into being as the means by which taxation could be imposed on the people.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Walker. For the past 15 minutes my hon. Friend has not once referred to the internal market. That is what we are meant to be debating.
    The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker): I have not heard anything that has been out of order since I have been in the Chair.
    Mr. Normanton: I thought that I had made two, if not three, references to the development of the internal market when I spoke of the plan, the policy and the strategy to be deployed, which was spelt out clearly by Lord Cockfield, who made absolutely clear what the problem was. He made it abundantly clear, as he saw it, how we should achieve that objective. I believe that the Bill is defective in many respects. However, that issue, at least, which is covered by the amendment—I shall vote against it — is covered in the Bill. Without the proposals getting on to our statute book, the measures and the objectives spelt out by Lord Cockfield will be virtually impossible to achieve. They will be difficult enough to achieve even if the Bill is enacted. I believe that that is relevant to the matter that we are debating—the amendment.
    We are straining at a gnat when we think that European political developments will be entirely dependent upon and exclusively influenced by legislative means. They will not. They never will be. They will be influenced by the involvement of politicians, business men and all sectors of society, where there is a strong, clear objective and goal to work towards, who contribute through every channel, whether it is legislative or not. That is why I say that I am critical of the Bill, but more critical of those who strain at the gnat of irrelevant alternatives.
    Mr. Spearing: On the question of the internal market, which is what we are talking about, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House, from his extensive experience of the House, and I gather, by inference, his continuing elected membership of the European Assembly, whether he favours continued control of the internal market by unanimous agreement of Ministers, and therefore by agreement of nation states unanimously and in cooperation? Or does he favour the proposal in the Bill, and in the amendment that we are discussing, whereby a centralised authority of Council or Parliament decides by majority? Does the hon. Gentleman favour that authority in central European political institutions, or by agreement among national Parliaments?
    Mr. Normanton: I do not see the schizophrenia on this subject. I do not see that it is an either-or situation.
    Mr. Spearing: That is the amendment.
    Mr. Normanton: No. As I see it—I think that I have said it three times already and perhaps strained the patience of the Committee in doing so — the Bill will contribute towards the achievement of the objective that we all want. Anyone who wishes to see the economy of Britain better established, healthier, and more competitive must want to see the abolition of all the man-made non-tariff barriers that proliferate. There were two ways in
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    which that was attempted. One was by one item after another, achieving what was called the harmonisation process.
    However, I go back to the proposal that Lord Cockfield spelt out so clearly. It is a much more pragmatic way. I should have thought that that in itself would endear it to the views of a British parliamentary institution. But it is not an end in itself. It is not the only channel that has to be pursued. We have to bear in mind that this is a limited Bill. It makes possible a few steps forward in—
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Order. This is a filibuster.
    Mr. Normanton: —the right direction. Above all, it leaves the main challenge to right hon. and hon. Members of the House, elected as we are by our constituents, and our fellow political parliamentarians elected by the same electorate—
    Mr. Spearing: No.
    Mr. Normanton: —to the European Parliament. It is no different.
    Mr. Spearing: That is not true.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: This is an outrage.
    Mr. Normanton: That is the way in which I would urge —[Interruption.]
    The Chairman: Order. I am trying hard to follow the line of the hon. Gentleman's argument. [Interruption.] It is difficult when I have to do so against a continuous background of sedentary noises. If I have a chance to listen to the hon. Gentleman, I might be able to decide whether he is in order.
    Mr. Normanton: Thank you, Mr. Walker.
    I think that logically and coherently I have come to the end of the main points that I wanted to make by way of contribution to the debate. I enter the caveat that this is a minnow of a Bill—whether we call it a minnow or a mouse does not matter. Anyone listening to the objections to it would—
    The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is addressing himself in general terms to the Bill rather than to the specific amendments before the Committee. I hope that he will now direct his remarks to the amendments.
    Mr. Normanton: In that case, I shall conclude with a final reference to the importance and the means of achieving a common market for all British industrial and other products and services. Throughout all the years that I have been privileged to serve as a nominated and now as an elected Member of the European Parliament it has been absolutely clear that pursuing the techniques that have been in operation since the European Community was formed will be counter-productive and thus an enormous waste of time and expectations. The method now proposed by Lord Cockfield will be the better served by the passing of the Bill and the rejection of the amendment on which we have been attempting, at least, to concentrate our attention.
    Sir Russell Johnston: I shall not delay the House long—
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Hear, hear.
    Sir Russell Johnston: The hon. Gentleman has a cheek to say that. The whole debate began with an hour and a

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    quarter from him and he is inclined to detain the House for a fair length of time. I do not generally do so. Therefore, he is in no position to criticise.
    The House owes a debt to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton). Serving in two Parliaments is a considerable exercise and his efforts to achieve the advancement of his constituents in Westminster and in Strasbourg are extremely praiseworthy. It should also be recognised that the internal market is a subject on which he has concentrated a great deal of time and effort.
    The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who spoke immediately before the hon. Member for Cheadle, spoke extremely forcefully. Certain Members, such as the hon. Member for Bolsover and the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), have fought against the Community every inch of the way—against our joining it, against our remaining in it and now against attempts to make it function better and to make its supranational agencies and market more effective. Whether they are Right-wing, as many of them are, or Left-wing, as many of them are, they are in happy agreement to tolerate periodic bouts of Governments whom they despise rather than surrender the Buggins' turn chance of an absolute guarantee of government at some stage which our first-past-the-post system uniquely offers.
    Late last night, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) made a considerable speech. I wish to refer to two aspects that I do not fully understand. I said that I did not understand why in the final analysis the hon. Gentleman would prefer — he was quite definite about this — to live in a country with a Conservative Prime Minister for as long as it takes, with all the economic and other policies with which he disagrees, rather than allow a large number of issues to be determined by an elected Parliament — or Government, if you like — covering a wider area and led, for the purposes of the argument, by a German Socialist. The hon. Gentleman would have none of that. He said that it was the dreaded federalist approach, as though it were a disease which would contaminate people. He also said that people were not told in the 1975 referendum that this was what it was all about. That is not true. I clearly recall taking part in a debate in Inverness during the referendum campaign with my friend Hans Nord, a Dutch Liberal, and saying that, although I was a Liberal, if I had to choose between a German Socialist called Helmut Schmidt and a British Socialist called Wedgwood Benn, give me Helmut Schmidt every time. Why? Because I am interested not in a person's nationality, but in his political objectives and policies. That is what the debate should be about.
    The hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate)—I do not blame him for not being here—went on about the national interest. There is no abstract definition of the national interest. It is defined by the Government of the day, and the present Government did not obtain the support of the majority of the voting population. Their definition of the national interest is often fiercely disputed by the Opposition parties.
    12.45 pm
    Political direction ought to be pre-eminent. As the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) said, the European Community came into existence for political reasons, but the motor was economic. There was much that the middle-sized powers in Europe could do more effectively in concert when measuring up to the leading
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    economies of the United States and Japan, not to mention the USSR and the Asian powers. We will not be able to compete with advanced technologies in the United States and Japan unless we can generate activity in our market, which is larger than that of the United States and considerably larger than that of Japan, which is 120 million, not 100 million as the hon. Member for Walthamstow said.
    Managing such an approach, which enables democratic choice to be afforded to the people concerned, necessitates structures of government which we can call federal. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), who has made several interventions, read out almost like a litany the Prime Minister's statement to the effect that she would not have anything to do with federalism. Doing that is wrong and does not face up to reality. I do not care what word is used, but we are discussing something like federalism. It is atavistic not to face up to that fact.
    I am puzzled by our method of dealing with the Bill. I hasten to add that this is no criticism of the Chair. We are in a Committee of the whole House debating amendments which everybody knows the Government cannot accept. The constitutional theory is that, if it wishes, Parliament can reject the Government's proposition and put the whole lot back in the melting pot. That ignores reality, however, which is the discipline of party Government, the Whips, the power of patronage and the fact that the Government are committed to honouring an international agreement into which they have solemnly entered. They will not default, and the Minister will not accept any amendment.
    There does not seem to be much practical sense in this, therefore. I do not deny the importance of a constitutional backstop when there is real opposition — that is a fundamental part of parliamentary government—but for all the ringing declarations from the few diehards here, there is no real opposition in the country to our continuing in the Community. People are interested in making the Community work better and improving its democracy.
    Mr. Deakins: Surely the purpose of debating amendments is to expose issues and to discuss. The name "Parliament" means that we are a talking shop. We have developed a lot, but the Chamber is a centre where we can talk. The national press has not taken an interest since 4.45 pm yesterday, which is a sad reflection on the media, but this is a place where arguments can be exposed, even if we know that the Government will win in the end.
    Sir Russell Johnston: I do not dissent from much of what the hon. Member for Walthamstow says. It is evident that the European Community is not high on the political Richter scale with press.
    If we are serious about making a constructive contribution to the process of making the European Community work better, it is sensible to have more narrowly focused debates regularly, rather than a succession of general debates in which everyone repeatedly says the same thing.
    The Chairman: Order. I am listening patiently, hut I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's remarks have much to do with the internal market. We must return to the amendment.
    Sir Russell Johnston: I am grateful to you for your patience, Mr. Walker. It need be stretched no further because I have finished.
    Mr. Jeremy Hanley: The European Council at Milan in June 1985 reaffirmed the Community's commitment to achieve a single market for goods and services by 1992. It identified special priorities: first, to remove physical and technical barriers to the movement of goods, secondly, a free market in financial services; thirdly, a free market for transport and related matters; fourthly, the liberalisation of capital movements; and, fifthly, the full freedom of establishment for the professions. Are those the priorities of certain member states — of France and of Germany? Are those the priorities of a gang of European countries set to try and defeat Britain in one way or another? Not in the slightest. They are the United Kingdom's own priorities. The Bill seeks to succeed on those five priorities.
    There is disagreement among member states, and I have no doubt that similar debates are taking place in those countries. Certain diehards on the Left and Right —united in their extremism if in nothing else—are trying to destroy the United Kingdom's interests.
    I believe wholeheartedly that the Bill is right and that the proposed amendments are wrong—particularly the one which we are discussing.
    Progress has been made on problems caused by differing national standards for goods and in many other areas. Agreement on common technical and safety standards means that United Kingdom exports conforming to them will have the right, for a change, of automatic access throughout the Community. Perhaps Opposition Members and some of my hon. Friends are against United Kingdom exporters being given the right to a fair market for goods of supreme quality in the Community.
    Fifteen measures laying down agreed Community standards for industrial products were adopted in October 1984. The United Kingdom put forward an initiative designed to oblige member states to accept in their domestic markets goods which meet the required technical and safety standards of goods from other member states. I wonder why right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are against achieving that fair market for goods of the highest quality produced in this country. The initiative has now been agreed by member states, thanks to the United Kingdom. Provisions have been built in to ensure that there is no reduction in health and safety standards.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) suggested that anyone who was opposed to the Bill, as it applies to the internal market, was an extremist. My hon. Friend could not have been present when I made my speech last night. I said that, under article 100, it should be possible, if the will were there, for products and services in which I have
    a constituency and Scottish interest — whisky, banking and insurance—to develop in the market. They have not developed when, under article 100, they could and should have developed. My hon. Friend does a disservice to the Committee and to hon. Members by suggesting that people with that view are extremists.
    Mr. Hanley: I apologise if I implied that my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) was an extremist.
    Earlier, I mentioned the extreme views against the Common Market regularly expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The United Kingdom has taken
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    the lead in efforts to reach common standards for linking computers and telecommunications networks. That is what the internal market is all about. We are trying to open, in a way which I always believed was symbolised by the Common Market, a proper and free market for the highest standards of goods and services provided by British industry. I cannot understand why Opposition Members are so opposed to the increased sales and more jobs that the Bill will help to create.
    The Bill will also help, particularly in the internal market, in the simplification of frontier controls on goods traffic. The existing bureaucracy is diametrically opposed to the interests of British exporters. The single administrative document is intended to replace the various national import, export and transit forms currently used in trade between member states. Full implementation will take place on 1 January 1988, and I hope that it will be a substantial step towards achieving the aims that I thought I was supporting when I voted in the 1975 referendum for our continued membership of the Common Market. There will be one form, not many.
    Mr. George Robertson: I intervene to show that I am still alive and kicking after all these hours of debate. The hon. Gentleman is giving us a clear exposition of the benefits of the internal market, but may I direct his attention to the new article 100A in the Single European Act? It says:
    "The Commission, in its proposals envisaged in paragraph 1 concerning health, safety, environmental protection and consumer protection, will take as a base a high level of protection."
    May we take it that the hon. Gentleman agrees with that as well?
    Mr. Hanley: I agree with protecting our national interests and sharing our national interests with those of other countries to improve our market. I see no reason why there should not be a bit of give and take, and I believe that that will be achieved by the Act. I do not believe that we shall have any loss of sovereignty if, in exchange, we gain part of the sovereignty of 11 other nations.
    We need a liberalisation of road haulage. I cannot understand why Opposition Members should oppose that aim. The first priority must be to end road haulage quotas.
    The hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) asked on a point of order earlier that an hon. Member should declare his interest. I cannot understand why the hon. Member for Bradford, West has not declared his own interest. I see from the Register of Members' Interests that he is sponsored by the Transport and General Workers Union and that his constituency party receives £600 per annum and financial support at general elections, reflecting an agreement between the TGWU and the Labour party.
    Surely the hon. Gentleman should declare his interest in the extra funding and the more jobs that will flow to his members from the internal market. I remind him that the deregulation of coaches in this country six years ago has produced 50 per cent. more passengers, a 40 per cent. reduction in fares and a 20 per cent. increase in the number of services. Exactly that sort of deregulation is envisaged in the Act for road haulage and other transport services throughout Europe. The hon. Gentleman should declare his interest, because he will be profiting from the Bill.
    Mr. Madden: If I had contributed to the debate I would have declared my interest, as is my habit. On this occasion,

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    I am one of those rare parliamentary animals who choose to listen to a debate. I have been here for a long time and if I contribute to the debate I shall declare my interest.
    Mr. Hanley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I am glad to have reminded him. I hope that we shall hear from him in due course—perhaps on another day.
    We also need a more liberal regime for air services in Europe. Again, Britain has shown the lead on an internal market in air services. Britain and the Netherlands made a bilateral agreement last year which has resulted in cheaper excursion fares and a wider choice of routes for travellers. That has resulted in an increase of 16 per cent. in the number of passengers using services between Britain and the Netherlands. In the first year there were 70,000 more passengers and 10 new services. That is the sort of growth that liberalisation, deregulation and a common market can achieve.
    Mr. Bill Walker: My hon. Friend is correct. The liberalisation of the routes between Holland and the United Kingdom has proved advantageous to the internal market. For example, my daughter found that it was cheaper to fly from Scotland to London and then on to Amsterdam and from there to Los Angeles than to fly from anywhere in the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend should bear in mind exactly what we mean by opening up markets, because experience has shown that when we open up our markets we do not enjoy the benefits of other markets opening up, for many different reasons.
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    Mr. Hanley: I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that the opening of markets in Europe is the first step towards liberalisation of air transport throughout the world. There has been far too much trouble in this sector for many years. Today, we are discussing only the European market. An agreement signed only last year between Britain and West Germany means that we are now free to operate services between any points in the United Kingdom and Germany. Further agreements have been signed with Luxembourg and Belgium. The Common Market is meant to achieve such co-operation. The Bill is a further step forward to the liberalisation of this and many other sectors.
    I should like to see a genuine common market in services. At the moment, we do not have that, and that is not the Common Market for which I voted. It is absurd that businesses in the other member states cannot shop around in Europe or the United Kingdom for their insurance cover, but British businesses can. The lack of competition that results from protection of markets simply means higher costs for European businesses. It is no wonder that right hon. and hon. Members say that the Common Market has failed, and it is understandable that with such restrictions it has not succeeded. That is why the Bill is before the House.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor rose—
    Mr. Hanley: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but I make it clear that this is the last time that I do so.
    Mr. Taylor: Does my hon. Friend accept that existing directives guarantee freedom in almost every sector—for example, insurance and air fares? Does he agree that what is needed is a way to ensure that the free market operates with the existing directives instead of saddling industries
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    here and abroad with a whole parcel of new harmonising directives? Is not the problem that the existing directives are not being carried out?
    Mr. Hanley: I would normally bow to my hon. Friend's excellent judgment, but it is precisely because existing directives have been proved to be ineffective that we need the Bill and must take this brave new step forward to create the common market that I believed we were introducing when we joined.
    We need a more competitive climate in many sectors, particularly industry and business. The priorities are greater vigilance in preventing protectionist use of state aid and making sure that the requirements of Community law do not impose unreasonable burdens on smaller enterprises. We need growth for smaller enterprises, and the Bill will help to derestrict many of the pressures against it. We also need to create the framework for greater collaboration between companies and member states. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary said, our industries will never flourish to the extent that they should, and we shall not create employment to the extent that we could, nor compete effectively with the United States and Japan, without the completion of a genuine common market.
    So far, most matters concerning the internal market have been subject to unanimity voting, but now qualified majority voting should apply. As this will include a policy for sea and air transport and the right to provide services freely in other member states and an agreement on common standards of industrial products, which is the key to export growth, I must support it. Unanimity will still be required for all decisions on taxation. Some of the recent lies and rumours about the effect on taxation, such as VAT on food and so on, are the arguments of the desperate. It is not in the interest of the House or of the people whom right hon. and hon. Members claim to represent to exaggerate the effect of the Bill and of the Common Market.
    Unanimity is still required for taxation and for measures relating to the free movement of persons and the rights and interests of employees. Therefore, the Bill will create a more common market. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, the Bill is an important step towards enabling the United Kingdom to realise more fully the benefits of our membership of the EC.
    Much of the criticism of hon. Members about the failure of the Common Market has been that it has not been a common market, as it needs to be if it is to succeed. The legislation takes us one step further towards a successful Common Market. Perhaps that is why right hon. and hon. Members on both sides are opposing the measure tooth and nail. The simple reason is, perhaps, that they do not want to see the Common Market succeed and would rather see Britain isolated and losing its trade. I remind the Committee that 48 per cent. of our exports go to the Common Market. Perhaps hon. Members would like us to lose our exports, which would mean lost jobs, lost confidence and lost position and authority in the world. The Bill will help to create the Common Market that we need for Britain to succeed in future.
    The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I am slightly surprised to be on my feet after some seven hours and 20 odd minutes of debate, during all of which I have managed to be present except for 25 minutes.

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    The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) was extremely gallant towards me this morning, but I must advise him that he may kill me with his kindness. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) gave a comic turn which had little to do with the future of the United Kingdom or with creating opportunities for people in new industries, which is what the internal market is about. We may have had a good laugh, but it did not compare with the invitation which I shall consider most carefully from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). I must tell him that when I am not in the House, I regularly knock on doors in my constituency and the one thing that my constituents say to me is, "You wanted the Common Market. We voted significantly for it in the referendum. Get on with it and bring it up to date." That is exactly what is wanted.
    Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mrs. Chalker: No. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer, because I have not asked my husband yet, so he will have to be patient. [Interruption.] I do not think that there can be any issue related to my private life, and I shall not discuss it from the Dispatch Box.
    During our debate a point that has recurred relates to the position of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. After the many months of intergovernmental conferences she said to the House:
    "In my statement in this House following the last European Council in June"—
    that was in Milan—
    "I made it clear that we would have been ready then to take the steps necessary to complete the internal market, to improve decision taking, to formalise foreign policy cooperation and to improve procedures for consultation with the European Assembly.
    Those objectives are now embodied in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council together with some tidying up of the treaty to reflect the Community's development.
    I believe that the conclusions on completing the Common Market and reducing the burden of regulations will be of long-term benefit to British firms selling their goods and services in the European Community. Together with the arrangements to reduce the scale of Britain's budgetary contribution agreed last year, they will be an important step towards enabling this country to realise more fully the benefits of our membership of the European Community." —[Official Report, 5 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 430.]
    Let us have no further quibbling about where the Prime Minister stands. That is where she stands and stays on this matter.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does my hon. Friend accept that the Prime Minister made her position absolutely clear on 2 July 1985, when she said:
    "I thought that our proposals, which would not have required treaty amendment, would be better. It is important that the internal market be completed, …keeping the unanimity rule."—[Official Report, 2 July 1985; Vol. 82, c. 189.]
    Was that not the clearest statement that could have been made on the matter?
    Mrs. Chalker: Sir Harold—
    The Chairman: Order. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her compliment. I wonder whether she knows something that I do not, but I must tell her that I have not yet been knighted.
    Mrs. Chalker: I am sure that it will not be long before you are, Mr. Walker, since you possess great patience.
    I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Southend. East (Mr. Taylor) that one of the reasons why the country is so fortunate to have my right hon. Friend as Prime Minister is that she learns very fast. My right hon. Friend realised that it would be better for the country, given the agreement which the other nations were prepared to make through the intergovernmental conferences, if we enshrined the progress that we had made in this Bill. That is why the Bill is before the House today. I should have to carry out a great deal of research to discover whether my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East still says today what he said many years ago. However, he should give credit where credit is due.
    Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mrs. Chalker: I have already given way. I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North that I cannot answer his question.
    Mr. Marlow: I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister a different question. My hon. Friend said that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had learnt something. From whom has she learnt, and what has she learnt? Did my hon. Friend the Minister teach my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, or did she learn at the same time as the Prime Minister?
    Mrs. Chalker: I would never be so presumptuous as to believe that I could teach the Prime Minister anything. Obviously my hon. Friend believes that he can. Unfortunately, he does not appear to have succeeded. He should learn from reading the speeches, rather than from my taking up the time of the Committee at the Dispatch Box explaining every dot and comma to him.
    The debate about the internal market has at times been interesting, and at times even stimulating. It has been a long debate, which has delved into every nook and cranny, both within the imagination and some way beyond.
    Mr. Deakins: Will the Minister give way on that matter?
    Mrs. Chalker: I have hardly begun to deal with the internal market. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to do so before he intervenes. I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have given way twice and I am trying, for the convenience of the Committee, to make progress.
    I was asked to describe the internal market. I can tell right hon. and hon. Members that the market is defined as an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of the treaty.
    One of the advantages of the new provisions, which my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North asked about in his first speech, is an explicit commitment to remove unnecessary barriers in the market by 1992. There will also be the possibility of faster decisions on internal market matters, being made through the introduction of the qualified majority, with correspondingly reduced opportunities for one or two member states to hold up necessary measures which do not affect them.
    A third advantage is that there will be a maintenance of unanimity in areas of special sensitivity to the United Kingdom, unanimity in taxation, in the free movement of individuals and in the rights and interests of employees.

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    A fourth advantage is that the safeguards which we have negotiated through the intergovernmental conferences in the internal market allow us to maintain high national standards of health and safety if these would be underlined by lower common standards adopted against our wishes by a qualified majority, subject of course, as at present, to the possibility of challenge before the European Court of Justice.
    A fifth advantage is that the internal market provides firm ground for the maintenance of national measures to control immigration from Third world countries and to combat terrorism, crime, and the illicit traffic in drugs, art and antiques.
    Other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), asked about the impact of the internal market on this country. That perfectly fair question was asked many moons ago. I have already said that there are costs of existing barriers to trade. In fact, £6,000 million is wasted. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hamilton would not want to deny his constituents cheaper air fares on a European scale. My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr Walker) made that point when he intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley).
    Does the hon. Member for Hamilton deny that there have been benefits, in particular between Britain and Holland, in the opening up of 10 new air routes, in the reduction of the fares and in the increased percentage of passengers travelling? That has all been good for business. That, too, has brought about increased job opportunities for those who work in those increased services.
    1.15 pm
    Does the hon. Gentleman also think that it makes it easier to sell fares and, indeed, goods in Europe by stopping those opportunities, which will be further opened by the qualified majority voting on air transport? I cannot understand how, with his mainly sensible opinions, he can possibly have said some of the things that he did. But perhaps he, too, has learnt in the intervening hours.
    I hope that the hon. Gentleman has more faith in our financial services than he illustrated previously. If he thinks that they are unable to cope, I have news for him. He should tell that to the countries which fear competition from London. Why are the Opposition, alone among European parties, blind to the interests of ordinary working people who want the freedom and opportunities that the Common Market will bring? I think his answer is that, having talked long about reform while the Labour party was in government but having achieved nothing, it cannot now bring itself to support the Government in championing the cause of prosperity and jobs in Europe. I am sorry if that is the case. I hope he will say that it is not.
    Mr. George Robertson: We are the party which champions the cause of the unemployed and puts it at the top of the agenda. We do not start erecting the grand rhetorical fences on which the Minister daily sits. If she wants to use air fares as the great example of the benefits that the internal market will bring us, she must remember that the European Court of Justice announced only two weeks ago that under existing regulations the air fare cartels are illegal. So the EC does not need any more powers to bring the air fares down. It can do that under the existing powers.
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman is right, but we need to liberalise still further. He heard my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes say so. I was not talking simply of air fares. I was giving an example of where liberalisation has led to something better — a position which has brought about new industry, new opportunities and thereby new jobs.
    There are many reasons for making the internal market our top priority. I have already mentioned that the costs to Britain and to others of not having a complete internal market, which were explained so clearly by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary on 23 April, are against the interests of the British people. Having those barriers costs the Community £7,000 million a year. Who pays the sum in the end? It is the consumer who pays.
    It cannot be in our interests to have either air fares kept artificially high or for our shipping to be denied access to the coastal trade of other member states. The cost is loaded back on to the consumer. It cannot be in our interests for our insurance and financial services, which are among the most competitive in Europe, to be denied access to the growing market. That denies the consumer choice and, therefore, the best value for money that we seek to achieve for all consumers.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), who sadly is not with us today, asked whether obligations would be placed on other member states for the removal of barriers to trade. The principal change, as my hon. Friend recognized, was the introduction of qualified majority voting, but the treaty also sets the date of 31 December 1992 for the completion of the internal market.
    We have never claimed that those changes will automatically break down all barriers to trade, but they create a much greater opportunity for doing so than we have had before. That is why we need to go further than using simply those possibilities under the original treaty of Rome. Hon. Members should not underestimate the political impact of these changes that were agreed by all 12 Heads of Government. The Common Market, thanks to the efforts of this Government, has put the removal of barriers to trade and industry and thereby to jobs to the top of the Community agenda. We are making a concerted effort to speed up decision taking in this and other areas so that all countries may receive the benefits.
    The hon. Member for Hamilton had a little bit of fun at the expense of my right hon. and learned Friend the Paymaster General. The hon. Gentleman criticised the Paymaster General for not having worked out details of employment growth in the 1990s. The title of the document is "Strategy for Employment Growth into the 1990s". That paper was produced by the Irish, Italian and British Governments and has been submitted to the other EEC countries, which, together with the three initiators, will fill in the detail. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman was in error in describing it as lacking in detail.
    The hon. Gentleman said that the Paymaster General had described much of the agenda of the Council of Ministers on the subject of social affairs as piffle. In his heart of hearts the hon. Gentleman knows full well that specialist bodies sometimes get bogged down on issues that are less than relevant to the greatest social problem facing Europe — that of unemployment. I have seen the newspaper cutting to which the hon. Gentleman referred. When such a body gets bogged down, some of the things

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    that it does may appear trifling, and I know that the hon. Member for Hamilton thinks that some parts of the last seven hours have been trifling.
    Mr. George Robertson: The hon. Lady has chosen to comment on the speech that I made some seven hours ago. I made justified criticism of the Paymaster General. The cutting is from The Guardian and is headed:
    "Clarke denounces EEC debate as `piffle'."
    The Guardian correspondent, Mr. Derek Brown, who is an eminent Common Market correspondent, reporting from Luxembourg, said:
    "Mr. Clarke acknowledged that the paper was long on strategic aims and short on detailed proposals. He made a virtue of its imprecision saying it was meant to entice people into discussion."
    Britain already has almost 4 million people unemployed. Does the Minister not think that this is a time for more detailed decision and less enticement into discussion?
    Mrs. Chalker: I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Paymaster General has already worked out the details that are needed for Britain, but when working with 11 partners it is right that we should discuss the content of something that we wish to do together. That must be discussed in detail with them, and that is why my right hon. and learned Friend awaits the filling in of the details.
    In his speech, the hon. Member for Hamilton totally forgot the role of the European social fund, from which Britain has benefited substantially. In the last four years Britain has been allocated more than £1,200 million from the social fund, and our youth training scheme in particular has benefited from that fund.
    Mr. Marlow: As a Conservative, can my hon. Friend tell the Committee what benefit she finds in sending money to the European Community so that it can allocate the cash for policies which we in Britain could allocate ourselves?
    Mrs. Chalker: A great deal of benefit has come from combining with our European neighbours. I have worked in all three of the Government Departments that deal with the European question, and I know that many good ideas came from overseas. We have managed to put them into effect in legislation during the last seven years, and that has helped many people. That is especially true in the social field which has been helped by the European development fund. By its investment the fund has helped many out-of-date industries to become new industries.
    The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is not in the Chamber, but that doughty fighter, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins), has been here throughout the debate. Both hon. Gentlemen asked about the rolling action programme on the internal market. The Committee knows that the Dutch, British and Belgian Governments, who hold the presidency of the Council in succession, are working closely together to make progress on the internal market agenda of the Community. The action programme which was placed in the Library is a presidency document and not a Commission proposal. The action programme is based on the proposals in the Commission's White Paper, to which reference has been made. That programme has been considered by the Scrutiny Committee. There has, therefore, been scrutiny —perhaps not so much as hon. Members would like—of that programme.
    Mr. Spearing: The Scrutiny Committee may have looked at some or conceivably all of the proposals, but does the Minister agree that the proposal relating to the presidency was not available to any hon. Member and that it has not come before the Scrutiny Committee? Will she bear that matter in mind in future discussions about the role of the Scrutiny Committee?
    Mrs. Chalker: I think the hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to realise that if he wants any paper that has been published he has only to ask for it and I shall make sure that he gets it.
    Mr. Spearing: But it was not published.
    Mrs. Chalker: At that time it had not been published, but as soon as it was placed in the Library of the House of Commons the hon. Gentleman knows that, as Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, he would have had access to it.
    Mr. Spearing rose—
    Mrs. Chalker: I know the point that the hon. Gentleman wants to pursue.
    Mr. Spearing: Oh!
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am conscious of the need to allow the Scrutiny Committee to examine papers. He also knows that I intend to give him as much information as possible. It is important that there should be a good Scrutiny Committee, not only in this House, but in the other place. I am not seeking to stop scrutiny, but I believe that scrutiny should be managed a little more effectively and efficiently than has hitherto been the case.
    My hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, North and for Southend, East asked about the common external tariff and the impact of majority voting on the ability of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany to protect our interests. There is no reason to fear that extension of majority voting under article 28 will lead either to more protectionist tariffs or to unduly liberal ones. Any fundamental changes in external trade policy, including the common external tariff, are a matter for decision under article 113, which already provides for majority voting. Article 28 is used for a much more limited purpose — to decide on temporary alterations or suspensions of the tariff for particular products to meet changing market conditions. Over 1,000 suspensions are made each year, usually to help European firms by enabling them to export at reduced or zero tariffs those raw materials or components that are not readily available within the European market.
    It is true that more majority voting could in theory mean a majority forcing a temporary alteration on one member state, but under article 28—and I see no reason for it to change—what usually happens is that one or more member states seek temporary changes because this would be of benefit to their firms and to the Community as a whole. We shall benefit in such cases from the extension of majority voting, because it will no longer be possible for one member state unreasonably to block a tariff suspension that we want. That is completely beneficial, and I hope that my hon. Friend will take it in the spirit in which it is meant.
    Sir Russell Johnston: Surely the Minister must recognise that from time to time Britain will lose. We cannot gain all the time. Majority voting means that sometimes we, too, will have to give up something.
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman knows that from time to time life has its benefits and its disadvantages. He also knows that there are sufficient like-minded people in all 12 member states who are benefiting from the internal market to make it a success in the direction in which the 12 Heads of Government have already decided they want to go.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    Mrs. Chalker: Mr. Walker, I have been very patient. I believe that, after seven hours and 20-odd minutes of debate, I should be allowed to get through my speech for the convenience of the Committee.
    The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) heard the Minister say that she is not prepared to give way. He must not persist.
    1.30 pm
    Mr. Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Walker. I am sorry to interrupt the debate, but I wish to raise a matter of great importance to one of my constituents. I refer to the guidelines of the Home Office about the rights of Members of Parliament to stop removals of relatives and friends of constituents. It is an urgent matter, otherwise I would not have interrupted the debate. I have just spoken to the Home Office on the telephone. Under the arrangements—[Interruption.] The matter has nothing to do with the hon. Lady the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but it is a matter for Mr. Speaker.
    The Chairman: I remind the right hon. Member that the House is in Committee. The matter that he has raised has no relevance to the proceedings of the Committee.
    Mr. Kaufman: I am sorry to have inconvenienced the Committee in such a way, but the matter can only be settled this afternoon. I ask the Chair to assist.
    The Chairman: As Chairman of the Committee, there is no way that I can deal with the matter. It is not relevant to the proceedings of this Committee.
    Mr. Kaufman: I apologise, Mr. Walker. I would not have dreamt of intervening in the proceedings of the Committee if it were not a matter—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear that hon. Members do not care about human rights. I apologise for the intervention. I hope that you understand, Mr. Walker, that I would not have raised it in this way were it not a matter of great urgency. I should be grateful for your advice on how I can communicate with Mr. Speaker. Obviously, because the House is in Committee, he is the authority to whom I should appeal. I wish to communicate with him publicly, so that the treatment and misbehaviour of the Home Office regarding one of my constituents can be known.
    The Chairman: I am afraid that I cannot help the right hon. Member. The House is in Committee. I am sitting in my capacity as Chairman of Ways and Means, and Chairman of the Committee. The only advice that I can offer the right hon. Member is that he should inform the Speaker's Office of the matter that he has brought before the Committee.
    Mrs. Chalker: I was about to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Walthamstow when there was that most interesting diversion. I can assure the right hon Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) that hon. Members are determined to have an interest in human rights, but not in the middle of a debate on the internal market, especially when the House is in Committee.
    The hon. Member for Walthamstow knows, before I start, that we will not agree. Let us accept that we both have a point of view. The hon. Gentleman believes that he is right. He has been waging war since long before l972, when he made a valiant effort against the Bill. The hon. Gentleman does not like the Common Market. He wishes that he could persuade his Front Bench to get this country out of the Common Market, but he has not yet succeeded in doing so.
    Mr. Skinner: It is party policy to leave the EEC.
    Mrs. Chalker: The party is a varied organisation, as the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) knows. However, at this moment, I am more concerned with the hon. Member for Walthamstow, if the hon. Member for Bolsover will forgive me. I am not an economist. I do not believe that the hon. Member for Walthamstow is one either. I shall not bandy figures with him. I have been through them carefully. It seems to me that the striking changes in industrial employment are symptoms of the fundamental changes in the structure of British industry that have taken place over the past 15 years as new technology has been introduced and as the patterns of international trade have shifted.
    The hon. Gentleman admitted that our exporters have already greatly enlarged their share of the European market. Our deficit in manufactures has grown because our imports have grown faster than our exports. I do not seek to dispute that matter. However, we must remember that the British market has, traditionally, been an open one. The markets in Europe which our exporters must tackle are very different. Those markets have been riddled with the non-tariff harriers to British exports described so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East. Completing the internal market means breaking down those barriers to trade, and it means making the European markets more accessible to our exporters, not just in theory, but in practice. That is why the Government attach so much importance to the internal market.
    Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East will let me know about his problem with buses doing the last leg of journeys that start in London and go through Southend airport. My late father had the privilege and pleasure of being one of the chairmen during its development. I shall try to help my hon. Friend, but I suspect that what has happened is that it is the harrier within the internal German market that is stopping him from having the bus that he needs to continue the journey which the company he mentioned set up. I shall look into that with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Deakins: I do not agree with what the Minister says, but I understand it. I sympathise with that point of view. The hon. Lady is' saying that our market has been open and the other markets have been relatively closed. I understand that, but it has always been said that it is possible for a German industrialist to come to Britain to meet half a dozen people in the retail trade — the big chain stores — and cover 80 per cent. of the British

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    market. What is there in the completion of the internal market that will reverse that process, so that British industrialists going to Germany can see half a dozen people and cover 80 per cent. of the retail market in Germany?
    Mrs. Chalker: I sincerely hope that some of the barriers to cross-border trade that our industrialists come up against—the numerous forms that are required by some European countries — will be reduced. Those are the things that are costing the Common Market £6,000 million a year in barriers that we do not need to have. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
    I could go on at some length about the EEC deficit in manufactures, but I shall not do so. We have to face the fact that improving our balance of trade in manufactures can be done only by improving competitiveness, lowering unit costs, reducing unnecessary burdens on industry and creating the conditions in which inventiveness and flair can prosper. That is exactly what this Government have been doing, and that is exactly what we want to go on doing, but at a faster rate with the completion of the internal market, which will help us, too, by breaking down other states' barriers to trade, which the hon. Member for Walthamstow spoke about.
    My hon. Friends the Member for Southend, East and for Faversham also asked about the freedom of insurance services. There has been some progress. There is freedom of establishment in insurance. It is thanks to European Community directives that our insurers can set up companies in other Community countries, but they cannot sell their services direct from Britain. That is what is impeding important parts of the British insurance industry, such as Lloyd's, from furthering their markets abroad.
    A German citizen or company is prohibited by German law from buying insurance on the London market. That is a major barrier to trade which the draft non-life insurance directive is intended to abolish. Progress on it has been blocked for the past few years, but we hope that, with the European Court's decision in cases now before it, we shall get the draft directive moving again and that the introduction of majority voting will make it easier for us to get it swiftly adopted.
    Several other hon. Members spoke about inner German trade. As my hon. Friends know, the protocol to the treaty of Rome provides that trade between East Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany is treated as internal trade. That has been there since 1972. Article 3 of the protocol also contains provisions designed to contain conflict between the operation of the protocol and the principles of the Common Market. The Federal Republic of Germany takes steps to ensure that goods from the German Democratic Republic are not marketed in such a way that they can be confused with goods from the Federal Republic. That has been going on and will continue to go on. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade have made considerable efforts with the Commission on the problem areas that I know my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East has. He has a constituency problem over dried eggs. We are continuing to make representations to the Commission.
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    My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North was concerned about raspberry pulp dumping. My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked the Commission to negotiate special arrangements to prevent that.
    Mr. Bill Walker: I am aware of the efforts that various Ministers have made, but to my knowledge those efforts have been going on for five years. It should he possible to prevent the dumping under existing directives, but that has not happened, and I am not sure that anything in the Bill will alter the situation.
    Mrs. Chalker: If the problem is of such moment, and I agree with my hon. Friend that it is, we shall have support from our partner countries in the internal market to stop such dumping as has been occurring.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East asked about cross-frontier broadcasting. The Commission's proposal has been and still is being discussed by member states. Britain wants the abolition of existing trade barriers that could prevent the export of our programmes, which are among the best in the world, but at present there is no agreement among member states that a binding directive would be appropriate, let alone that the substantive comment should be as now proposed by the Commission. We shall continue to discuss this to achieve a situation which will benefit British industry and British broadcasting.
    Several hon. Members referred to qualified majority voting. Anyone who considers the figures, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North did in his second speech, will realise that if we move from a qualified majority of 45 out of 63 to a qualified majority of 54 out of 76 there is no change in the balance of voting and the majority remains at 71 per cent. My hon. Friend said that a blocking minority of 23 might stop us going forward, but it will be less easy to achieve than the present figure of 19. Moreover, there are occasions on which we may favour the use of a blocking minority. The extent to which it is used, however, will be very judiciously judged, because, although it may be right in some cases, there are plenty of other cases in which it would not be right. We believe that qualified majority voting is right only on certain issues, because some countries have sought to block sensible moves in the Community and in the internal market on aspects in which they are not involved in trade. Because unanimity was required, such blocking has impeded the completion of the internal market.
    Mr. Marlow: I do not think that my hon. Friend has answered the substantive point, which is that an accumulation of small countries with a total population less than that of the United Kingdom can operate a blocking minority, whereas the United Kingdom and Germany together cannot do so. How can that be right?
    Mrs. Chalker: Many more countries have joined the United Kingdom and Germany in most of the debates. That is part of the Community co-operation that goes on most of the time.
    Many hon. Members have asked complex legal questions and I shall write to each and every one of them. I assure the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), however, that the word "autonomous" in article

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    16 of the Single European Act represents no change. It has simply been carried over from article 28 of the treaty of Rome.
    As for article 100A, the right hon. Member for South Down asked about the meaning of "shall". It is necessary because it empowers the Council to take measures within the terms laid down in the article, but it depends on the context whether it imposes a duty to act. The extent of that duty depends on the articles concerned, but I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman.
    1.45 pm
    I shall also write to others who raised similar legal issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North mentioned South Africa in regard to special action taken by the Community in trade with other countries. Such action is taken under article 113, not article 28. We already provide for decisions by qualified majority in the general provision covering the Community's common commercial policy.
    I could not have followed a better speech than that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes. I congratulate him warmly on it. He has realised what the facts are and I can endorse everything that he said. Progress with the internal market is vital for the United Kingdom's trade and industry. I must mention for a third time the £6 billion cost that barriers to trade inflict on consumers in Europe. We want to get rid of them and to stop the wastage. I therefore urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the amendment.
    Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend has set out many of the advantages of the measures before us, but I do not think that she has dealt in proper detail with many of the problems that could arise. We have heard of the benefits, but not of the disadvantages.
    If my hon. Friend is listening, I wonder whether she could confirm that economic sanctions could be taken against South Africa by majority voting now. I think she said that that was possible. Perhaps she could nod if it is.
    Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend seems to be rather muddled on this issue. Any decisions will be taken by the Heads of State in the European Council working together in political co-operation. In that regard, we are not covered by article 113. As I said a few moments ago, if decisions are taken on the basis of the Community's common commercial policy, they will be taken under article 113, as already happens. There is no difference whatever.
    Mr. Marlow: I thank my hon. Friend. I think she is saying that the intention is that it should be done through the Council of Ministers, with the Prime Minister there, on the basis of unanimity, but that later, if not now, it would be perfectly possible, on the basis of a recommendation from the Commission, for economic action to be taken against South Africa on the strength of majority voting even in existing circumstances.
    I asked my hon. Friend whether she could deal with paragraph 3 of article 100A regarding the Commission making proposals about health. That is an important hook which could be used for introducing a wide range of policies concerning health and safety. We need to know what the Community's competence could be before we make a decision.
    In what my hon. Friend called my second speech, I asked her whether she could let us know, before we voted
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    on this group of amendments, the constitutional power of the preamble and what effect it will have in the European Court of Justice. I also asked whether she could let the House know how effective the veto would be in the political realities which would arise from the changes that the Bill would introduce and about the enhanced status that the European Court might or might not have from the preamble.
    Mr. Deakins: I have no intention of detaining the Committee, but the Minister said twice that this debate had lasted for seven hours. If left on the record unchallenged, that assertion would give a misleading impression of events. Perhaps I may draw attention to the fact that, at any time after I sat down at approximately 12.10 am last night, when the debate had been going for three and a half hours, it would have been in order for a member of the Government or a Whip to try to catch the Chair's eye to move a closure motion. When I sat clown, the Government Whip moved that we report progress, we went home and came back this morning.
    When I arrived this morning, I was confidently expecting the first speech to be the closing remarks by the Minister, who did not have time last night because she was cut short. I expected that we would then proceed to a vote on the amendment.
    At any time during today's debate it would have been possible for the Government Whip to seek to catch your eye, Mr. Walker, and seek permission to move the closure. That was not done. The debate has continued for twice as long as it might have done. That is the responsibility, not of right hon. and hon. Members who took part in the debate, but of the Government, who are in charge of the business.
    Question put, That the amendment be made:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 84.

    Division No. 236]

    [1.50 pm

    AYES

    du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

    Moate, Roger

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Mr. Dennis Skinner and

    Walker, Bill (T'side N)

    Mr. Max Madden.

    NOES

    Amess, David

    Greenway, Harry

    Ashby, David

    Ground, Patrick

    Ashdown, Paddy

    Gummer, Rt Hon John S

    Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)

    Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

    Baldry, Tony

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hargreaves, Kenneth

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Hayes, J.

    Burt, Alistair

    Hayward, Robert

    Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Cash, William

    Hind, Kenneth

    Chalker, Mrs Lynda

    Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Cope, John

    Johnston, Sir Russell

    Cormack, Patrick

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Couchman, James

    Jones, Robert (Herts W)

    Dunn, Robert

    Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

    Eggar, Tim

    Lang, Ian

    Eyre, Sir Reginald

    Latham, Michael

    Fallon, Michael

    Lawler, Geoffrey

    Favell, Anthony

    Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

    Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Forth, Eric

    Lester, Jim

    Freeman, Roger

    Malone, Gerald

    Galley, Roy

    Mayhew, Sir Patrick

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Merchant, Piers

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    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

    Moynihan, Hon C.

    Tracey, Richard

    Normanton, Tom

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

    van Straubenzee, Sir W.

    Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Viggers, Peter

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Waller, Gary

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Silvester, Fred

    Watts, John

    Spencer, Derek

    Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Wolfson, Mark

    Stern, Michael

    Wood, Timothy

    Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

    Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

    Mr. Peter Lloyd and

    Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

    Mr. Tony Durant.

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Walker. The Leader of the House is to make a statement in 28 minutes' time, and as, for this major constitutional issue, the Government have been able to bring in only 84 hon. Members, which is about 20 per cent. of Conservative Members, do you think that the Leader of the House might wish to withdraw the Bill when he makes his statement?
    Sir Edward du Cann: I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 1, line 13, after `Communities)', insert
    'but not Article 17 thereof'.
    We are now discussing tax harmonisation, a matter that must interest every citizen in the land, for, as the old saying has it, like the poor, taxes are always with us. At first sight, it may seem reasonable for the Bill to commit every member state to harmonisation of indirect taxes as far as necessary to complete the internal market. There is immense keenness within the Community on taxation. We had a directive to that effect in 1985, and this morning there is a remarkable piece in the Financial Times to which I should like to draw the attention of the Committee. The article, written by Quentin Peel from The Hague, says:
    "The European Commission yesterday warned member states of the EEC that plans to remove all barriers to trade within the Community were falling well behind schedule."
    The article went on to make a strongly worded criticism of the Council of Ministers and said that the Dutch, who at present hold the Presidency of the Commission, singled out three areas for emphasis. The first was the need to agree on tax harmonisation, described as
    "an essential prerequisite for completion of the internal market."
    There is immense impetus and drive behind the proposal to harmonise taxes among member states.
    As hon. Members walk up and down Whitehall, one can overhear the anodyne assurances and soothing phrases, "There's nothing in this, old boy. Just a technical affair designed to ensure there are no obstacles to British exports." Such statements are invariably made by those who have never run a business in their life and who know little about practical matters. Whether imports into the United Kingdom would be facilitated is not mentioned. Indeed, while we have much talk about harmonisation of taxes, we hear too little talk about the real obstacle to trade in the Common Market—non-fiscal barriers.
    Amendment No. 7 calls for the United Kingdom to be excluded from this harmonisation process. I shall try to say why right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that it should be excluded. The great advantage of these Committee debates is that they give an
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    opportunity to question the Government and, I hope, for the Government to give clear answers. In that context, I can perhaps best proceed by putting some questions to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
    Are the Government content that the freedom of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer to levy taxes as he wishes should be removed? The answer must be yes or no. I presume that the answer is yes, otherwise we would not be discussing the measure. How does that square with what was said so clearly in the debates at the time of the referendum, which was that there would be no derogation from the United Kingdom's sovereignty? I remember that being said on many occasions by those who advocated our signature of the treaty of Rome. The number of occasions on which that was written in propaganda material is easily within the recollection of the House. There follows from that a question for the House: is the House content that the Commission, as opposed to the elected representatives of the British people, should decide tax levels in the United Kingdom?
    Let us consider the taxation levels of the 12 member states. We have a most efficient Library staff in the House, who have been good enough to find the figures for me. They say that several European Community countries have a multiple VAT rate structure, and gave me the level of standard rates prevailing in various countries. In three countries, the standard rate is lower than in the United Kingdom: Spain has 12 per cent., Luxembourg has 12 per cent., and Germany has 14 per cent. However, seven countries have standard rates higher than ours, and some by an appreciable margin. Denmark has 22 per cent., Ireland 23 per cent., the Netherlands 19 per cent. and France 18·6 per cent. It is not simply a matter of the standard rate in the majority of the Community countries being higher than that in the United Kingdom. There are some extraordinarily high rates beyond that. For instance, in Belgium the highest rate is 33 per cent., in France 33·33 per cent. and in Italy no less than 38 per cent.
    To explain these points in simple language, the majority of Commission countries have a higher standard rate for VAT than the United Kingdom. Most have multiple rates, which we do not, and a number have top rates which I believe that the majority of the British people would regard as extremely high.
    May we have a categoric assurance that VAT rates will not be raised as a consequence of this Bill being enacted? I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will make a careful note of that question and give us a clear reply. Many of us are very anxious about this matter. I have already remarked that there is sensitivity among our fellow citizens in the United Kingdom about tax rates. An increase in VAT rates would undoubtedly mean a sharp rise in the cost of living, and that would be an intolerable burden for many people.
    We heard earlier that the United Kingdom's contribution to the common finances of the Community is currently inadequate and that a larger slice of the VAT revenue raised in this country is required. It is inevitable that in such circumstances some of us are suspicious that it is likely that VAT rates will be raised in this country. I hope that I shall have a clear answer to that point.
    I should mow like to consider the range of taxation. In this country We have traditional exemptions from VAT. We have a zero rate and we have grown accustomed to food, fuel and educational material being tax free. The

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    House will remember the great political battles that we had over some aspects of that. There was a great battle over the question whether books and children's shoes should carry VAT. We have all taken the view that there will always be good social reasons why some commodities should be exempt from indirect taxation. It is fair to say that the House would agree that it is essential that we should retain the zero rate of taxation.
    An excellent House of Commons background paper is available in the Library which states:
    "One weakness in the argument to retain zero-rates is that virtually all other countries in the Community levy VAT on reading matter."
    The paper states that other countries levy VAT on commodities currently untaxed in the United Kingdom. The paper continues to give the rates currently in force.
    My next remarks might horrify the Committee and create great anxiety in the country. The report shows that in Ireland there is a 23 per cent. rate on newsprint. In Denmark there is a 22 per cent. rate on books. However, these countries are not exceptional. In Belgium books are taxed at 6 per cent., in France at 7 per cent., in Germany at 7 per cent., in Luxembourg at 6 per cent. and in the Netherlands at 5 per cent. Taxation on items which we would consider proper to exempt from tax is commonplace in the Community.
    That is not all. It is not only books that are involved. Every other Euro state levies VAT at rates ranging between 6 per cent. and 22 per cent. on gas. What would the British citizen think if he had to pay VAT on his gas bill? Every other Euro state, except the Irish Republic, charges VAT on electricity. Again rates vary between 6 per cent. and 22 per cent. Every other Euro state except Ireland levies VAT on food, if you please, and the rates vary between 3 per cent. in Italy and 22 per cent. in Denmark.
    Those are the facts; that is what everyone else does. What does harmonisation mean for us?
    2.15 pm
    Mr. Michael Latham: Does my right hon. Friend realise that we do not need this legislation because Britain is already before the European Court for infraction proceedings for having failed to put VAT on building work in the industrial and commercial sector?
    Sir Edward du Cann: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend as I am coming to that point in just a second and want to develop it.
    I hope that. I have said enough in this short address to show that the United Kingdom is the odd country out in the Community. The logic is not that the other countries of the Community will harmonise with us but that we shall harmonise with them. That is where all the pressure will be. There will not be pressure on them to adopt our zero rates. The pressure will be on us to tax gas and electricity, the commodity which my hon. Friend mentioned, newspapers, books and even food.
    May we please have a categoric assurance from the Minister that if we pass the Bill the zero rate will remain valid in the United Kingdom and that we shall not tax items which are currently exempt?
    I now come to my hon. Friend's point which I want to develop. The House should be aware of a written answer given by the Minister of State, Treasury on 4 March 1986. It says:
    662
    "The EC Commission has applied to the European Court of Justice for a declaration against the United Kingdom that the zero rating of certain goods and services is incompatible with the sixth VAT directive, as not being for clearly defined social reasons"—
    there is an impertinence surely—
    "or for the benefit of the final consumer"—
    another impertinence, the Committee may think.
    "The Government do not accept this contention"—
    so far so good—
    "and will defend the issue before the European Court"—
    again, good, the Committee may think.
    "It is unlikely that the case will be heard at the earliest before the end of the year."—[Official Report, 4 March 1986; Vol. 93, c. 94.]
    My hon. Friend did a great service to the Community by drawing attention to this matter and in noting one commodity that is affected. It is not only the commodity to which he drew attention in his necessarily short intervention—the catalogue is really quite long. Let me give the Committee some of the items.
    The Commission's challenge covers a wide range of supplies of goods and services — feeding stuffs, seeds, live animals yielding food for consumption—what will the farmers say to that? — sewerage services, water —apparently the Common Market wants to tax water—new services, fuel and power, to which I have already adverted, construction and buildings, to which my lion. Friend referred—what will people say when they have to pay VAT on their new house?—protective clothing and footwear—a tax on safety. What idiocy this is.
    This is not the first time that the United Kingdom has been challenged on these matters. The EEC Commission first wrote to the United Kingdom on this issue in October 1981. So we have been under pressure for some time. This is not just a single aberration of an act on the Commission's part. It has been trying to destroy our zero rate for five years. The Customs and Excise notice says:
    "Should the Commission's case be upheld in the European Court, in whole or in respect of individual items, the United Kingdom would be obliged to tax the supplies in question at a positive rate."
    Mr. Marlow: My right hon. Friend has said that the Customs and Excise people would be obliged to do something, but Parliament can be obliged to do nothing. Parliament is sovereign and can make its own decisions on these issues.
    Sir Edward du Cann: I have the greatest admiration for the judgment of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) in normal circumstances, but on this matter he is entirely wrong. If the European Court of Justice finds against us, the Government will be obliged to abide by the judgment of the court. There is no doubt whatever about that. That is why I asked the Minister if the Government were content that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would no longer have the right on his own to decide the levels of taxation in Britain. I went on to put a second question. I asked if Parliament was content to have its right to decide these matters taken away, because up to now it is in Parliament that such decisions are ultimately taken.
    Mr. Marlow: I understand what my right hon. Friend is saying and I understood him earlier. The Government might be required, and the Government can propose and put measures before the House of Commons, but the House is entitled to vote against the measures. Where do we stand then?
    Sir Edward du Cann: With his unerring instinct my hon. Friend puts his finger on the precise point. The House of Commons will become impotent if we pass this legislation. That is why a number of us are keen to see that the facts are more widely advertised. This legislation is a wedge. It may be thought of as a thin wedge, but it is a wedge and before many years have gone by the small crack that it opens will become a chasm and enfin—if I may use a single word of French because I do not want to try the Committee's patience any further—we shall be relegated to the status of some sort of subordinate authority of lower grade, say, than a county council.
    Mr. Spearing: Is it not notable that even the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) was not aware of enforceable Community rights under the European Communities Act 1972? Will the right hon. Gentleman go a stage further and ask the Minister whether the sixth directive of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks and which applies irrespective of anything contained in new article 99 — because it is legislation that is already taking effect—has within it not only the power of the Commission to take the British Government to court, as it is doing, but the right to send letters to our Chancellor of the Exchequer threatening infraction proceedings? It has probably done the same thing in respect of VAT on building repairs which some time ago was a most unpopular measure brought in by the Chancellor. If those things are correct, should there not be a full statement in reply to this debate about the extent to which sixth directive letters have been received by the Government and their reaction since 1978?
    Sir Edward du Cann: It may be a surprise to you, Mr. Walker, and to the Committee, but alas I am not privy to the Chancellor's in-tray and I have not seen any of his correspondence. I am unable to give the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) a direct answer to his questions, but the logic of what he says is impeccable. The Commission is able and will increasingly be in a position, if we pass the Bill, to give instructions to the Chancellor and to other Ministers.
    I agree entirely with the wise and appropriate suggestion of the hon. Gentleman that it would be right for the Minister, when replying to the debate — presumably on another day — to tell us whether her understanding of the situation is the same as his. As the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said, my hon. Friend the Minister has listened to the debate with great courtesy. She has a duty to the Committee, to the House of Commons and to the nation to answer clearly and without equivocation. One of the main reasons why Back Benchers have initiated this series of debates is to try to ensure that our countrymen and countrywomen are better informed about the realities and therefore more competent to judge the matter. When they are better informed, I believe that they will share the reservations that many of us have tried to express over the years.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the superb way in which he is putting before the Committee this enormous danger. Action under the sixth directive places an obligation on the British Chancellor of the Exchequer to charge VAT on gas, food, electricity and water. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the danger of the new article 99 is that it imposes a further obligation to harmonise by 1992? My right hon. Friend was right when
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    he said that the position is serious now, but the imposition of VAT on essential items for the British people will make it very much worse.
    Sir Edward du Cann: My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I am grateful to him for underlining the point. When people are aware of what may happen, I am convinced that there will be an immense storm of protest. During the last few years hon. Members will have received a plethora of letters from gas and electricity consumers. People are very sensitive about these charges. The thought that VAT will be added to their gas and electricity bills, at rates as high as 20 or 30 per cent., will fill them with horror. Very few people can afford the extra money. It is said that the payment of VAT is the price of entry into the European Community, but there is a limit to the price that any of us can afford and that this House of Commons should tolerate.
    If a commitment to harmonisation is included in the Bill, who will decide if it is to be implemented? I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to answer that question. I presume that the European Court will decide. I think that my hon. Friend the Minister of State confirmed this in a reply that she gave on 17 June at column 867. She said, in effect, that the European Court, on an application from the Commission, could determine whether Britain had harmonised VAT sufficiently. Is that her considered opinion? What worries so many of us is the thought that the veto, about which we have heard so much and upon which we have counted for so long, would be absolutely valueless.
    As long ago as 1981 the Commission considered taking us to court for not levying VAT on gas used in business or commercial premises, but it appears from the best information that it is possible to obtain that it delayed taking action, pending the introduction of the Single European Act. Now that we have the Single European Act and now that we have been taken to court, will my hon. Friend confirm that the veto, upon which we have relied so much, is meaningless?
    Let us suppose that the Commission asks the European Court to adjudicate. Let us further suppose that the court decides against us. What freedom of action would my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer then have? It seems to me that he would have no freedom of any sort. Therefore, the Bill proposes a further derogation of sovereignty. As such, it is utterly repugnant and unacceptable to me. I hope that the Committee will also find it unacceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North made a fine speech. All hon. Members admire his constancy and the strength with which he has advocated the European cause. He has chided all hon. Members indirectly for perhaps not paying more attention to the need to control expenditure.
    It being half-past Two o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday next.

    Clause 1

      EXTENDED MEANING OF "THE TREATIES" AND "THE COMMUNITY TREATIES".
      Amendment No. 5 proposed [26 June], in page 1, line 13, after 'Communities)' insert 'hut not Article 15 thereof —[Mr. Marlow.]
      Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That—
  (1) Standing Order No. 6 (Arrangement of public business), as varied by the Order [7th November], shall have effect for this Session with the following modification, namely: in paragraph (8) the word 'five' shall be substituted for the word 'four' in line 82:

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  (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of the Order [7th November], Private Members' Notices of Motions shall have precedence over Government business until Seven o'clock on Monday 14th July, and the ballot for these Notices shall be held after Questions on Tuesday 1st July.—[Mr. Malone.]
  Ordered,
  That at the sitting on Wednesday 2nd July, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Orders No. 3 (Exempted business) and No. 4 (Prayers against statutory instruments, &c. (negative procedure)), if proceedings on the Motions in the name of Mr. Secretary Fowler relating to Social Security and on the Motions in the name of Mr. Neil Kinnock relating to Housing (S.I., 1986, No. 1009) and to Social Security (S.I., 1986, No. 1010 and S.I., 1986, No. 101 I) have not previously been disposed of, Mr. Speaker shall at Seven o'clock put any Question necessary to dispose of any Motion which may already have been moved and shall then put forthwith the Question on such of the remaining Motions as may then he moved.—[Mr. Malone.]

Business of the House
2.31 pm
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
In view of the lack of progress made on the proceedings of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill, and following discussion through the usual channels, it is the Government's intention to table a timetable motion on the Bill this afternoon. The business already announced for next week will be amended as follows: Tuesday 1 July—At the end on Tuesday, timetable motion on the European Communities (Amendment) Bill.
I shall announce the timing of the remaining stages of the Bill in my next business statement.
Mr. Peter Shore: The business statement may have been short, but it was disgraceful. It is completely unacceptable for all hon. Members.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are dealing with a constitutional measure— a measure which, at the very heart of it, to a greater or lesser extent, according to Members' judgment, transfers power from this sovereign Parliament to alien institutions in Europe, and which diminishes the sovereignty and the rights of the British people? Is it not extraordinary that we should be subjected, after such short and cursory debates — [Interruption.] Yes, indeed. We have had two days of debate in which hon. and right hon. Members have had little opportunity to express their deep feelings and anxieties. Is it not outrageous that we should be faced with a guillotine motion because the Government have not been able to control their own Back Benchers and to move progress, which they should have done last night but failed to do? Is it not a double outrage in that the guillotine motion has been tabled for debate on 'Tuesday at 10 pm? I do not believe that there is any example—I challenge the Lord Privy Seal to give one — of a Bill which has been subjected to a guillotine motion but not in prime time. It is a disgrace. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again.
Mr. Biffen: I quite understand the deep ambivalence that the right hon. Gentleman has towards what he calls alien institutions. Doubtless, it is shared by many of his colleagues. The real points of principle that he raised are appropriate for the debate we shall have on Tuesday.
Mr. Tony Marlow: When the European Communities Bill 1972 was debated in the House, was there a guillotine? As this Bill does precisely the same thing as the European Communities Bill, only to a much greater extent, would it not be constitutionally inappropriate to have a guillotine on this Bill?
Mr. Biffen: The history of the House of Commons is littered with guillotines on constitutional matters.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when the right hon. Member for Old Bexley, Old Sidcup and old everything else introduced a Bill to take this country into the European Economic Community he announced that it could not be done without the full-hearted consent of Parliament and people, and that the attempt to do so without the full-hearted consent of Parliament resulted in that Bill being forced

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through this House of Commons by a guillotine? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware — I am sure that he is, because we share the same memories—that history is repeating itself?
Mr. Biffen: Indeed, I share the same memories. I shall for ever share the affection, respect and knowledge of what I learnt from my association with the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion. However, perhaps I have a different recollection of the arithmetic. The size of the majority on the Second Reading of this Bill is in no way related to that on the Second Reading of the European Communities Bill.
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I am sure that most people in the country will be glad that the Leader of the House has taken this decision, but does he accept that, whatever full-hearted consent may or may not have been given, it was overwhelmingly confirmed in a referendum, and those who attack it now should not admit that thought?
Mr. Biffen: I realise that my hon. Friend's intervention was well-intentioned. No one ever lightly or cheerfully undertakes a timetable motion in respect of a constitutional measure. But the very fact that constitutional measures are normally proceeded with on the Floor of the House of Commons makes them particularly susceptible to the Committee form of debate. So I happen to believe that the best protection of the interests of the House and thereby the interests of the British people does not lie with referendums or anything else; it lies in a perceived judgment as to how best we can co-operate with our fellow nation states and whatever alliances we choose to undertake.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Will the Leader of the House reconsider his remarks about the pace of progress in view of the facts? Will he confirm the following: that in the past 24 hours there have been three groups of debates, the first relating to the transfer by statute of powers from this House to the European Parliament, the second relating to the imposition of harmonised legislation on the United Kingdom without Royal Assent, by majority voting of the Council of Ministers, and the third relating to the prospect of value added tax on gas and food, which has just been raised by the right hon. Member for Taunton (Sir E. du Cann)? In view of the important nature of each of the three matters that have been discussed so far, how far did the right hon. Gentleman take that into account when he decided to make the announcement concerning a guillotine before the Committee's next sitting?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman fairly raises some points that must be central to the debate that we have on Tuesday. I hope that he will not regard it as a discourtesy to him or to the House if I say that those arguments belong more properly to Tuesday.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: As the Leader of the House will accept, there are seven groups of amendments to come, all covering important issues, of which the harmonisation of VAT is only one. Between now and tabling the motion, will my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of dividing whatever time the Government are willing to make available equally among
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the seven issues so that we do not have one grand debate followed by a series of votes without all the issues being considered? I appreciate that the best thing is to get everything covered, but between now and tabling the motion will my right hon. Friend consider dividing up the time in that way so that all those vital issues are discussed in a limited way?
Mr. Biffen: I take note of what my hon. Friend says. I know too well that he has genuinely attempted to add a constructive nature to the debate. I believe that much the most appropriate point at which to consider those matters and to come to a decision is when the motion is considered on Tuesday.
Mr. Ron Leighton: Is the Leader of the House aware, contrary to what was said a moment ago, that in the referendum it was stated clearly by the Government of the day that no important new policy could be agreed to by a British Minister without the agreement of a British Minister answerable to the House —in other words, that there would be unanimity? That is being removed in large measure by the Bill. Does the right hon. Gentleman also recall that, when we considered the Bill for direct elections to the European Assembly, it was said that to give extra powers to the Assembly would need fresh legislation? Is not this that fresh legislation? If it is, should it not be properly scrutinised as it is a major constitutional measure?
Mr. Biffen: Yes, and clearly the House will have to judge whether the quality of the scrutiny hitherto conferred in the Committee meets the criteria that the hon. Gentleman has stated. Above all, however, those are arguments to be made on Tuesday.
Mr. Peter Viggers: Does my right hon. Friend agree that no hon. Member is likely to change his view of the Bill at this stage and that if a further month were allocated there would still be complaints about foreshortening the debate, so the time has now come to move on?
Mr. Biffen: I note what my hon. Friend says and appreciate the helpful intent.
Mr. Michael Foot: Will the Leader of the House now answer the question put to him by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) which he has so obviously avoided thus far? Can he cite any previous occasion when a guillotine motion has been proposed for discussion at the time of day that he has proposed? Have not all such motions, particularly those affecting constitutional measures, been fully discussed in proper time? Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter? Does he agree that it would be disgraceful for the Government, having failed to mobilise sufficient people to get their measure through yesterday, to force it through by means of a guillotine measure and quite exceptional procedures?
Mr. Biffen: Anyone with the authority and expertise of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) in despatching five guillotines in one day deserves to be attended to with care and courtesy, but these matters can best and properly be debated on Tuesday.
Mr. Eric Deakins: Why was there a six-week delay between Second Reading and bringing the Bill before a Committee of the whole House?
Mr. Biffen: There is nothing extraordinary about that period of delay or about a measure of constitutional significance requiring and receiving appropriate formal and informal consultation. There are no problems about that. The problems have arisen since the Committee stage.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a much better debate would have been possible, before or after the guillotine motion is passed, if the House had voted in favour of time-tabling the Standing Committee stages of all public Bills?
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend invites me to reminisce about an occasion now past and beyond recall, but no doubt this issue will be taken into the folklore and evidence to be argued when that matter next comes before the House.
Sir Russell Johnston: Can the hon. Gentleman give us any idea how much time will be allocated?
Mr. Biffen: That is a matter for consideration on Tuesday.
Mr. William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be realistic and constitutional to ensure that there was a short guillotine debate followed by a reasonable time for those hon. Members so far deprived of the opportunity to speak as a result of a filisbuster to speak on a number of extremely important issues? Does he agree that it would be appropriate to allow about an hour for the guillotine debate and the remainder of the time under Standing Order No. 46 for the debate on those issues?
Mr. Biffen: I do not wish to add any comment that might exacerbate the divisions between those who have been seeking to take part in the debate. My hon Friend makes an understandable comment, but I must say again that we shall be able to take account of all those factors on Tuesday and the House will then be able to make a decision.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Can the right hon. Gentleman cite any previous occasion when the guillotine motion has been moved not just at 10 o'clock at night but after a debate in which the closure has not been moved by the Government? I was always under the impression—no doubt "Erskine May" will confirm this — that guillotines were introduced when there was difficulty getting legislation through. Even on the second day of these proceedings and after a fairly long debate the Government could muster no more than 84 Common Market slaves to support them in the Lobby, so they failed to achieve the required 100. Will the right hon. Gentleman examine the record to see whether a guillotine has ever been moved without a closure having been moved as a result of a possible filibuster?
The truth is, as the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, that the debate has taken place against a background of hostility to the Common Market which fits
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in with the views of most people outside. It is a sad state of affairs when the right hon. Gentleman, who voted with me and my hon. Friends 36 times out of 36 against the lousy, rotten Common Market in the first place, finds himself moving a guillotine motion to allow a bankrupt Common Market to continue using British taxpayers' money when there are so many decent, wonderful things we could do with that money instead.
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman can make a speech whereas the Leader of the Social Democratic party cannot even scrape together a point of order. I congratulate him on that. Those who live near the woods learn not to be scared of owls.
I am in some ways grateful for the hon. Gentleman's rather touching concern that there should be greater use of the closure by the Patronage Secretary. It is just possible, in the rather more liberal regime with which my right hon. Friend is associated, that he hoped that all of those who engaged in loquaciousness would learn to repent of their characteristic and that that was why he was unwilling to move the closure.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be rather foolish to pretend that there have not been delaying tactics, which is perfectly legitimate for hon. Members who feel deeply about something'? Does he further agree that, so that right hon. and hon. Members might have a full opportunity of debate, it would be appropriate, if the House agrees, to decide the timetable motion on the nod?
Mr. Biffen: These are matters for the House. I am certain that, if it was resolved that it would be better to have timetabling resolved on the nod, there would be that much more time for debate of the substantive motions. These are not matters which the Government would wish to impose, but if it was the will of the House the Government would be most happy to react.
Mr. Bill Walker: My right hon. Friend will be aware that several of us have sat throughout the Committee stage and made very short speeches as we care deeply about what is happening. Is he aware that there will be some anxiety in the country that the House is not according proper importance to the timetable motion, not because it is the wrong thing to do — I believe that it is the right thing to do —but because of the time of day for which it is proposed? The time can be used to our disadvantage. That should have been borne in mind. I believe, however, that a timetable would be to the benefit of the House and good debate.
Mr. Biffen: I much appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend has drawn the House's attention to the fact that this is a problem which generates deep and passionate conviction. That necessarily colours the type of debate that we have had. As to how we can best proceed under the general guidance of a timetable motion, the matter is one for Tuesday's debate. I look forward to what my hon. Friend will have to say then.

Immigration (Members' Representations)
2.48 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful to you for allowing me to raise a point of order which arises out of a case involving a constituent, which affects the rights of every right hon. and hon. Member.
Earlier this week the Home Secretary ruled that a relative of one of my constituents should be removed from the country under the Immigration Act 1981. New evidence was provided to me by that person's wife and father-in-law. As a result, I today notified the Home Office that further representations were on their way within the time scale laid down by paragraph 9 of the guidelines that have been debated in the House.
This afternoon, my secretary notified the Home Secretary's Private Office that such representations were on their way. A civil servant in the Home Secretary's Private Office, Miss Pelham, said that she could not accept the representations, nor could she agree to stop the removal of the person, which is timed for Sunday, and so today is the last day on which I can take action.
I spoke to this person and told her that it was not for her, a civil servant, to make a decision which the Secretary of State must make both under the Act and within the guidelines which the Government put before the House for approval. However, this lady was adamant that she would not accept my representations and that she did not regard as "compelling"—the word used in the guidelines—the evidence that I presented on behalf of my constituent. I made it clear to her that I did not regard it as the function of the Minister's Private Office to make adjudications upon the merits of material which the Secretary of State should consider. She refused to budge and said that she would not do that which is required under the guidelines in such circumstances—to put a stop on the removal of the person. I had to advise the lady that my only recourse, because of the time, was to advise the person to ignore the
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notice for removal, since the procedures laid down by the House had not been observed. I also said that I intended to bring the matter before the House.
The case to which I refer involves a constituent, but the guidelines operate for every hon. Member. If constituents are to be penalised when hon. Members are alleged not to have observed the guidelines, and at the same time civil servants, without consultation with Ministers and without accepting representations from Members, ride roughshod over the guidelines, what on earth are the rights of Members of Parliament?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me, but I have allowed the right hon. Gentleman to make his point.
Mr. Max Madden: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that I have drawn similar matters to your attention in the past and you have said that they are not matters for you. Our rights to prevent the removal of our constituents are some of the most important rights held by hon. Members. Knowing your constituency, Mr. Speaker, I imagine that you have exercised your rights in this respect. Under the new guidelines, further representations are accepted only if the evidence is new and compelling, and made within four days. If they are not, the person is removed.
On the basis of the case put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), and of many others, and because the number of people refused entry into the country has increased by more than one third in the last year, I appeal to you to reflect on the matter. We are talking about one of the most important rights of Members of Parliament. The Home Office clearly wishes to remove those rights entirely. I ask you to reconsider the matter, to ensure that our rights are fully protected.
Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I do not have an option to reconsider, because this is not a matter for the Chair. I have allowed these important points to be made, but we must move on.

Petty Officer John Black
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Malone.]
2.54 pm
Mr. Michael Latham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for his presence today. I am raising the distressing case of Petty Officer John Black on behalf of his mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. K. Crane of Melton Mowbray. Both Defence and Foreign Office Ministers have been in correspondence with me about the case and I have asked several private notice questions. I have also had two meetings with Foreign Office Ministers, one accompanied by the parents. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) for his kind and helpful reception of my constituents and myself.
There are a few undisputed facts. Petty Officer Black, who was stationed at the time at HMS Dolphin at Gosport, was in Spain on leave with a friend, Miss Patricia Jeffs, on Christmas eve 1983. On or about Christmas day, he died in the apartment in Sabinillas which Miss Jeffs was renting. On either 26 or 27 December, Miss Jeffs reported to neighbours that Mr. Black was dead. The police came and Miss Jeffs was arrested and held in custody for a time before being released without charge.
Two Spanish pathologists carried out post mortems and an analysis of Mr. Black's blood. His body was brought back to Britain on 11 January 1984 and a post mortem was carried out by a British pathologist, Dr. Peter Puller, who is now dead.
A Spanish judge ruled at. Estepona on 10 May 1984 that death was caused by acute carbon monoxide poisoning, the source of it being unknown. Twelve months later on 22–23 May 1985, an inquest was held at Portsmouth. After hearing testimony, which included evidence from two Spanish pathologists and from Miss Jeffs, the jury reached a majority verdict of unlawful killing.
On 3 December 1985 the British embassy in Madrid presented a formal note to the Spanish Government on the case, and on 30 April 1986 the Spanish Government replied. The gist of their note was that the case had not been closed, but that there was insufficient evidence to accuse anyone of Mr. Black's death. That is how matters stand.
A British submariner, aged 25, a very fit young man, tall and physically strong and an excellent sportsman, has been unlawfully killed. No one has been charged with his murder and justice has not been done. My aim today is to urge the British Government that pressure should be kept on the Spanish in this matter, which has brought immense grief to Mr. and Mrs. Crane.
The case throughout has been the subject of much rumour and speculation. For example, the Daily Express of 24 November 1984 referred to reports that Spanish police had suggested that Mr. Black died because of some work that he had done in Britain involving gaseous substances entering his body.
Other press reports allege that British naval intelligence officers had cleaned the flat before allowing Miss Jeffs to report the death. Gibraltar was said to be full of rumours that she was a spy. The Daily Mirror of 23 May 1985 said that Mr. Black was a member of the crew of HMS Conqueror which sank the Belgrano.
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On 25 May 1985, the Leicester Mercury, which has taken a close and sensitive interest in the case, spoke of the apparent lack of a determined investigation by the Spanish authorities. In letters to me, the Spanish embassy has been formal and courteous, but certainly not over-helpful. An unnamed Spanish detective was quoted by the Leicester Mercury on 30 May 1985 as saying that a major blunder has been made in the case by the Civil Guard.
All attempts by Mrs. Crane's solicitors to retain Spanish lawyers to assist have been unsuccessful. The Cranes felt that they did not get proper help from the Foreign Office when they flew to Spain after hearing of Mr. Black's death and they were unable to see his body. At the British inquest, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Blaker expressed public dissatisfaction with the cooperation that he had received from the Spanish authorities.
Let us deal with the rumours in the hope that we can dispel them. In a letter to me on 6 July 1984, my noble Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, Lord Trefgarne, said:
"There is no truth in the assertion of a cover-up".
He also said that there were
"no security implications in John's tragic death."
Ministers have told me that Mr. Black was based at the shore base of HMS Rooke in Gibraltar throughout the Falklands conflict and that he was on leave from the submarine school HMS Dolphin when he died. It was said at the inquest that he had served on HMS Revenge and HMS Sovereign, two sea-going submarines.
In the interests of getting to the bottom of the rumours, I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary these direct questions. First, was Mr. Black engaged at any time in any intelligence work in Spain or on such work in Gibraltar which took him into Spain?
Secondly, can my hon. Friend comment on the alleged Spanish rumours that Mr. Black had been affected by gaseous substances during his work for the Royal Navy? Miss Jeffs was quoted by the Spanish judge in Estepona during the May 1984 hearing. He reported that
"on one occasion John had told her in confidence that he had suffered from troubles connected with radioactivity on the submarine on which he was serving; but he never told her the whole truth, always maintaining it was secret."
If there is any basis for that claim, it must appear in his naval medical records. What is the true position?
Thirdly, at the British inquest, the Spanish pathologist, Dr. Gonzales, said that the police in Gibraltar refused to give any information to the Spanish police about the five visits that Mr. Black and Miss Jeffs made to Gibraltar between 16 and 24 December. He added:
"This is something that very much surprised the Spanish police and myself. There are many details that have puzzled the police."
In a letter to me dated 16 September 1985, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State wrote:
"There is no evidence to support the Spanish allegations. The Gibraltar police have made a careful check of their records and confirm that they received no approach from the Spanish authorities about this death, nor did they receive arty reports on the case."
As there is no reason why Dr. Gonzales made up this allegation, he must be repeating what the Spanish police told him. What is the truth about this? Was there liaison between the two police forces about this, or not? There must be records about that as well.
Fourthly, did any British intelligence personnel tell Miss Jeffs to keep quiet about the cause of his death or

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clean her flat before she reported his death? Were any British intelligence personnel involved at all? If so, in what capacity? Did any of them visit her flat during the crucial period 25 to 27 December?
Fifthly, in view of the persistent statement of lack of cooperation by the Spanish authorities, are the Government satisfied that the contents of the British diplomatic note have been adequately investigated? The British note contained 60 sheets of annexed paper, including a transcript of the inquest and a detailed commentary of the Cranes' solicitor. The reply that I have seen is fewer than two sides of paper and does not contain anything about the grave issues emerging from the inquest or the commentary. Have the Spanish really investigated this? Do they want to find the truth? Are they co-operating now with the British police?
At the British inquest, the coroner first tried to steer the jury away from an unlawful killing verdict, but it returned one after 25 minutes. I would have done the same on the evidence presented to the court. Chief Inspector Blaker described it as a "most suspicious death".
Without acting as judge and jury, I will now record open testimony given in public at the inquest which merits further investigation.
Miss Jeffs said that on Christmas eve 1983 she and John Black went out for the day and had little to eat and drink. John had had a beefburger and chips and she had had a few chips. However, she told the Spanish police that they went to several bars, had drinks at several of them, returned to her flat at 9 pm, ate some York ham and possibly had a drink or two more. Her friend, Fiona Burke, who bailed her out of jail on 4 January 1984, said that Pat Jeffs had told her that she had drunk a lot. Miss Jeffs denied this at the inquest.
Miss Jeffs' friend, Mr. Tony Taylor, quoted her as saying that they had returned to the flat at about midnight and that both she and Mr. Black felt ill. She had gone to bed and Mr. Black had decided to take a bath. Miss Burke also quoted Miss Jeffs as saying that she felt ill and went to bed. Miss Jeffs did not say that at the inquest. Instead, she said:
"It was my intention to lie down before going out in the evening … John did not complain about feeling unwell."
The Spanish pathologist made several points about Mr. Black. His stomach contained some white beans. In the kitchen there was a small casserole where there were the same white beans. Next, he was in a "contented state" from alcohol but not really drunk. There were also some barbiturates in his body which could have increased the feeling of contentment. Mr. Black's body was found on 27 December in an empty bath with the plug not in place. A streak of blood was coming from his nose. His right arm was on his chest, his left behind his back. However, his hands and feet looked as if he had been in water for some time. The soles of his feet were marked and stained as if he had been walking without any shoes. There was a violent wound to his right shoulder, which could not have been caused by any fall. There were grazes on the front of his body as if done after death. How did those wounds happen?
Mr. Black's body contained an exceedingly high level of carbon monoxide—72 per cent. level in the blood. This carbon monoxide was not accidental. It was not a domestic accident. It could not have been caused by a
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domestic water heater in the flat. He died too quickly for the heater to have been the cause, and the level of carbon monoxide was too high. He absorbed the fatal amount very quickly.
Other points from the inquest also caused concern. There is an unexplained 24 hours. Miss Burke said that she was telephoned in England on 26 or 27 December by a neighbour who told her that John Black was dead and that Pat Jeffs was in gaol. Miss Jeffs said that she went to the neighbour's on 26 December after she had tried to wake John whom she had discovered at about 2 am on Christmas day naked in the bath. She was suffering from diarrhoea and could not walk. She was feeling ill. She had not been unconscious for 48 hours. The police and pathologists went to the flat on 27 December. The pathologists found some air fresheners placed in each room. Who put them there? Did anyone enter the flat between Miss Jeffs going to bed at 9 pm on Christmas eve, waking at 2 am on Christmas day and allegedly discovering Mr. Black in the bath, and the arrival of the police on 27 December? Who was it and why? The pathologists said that there was diarrhoea in the flat when they arrived and that it had been scrubbed. By whom?
Miss Jeffs had some significant injuries. She had bruises on her left foot, left and right knees, round her genitals and buttocks, on both hips and elsewhere. The Spanish pathologists said that such wounds came from some sort of violent action. They did not correspond with any simple fall. Miss Jeffs said that she felt paralysed, kept stumbling about, dragging herself around and falling over. Fiona Burke quoted Miss Jeffs as saying that while she was ill she fell out of bed on to the floor, causing injuries to her right hip and leg which caused her to limp. It is not easy to reconcile those two sets of testimony by the medical experts and Miss Jeffs. One wonders if all the relevant details have come to light.
I have deliberately concentrated on matters in the public domain, stated in court, and available to anyone who had read a transcript or press reports of the inquest. It is entirely fair to say that Miss Jeffs attended the inquest, gave lengthy evidence and that the British police described her as "very co-operative". Other people whose testimony was read out in court did not attend because they were abroad. The coroner drew public attention to the fact that the agent involved in selling a flat in Spain to Mr. Black, Lieutenant Commander (retired) L. Ayling, who operates from Gibraltar, had declined to make a statement or to come to the inquest. Therefore, not all the possible testimony is available, nor has it been subjected to cross-examination.
Obviously there are major inconsistencies and grave features in this case. I have not dealt with all of them, only the more notable ones.
I wish to return to the crucial aspect. A capable, fit and promising young British submariner has been dead for two and a half years. He died in Spain, suddenly and suspiciously. A British jury has found that he was unlawfully killed—that is, either murdered or as a result of manslaughter. Medical experts say that he died suddenly of a massive dose of carbon monoxide poisoning. That alone should surely have galvanised the Ministry of Defence. Why has it not been constantly demanding action to discover the killer or killers of one of its service men and to bring the person or persons to justice? Should they not have been at the forefront of those demanding action?

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Why has it been left to the Leicester Mercury, to me, to the Foreign Office and, above all, to Mr. Black's grieving mother to demand action and the truth?
None of us can accept that the Spanish authorities have done enough to bring the guilty to justice. Nor can we be happy that the British Government have acted sufficiently speedily or energetically. It is most distressing to hear statements from our police that the Spanish police have been unco-operative. It is disappointing that initially I had to approach the British Legion and other service charities to try to get money to pay for the transcript of the British inquest to be translated into Spanish, until the Ministry of Defence finally agreed to pay the £800 or so. It is also deeply regrettable that the Cranes have had to spend a lot of money, which they can ill afford, on legal help to find out how their son died.
British Ministers should tell the Spanish Government, now our NATO and EEC ally, that they have not done anything like enough. We cannot accept their brief diplomatic response. They should leave no stone unturned to bring the case to a proper conclusion. The Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office should offer all facilities and information to help them in their task. My hon. Friend, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, must have a deep interest in the welfare of British service men and their families. I look to him to reply positively today.
3.9 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Roger Freeman): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) who has raised the subject of the tragic death of Petty Officer John Black, Royal Navy, in Spain in December 1983. My hon. Friend has been diligent and thorough in his examination of this sad case, and I am glad that he has brought this matter to the House for debate today on behalf of his constituents. I can assure him that, although I come new to this matter, it will have my close and continuing attention. May I also tell my hon. Friend that I appreciate the deep anguish felt by Petty Officer Black's mother, Mrs. Crane, over the death of her son. I join my ministerial colleagues and my predecessor in conveying our deep condolences to her.
I want to be as helpful as I can to my hon. Friend, and perhaps I should deal first with Petty Officer Black's naval duties and responsibilities, and then with the Spanish legal proceedings concerning the investigation of his death. My hon. Friend has raised many detailed points and I shall read the Official Report with great care. I shall write to my hon. Friend on the matters that I do not cover in my speech.
I should like, first, to deal with Petty Officer Black's naval responsibilities. He served in the Navy for some seven years, joining at the age of 18. He had a normal career and served for much of that time as a rating in the submarine service. On 26 April 1982 he had a routine posting to HMS Rooke at Gibraltar as a leading seaman. He left on 19 July 1983, after serving there for about 15 months, to go as a matter of normal career development to HMS Dolphin at Gosport to complete a course as a petty officer. Petty Officer Black returned to Spain on leave at Christmas 1983 while still serving with HMS Dolphin at Gosport.
In response to some of the major points raised by my hon. Friend about Petty Officer Black's naval career and
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responsibilities, I should like to state first, in relation to his medical fitness, that I confirm that he served in Her Majesty's submarines in the normal course of his duties. When he went to Gibraltar in April 1982, he was perfectly fit and well.
Secondly, Petty Officer Black was in Gibraltar, as I have said, from April 1982 to July 1983 and he was not involved in the Falklands campaign. His period of service in Gibraltar, as the House will appreciate, covered the period of the Falklands campaign.
Thirdly, in relation to his work in Gibraltar, I can tell the House that he was involved in the collation of classified information at HMS Rooke, but no more than any other rating of his rank or branch would be expected to do. During his posting to Gibraltar he qualified as a petty officer and performed all his duties well. I wish to emphasise, as my predecessor the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces stated in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton on 6 July 1984, that there was nothing out of the ordinary about Petty Officer Black's work. The one sentence in that letter which may be relevant states:
"I assure you and the parents that there is no truth in the assertion of a 'cover-up' and that there are no security implications in John's tragic death."
I re-emphasise and underline that point.
My fourth point concerns Lieutenant Commander Ayling, a retired naval officer. Lieutenant Commander Ayling is an estate agent in Spain and was involved with Petty Officer Black simply because Petty Officer Black wanted to buy a flat. Miss Jeffs, with whom he was staying on Christmas leave, was already renting a flat in the same locality and the police used Lieutenant Commander Ayling and his Spanish wife, who were well known local residents, in their interviews with Miss Jeffs.
The Navy did not know about the death of Petty Officer Black until 27 December, that is to say, until after the police began investigating the death. I can tell my hon. Friend that no Navy or Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials have ever been in the apartment in which Petty Officer Black was found dead.
Secondly, let me deal with the other aspect of my hon. Friend's speech and the points that he raised about the proceedings in Spain and the inquest procedure in Spain and in Portsmouth. My hon. Friend said that, following the initial investigation by the police, Spanish pathologists gave as their opinion to the judge involved in the case that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning from a source or sources unknown. The judge in charge of the case, who is an obviously independent judicial authority, decided that there was no one to be accused in this case and therefore no proceedings were commenced against any party or parties concerning the sad death of Petty Officer Black.
At the British inquest held in Portsmouth, we know that the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, as my hon. Friend said, and that the Spanish pathologists—the same pathologists—gave further evidence. The Ministry of Defence paid for the translation of the inquest verdict and proceedings, and that was sent to the Spanish judge. He concluded that no new evidence had been presented concerning the case. Therefore, the position as far as the Spanish authorities are concerned is that the case is still open and will be looked at again if new evidence is presented by the Spanish police authorities or, indeed, by private proceedings initiated by the family of Petty Officer

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Black, with new evidence to produce. It is only on the basis of new evidence being presented that further proceedings can be pursued.
Let me deal, in response to my hon. Friend's speech this afternoon, with what the Ministry of Defence can do to assist my hon. Friend's constituents. First, the Ministry of Defence will answer in detail, and as comprehensively as we can, any questions that my hon. Friend cares to put to us. As I have said already, I and my officials will study the Official Report of this afternoon's proceedings with great care, and I also know that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will ensure that any new evidence available to us will be presented to the appropriate Spanish authorities.
In specific response to my hon. Friend's submission this afternoon, I have today instructed officials at my Ministry to review all the documents again afresh to see whether there is any new evidence that could be brought to the attention of the Spanish authorities. That review, coupled
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with any new evidence that can be brought by my hon. Friend on behalf of the family, or submitted directly by the family or their legal representatives, will enable us to decide whether there is fresh evidence that can and should be presented to the Spanish authorities. I can assure my hon. Friend that, if that is the case, that evidence will be presented promptly and properly.
However, I must tell my hon. Friend that this matter is one for the Spanish authorities to decide whether it is to be pursued further and charges brought. I am sure that he will accept that. The Spanish judiciary is an independent authority, and it is for it to decide, on the basis of fresh evidence produced, whether to take the matter further.
This is a sad case, and I repeat what I said at the outset. I regret the tragic death of Petty Officer Black and ask my hon. Friend to convey to Mrs. Crane, Petty Officer Black's mother, our sorrow and understanding in this matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Three o'clock.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Gordon School, Gravesend
  Gordon School, Gravesend
  Colleges and Universities
  Colleges and Universities
  Teachers (Minority Groups)
  Teachers (Minority Groups)
  Teachers (Departmental Staff)
  Teachers (Departmental Staff)
  West Midlands (Science Teaching)
  West Midlands (Science Teaching)
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Uganda
  Uganda
  Africa
  Africa
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Regional Development Grant
  Regional Development Grant
  Regional Development Programme
  Regional Development Programme
  Leyland Bus
  Leyland Bus
PRIME MINISTER
  European Court
  European Court
  Legal Aid Funding
  Legal Aid Funding
SCOTLAND
  Dairy Farms (Rates)
  Dairy Farms (Rates)
  Chernobyl Accident
  Chernobyl Accident
  Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital
  Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital
  Leukaemia
  Leukaemia
  Sheep Thyroids
  Sheep Thyroids
  Fishing Vessels
  Fishing Vessels
WALES
  Welsh Language
  Welsh Language
  Radioactivity
  Radioactivity
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Street Names
  Street Names
  Newry-Warrenpoint Road (Detonator)
  Newry-Warrenpoint Road (Detonator)
ENERGY
  Coal Industry (Mine Developments)
  Coal Industry (Mine Developments)
  Council of Energy Ministers
  Council of Energy Ministers
THE ARTS
  Export of Works of Art
  Export of Works of Art
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Value Added Tax
  Value Added Tax
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  European Commission
  European Commission
  Polish-German Border
  Polish-German Border
  Law of the Sea Treaty
  Law of the Sea Treaty
  Falkland Islands (Penguins)
  Falkland Islands (Penguins)
  Diplomatic Missions (Parking Fines)
  Diplomatic Missions (Parking Fines)
TRANSPORT
  M1 Hemel Hempstead
  M1 Hemel Hempstead
  M11 (Slip Roads)
  M11 (Slip Roads)
  Driving Tests
  Driving Tests
  Woolwich Ferry
  Woolwich Ferry
  Wheelclamping
  Wheelclamping
  M4 (Safety Barrier)
  M4 (Safety Barrier)
EMPLOYMENT
  Manpower Services Commission
  Manpower Services Commission
  Skillcentres
  Skillcentres
  Jobcentres
  Jobcentres
  Manufacturing (North-West)
  Manufacturing (North-West)
  Labour Statistics
  Labour Statistics
  Job Creation
  Job Creation
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Low Newton Remand Centre
  Low Newton Remand Centre
  Wales (Police Vehicles)
  Wales (Police Vehicles)
  Prisoners (Welsh Language)
  Prisoners (Welsh Language)
  Police (Welsh Language)
  Police (Welsh Language)
  Probation Service (North Wales)
  Probation Service (North Wales)
  Marches (Bans)
  Marches (Bans)
  Wales (Bilingual Passport Form)
  Wales (Bilingual Passport Form)
  Immigration
  Immigration
  Wormwood Scrubs
  Wormwood Scrubs
  Young Prisoners (Violence)
  Young Prisoners (Violence)
  Probation and Community Service
  Probation and Community Service
  Prisons (Visits)
  Prisons (Visits)
  Hippie Convoy
  Hippie Convoy
ENVIRONMENT
  Right to Repair Scheme (Bradford)
  Right to Repair Scheme (Bradford)
  Defective Housing (Grants)
  Defective Housing (Grants)
  Warren Spring Laboratory (Contracts)
  Warren Spring Laboratory (Contracts)
  Nuclear Waste
  Nuclear Waste
  British Waterways Board
  British Waterways Board
  Birlsbury Wood
  Birlsbury Wood
  Water Authorities (Privatisation)
  Water Authorities (Privatisation)
  London Wildlife Trust
  London Wildlife Trust
  Conference Centre, Westminster
  Conference Centre, Westminster
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Equine Census
  Equine Census
  Radiation
  Radiation
  Entry and Search Powers
  Entry and Search Powers
  Sheep (Movement)
  Sheep (Movement)
  Radiation (Livestock Losses)
  Radiation (Livestock Losses)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Retardation and Autism
  Retardation and Autism
  Contraception
  Contraception
  Census (Welsh Language)
  Census (Welsh Language)
  Departmental Publications (Welsh Language)
  Departmental Publications (Welsh Language)
  Home Helps
  Home Helps
  New Hospitals
  New Hospitals
  NHS (Private Patients)
  NHS (Private Patients)
  EC Nationals (Social Security)
  EC Nationals (Social Security)
  Dr. Issac Brave (Nursing Homes)
  Dr. Issac Brave (Nursing Homes)
  Alvada Kooken
  Alvada Kooken
  Broadmoor Hospital
  Broadmoor Hospital
  NHS Training Authority
  NHS Training Authority
DEFENCE
  Royal Yacht Britannia
  Royal Yacht Britannia
  Arms Exports
  Arms Exports
  Dr. Kurt Waldheim
  Dr. Kurt Waldheim
  Frigate Sales (Pakistan)
  Frigate Sales (Pakistan)

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Albans.

European Commission Information Office: Director
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what contacts they have had with the European Commissioners with regard to the post of Director of the Commission Information Office in London.
The Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (Baroness Young): My Lords, decisions about staff changes at Commission offices are for the Commission. The Government have neither sought to intervene with the Commission in decisions to make changes in the staff of the London information office nor expressed views on potential candidates.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that the Government have some responsibility for ensuring in relation to this post that the proper procedures of job application are gone through? Are the Government satisfied that the Commission has taken the right course?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the Government regard such an appointment as the one in question as a matter for the Commission alone. We have not offered support for any individual candidate and will not do so. We have no reason for thinking that all proper procedures have not been gone through in the Commission in the appointment of a candidate for this post.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, while one understands not wanting to interfere with the domestic arrangements of the commission, the Government ought to be interested up to the point of seeing that the nationality balance is kept; for that is not always the case in all of the Commission appointments, or, at least, it does not appear to be so.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I cannot comment on what may have happened in other appointments by the Commission, but on this particular appointment, as I indicated in my original Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, it is a matter for the Commission; and it is a matter for the Commission why it chooses to move its staff. I would add one further point for the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, and your Lordships: that it is for the Commission to decide what this particular individual does next. But I can assure your Lordships that we shall be concerned that he, like
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any other British subject in Community service, should be treated fairly.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware how important it is that whoever gets this important job does a good job of work and sends out some decent information about the Common Market; because up to now we have not had any?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I note the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mellish. I have no doubt that the Commission offices will note it, too.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, could the noble Baroness at any rate inform us as to whether the post was advertised externally and whether it was known among those who might have been qualified that the post was available? Can she say whether the advertisement was distributed nationally so that people of whatever part of the United Kingdom would know about it? It is a very important appointment.
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I understand it, the position was first advertised internally in the Commission in accordance with normal Commission rules. It was advertised in several national newspapers—the Guardian on 7th May and The Times on 15th May. The closing date for applications was 26th May. No appointment has yet been made.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that some of us are rather puzzled by this episode? As far as many of us are concerned, there is no vacancy for this appointment, given the fact that Mr. Scott still holds this office and, so far as any of us are aware, has not been dismissed. That being so, may I ask her whether she is aware that Mr. Scott is known by many of us as a person who treats people of different political parties with scrupulous fairness? May I also ask her whether she is aware that many of us who have known him for a number of years know him to be a man of outstanding ability and integrity? Is she aware that there are most disturbing reports that the reason he is being forced out of this job is exclusively political? In that situation, is she not aware that many of us would regard such an outcome as deeply discreditable to those concerned?
Baroness Young: My Lords, first of all, I think that I should like to confirm what I said at the beginning: that in the case of Mr. Scott the decision to move him is a decision for the Commission. I am aware of the report that appeared in the Observer newspaper but I should like to make it absolutely clear that there is no substance at all in the allegations that have been made; that the question of the appointment is one for the Commission, as I have said, and, as he will be aware, that it has been made quite plain in the exchange of correspondence between my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary and the honourable Member, Mr. Steele, that the British Government have not intervened in any way in this appointment, which is properly a matter for the Commission alone.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the reference in one of her replies to the

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acceptance by the Government of responsibility for the welfare of British citizens employed by the Commission has been noted and also her assurance that the Government will continue looking at this from that point of view? Is she aware that that part of her answers, at least, is satisfactory?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can give that part of the answer satisfactorily because it could be construed as something which we properly should look at. But I want to make it absolutely clear that the appointment of people to Commission posts is the responsibility of the Commission: it is not a responsibility of the British Government.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness this question: would a Member of your Lordships' House with long newspaper and dissemination of information experience be eligible for this post?
Baroness Young: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, is thinking of applying for the job, I am sure that, although it may be rather late in the day now, his application will be noted by the Commission.

Environmental Improvement Initiative
11.14 a.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what will be the role of existing environmental organisations in the new initiative associated with the name of Mr. Richard Branson.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environ-ment (Lord Elton): My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced on Friday, 20th June, he has invited a number of established voluntary organisations to act as agents in launching and running an environmental improvement initiative. He has promised a full statement in July when these arrangements have been completed.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the existing environmental organisations have done an excellent job within limited resources, and could have done more had more resources been available? Would he therefore indicate whether under this new initiative such additional resources will be made available to them?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am glad to acknowledge the very good work done by a number of organisations in this field. Details of the funding, as of everything else, will be be given in the July statement. I can say now that it is hoped that 5,000 MSC community programme places can be filled and that there will be some DoE resources available in addition to that.

Northern Ireland: Co-operative Education Unit
11.16 a.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ensure that resources are found to enable the Co-operative Education Research and Training Unit of the University of Ulster to sustain its work in stimulating the growth of new co-operatives in Northern Ireland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are not aware that the Co-operative Education Research and Training Unit is facing particular problems in relation to the resources needed to carry on its work. An application for support from European Community funds for the work of the Northern Ireland Small Business Institute, of which the Co-operative Education Research and Training Unit forms part, is being pursued.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I am grateful for that reply? May I first of all ask the noble Lord to join me in expressing appreciation of the initiative taken by the University of Ulster for blazing a trail and establishing a unit of this kind? May I also pay a particular tribute to the Department of Economic Development and its chairman, Mr. Paddy Devlin, for encouraging the formation of credit co-operatives like the ones at Derry and Ballycastle and consumer corps like those at Galleagh and Glencairn and also the Belfast unemployed centre?
Will the Minister also take on board that although there is an excellent co-operative college at Loughborough, the Province is very far removed from there? Will he also accept that there is a real need for the kind of unit we are discussing to be able to provide the expertise and practical advice in the Province to those men and women who can take advantage of it?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I shall certainly pass on the encomia which have been set forth by the noble Lord, Lord Graham. Above all, I am very grateful for the tribute to the Department of Economic Development.
The noble Lord mentioned Mr. Paddy Devlin. So far as I am aware, that gentleman is chairman of the Northern Ireland Co-operative Development Agency, which I understand has also been very successful in this field. The noble Lord is, I understand, quite right in saying that the Northern Ireland Small Business Institute is unique in the United Kingdom. It is also a very small and lean organisation with, I understand, a staff of 10 or 12 persons. As the noble Lord has pointed out, we believe that it provides outstanding value. I would reiterate what I said earlier, that we are doing all we can to see that European Community funds will be available for the Northern Ireland Small Business Institute, which is the umbrella organisation for the CERTU.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, may I reinforce the concern that has been expressed by my noble friend Lord Graham and tell him that there are rumours circulating at the moment that the present level of expenditure may be curtailed in the future and that there is no guarantee that European Community funds will be available to help in the continuation of this most laudable programme? In the event of European Community money not being made available, will the noble Lord give an undertaking on behalf of the Government that they will keep funding this programme because co-operation in any sense of the word can only be welcomed in Northern Ireland?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, the expenditure of block grants and recurrent funds in universities is a matter for the university concerned; but I would stress that the University of Ulster for the 1986–87 academic year will have a recurrent grant of £27·6 million—a five per cent. increase on the block grant for this year. Of course we will take on board the points raised by the noble Lord, and I am sure the University of Ulster will do likewise.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am indeed grateful for the supplementary answers that the Minister has given. May I say he has made it quite clear that he shares my conviction that co-operation is better than confrontation, not least in the context of Northern Ireland. May I ask whether he would ensure that this support for that concept, and also for the work that is being done by the unit, is reflected and made known to the various forums considering its future?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I will certainly pass on the noble Lord's words and I am sure that my honourable friend who is responsible for these matters in Northern Ireland will take close account of everything that has been said in your Lordships' House this morning, together with the words of praise and encomium.

Serpentine Lido
11.20 a.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, before the Serpentine Lido was closed to the public on health grounds, any attempt was made either to aerate the northern inflow, which smells strongly of hydrogen sulphide, or to remove the dead ducks and rats currently putrefying in the water.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for drawing my attention to this matter. I have visited the northern end of the Longwater and agree that the conditions there are offensive. I have accordingly directed the staff of the royal parks to remove the debris at least once a week. But I am afraid this will not get rid of the disagreeable smell, because that is caused by the water becoming starved of oxygen
532
when it stagnates in that corner of the lake. Various attempts to cure that have failed over the years, but we are now working on a new means of circulating the water and will shortly be using it experimentally. Even if it is perfectly successful, it will not render the untreated water fit to swim in at the lido.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that most informative and helpful Answer, delivered in the gentle spirit of the nanny state. May I ask him why people should not be allowed to bathe where they want to, subject to a suitable warning that there may be a health hazard?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think the noble Earl wishes to ask me why, if we switch off the chlorinating plant people should not swim in the water which would remain untreated. I am advised by the government chemist, who carries out regular sampling of the water, that swimming in contaminated water such as the unchlorinated water in the Serpentine would be, could put the swimmer at risk of contracting salmonellosis or shigellosis, which causes stomach upsets or, at worst typhoid, amoebic dysentery, poliomyelitis and infective hepatitis, as well as minor complaints such as sore throats.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate what a great amenity this has been for the people of London over decades? Some of us are young enough to remember how excited we were when that great man, George Lansbury, first had the idea of opening the lido for swimming. Can the noble Lord tell me whether this is a recent event and whether it is a question of a shortage of money? The earlier this great amenity is put back into public use, the more pleased the people of London will be.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it is the opinion of the Health and Safety Executive that the use of chlorination at the site by means of chlorine gas can never be safe or satisfactory. I was advised that the storage of six tonnes of the gas, which is highly toxic, on the site inevitably meant that there was a risk to the public if a leak should take place. Your Lordships will agree, I think, that that was not an acceptable risk.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend telling us that the lido will never be reopened? If so, is he aware that many of us on this side will share the regrets of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, at the permanent elimination of what has been quite a feature of London life?
Lord Elton: No, my Lords. I should have said that I view this matter in entirely the same light as noble Lords on both sides of the House. The tradition started by Lansbury is one which we wish to preserve, but not at the cost of possible fatalities. We are therefore examining alternative ways of doing this. I commissioned urgent work. There are two different chemical systems and I hope to have within the next month or so a report which will enable us to put in a new and safe method of disinfecting the water. I should mention that it is not all that easy, because it is not a compound. It is the whole water of the Serpentine that

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is potentially affected, and we must find a means of doing this which is safe to the flora and fauna, including the ducks, as well as the swimmers.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us how many people, if any, have died as a result of swimming in the Serpentine?
Lord Elton: My Lords, there was one sad fatality of a child last year and one the year before. It was because of that that I called in the Health and Safety Executive to have a look at the place, and that is where the story started.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the Serpentine Lido is not the only place where dead ducks are raised?
Lord Elton: Yes, my Lords, I think I would have to agree.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, if the problem is one of aeration, do the Government not have a sufficient supply of hot air that they can bubble through the Serpentine?
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I appreciate the answers which the noble Lord has given, but I do not think he answered part of my supplementary question. How recent is it that this problem has come to light, and were there any reasons why the problem was not tackled when it first arose, because the lido had continued very successfully for quite a few decades?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I was first advised that there was a risk from chlorination in the later stages of last year. Being familiar with chlorination on a large scale in private and public practice, I asked for that risk to be evaluated. It was not until April, when it was made clear to me that even if it continued there would have to be massive emergency service arrangements in case of a leak, that it appeared to me that it was quite unacceptable to expose the public to that risk. So the actual clarification is very recent.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the Minister did not really reply to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who asked him a straight question: is it the intention to keep the lido closed permanently? I want an answer to that. Secondly, is it not remarkable that in this day and age, when we can talk about sending people to the moon and do all kinds of wonderful things, we cannot clean up the lido?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I thought that I had answered the question. I am having an early report made, and once it is made we shall get the place open as soon as we can get the kit in place. As to the order in which society puts its priorities for the use of technology, I do not think that is for my department.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, as a possible alternative, would the noble Lord consider that the River Thames is now clean enough for such recreational purposes?
A noble Lord: Be careful.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think the answer is: be careful.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, will the noble Lord, in following this up, bear in mind that by using nothing more sophisticated than the air we breathe we can purify sewage so that we can drink it?
Lord Elton: My Lords, that is something I should prefer not to recall in your Lordships' bar.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, would it not be possible to run out all the existing water that is in the lake and fill it with fresh water?
Lord Elton: My Lords, that would take so long that when the lake was filled the water would not be particularly fresh. We are trying to have a method of circulation and aeration, such as is now coming into effective use in St. James's Park, so that everybody can enjoy the amenity permanently.

Dockyard Services Bill
11.27 a.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [Transfer of persons engaged in dockyard services]:
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I think I must say to the House that I am advised that if Amendment No. 1 is agreed to, Amendment No. 2 cannot be called.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, leave out lines 3 to 12 and insert ("make arrangements—

(a) for a company to provide designated dockyard services at the dockyard under contract with him, and

(b) for that or another company—

(i) to become the employer of such of the qualified dockyard service employees at the dockyard as are employees to whom the arrangements apply, and

(ii) to acquire from him rights in or over the dockyard or any part of it and any property used for the purposes of the dockyard undertaking,

with a view to their services and that property being made available for the provision of the designated dockyard services at the dockyard,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 1, and I should like at the same time to speak to Amendments Nos. 7, 9, 10 and 13.
Your Lordships will recall that in Committee we discussed, in the context of amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, the question of the company structure of the two dockyards from April 1987. As your Lordships know, the Bill as presently drafted would allow my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to decide whether there should be one company at each dockyard both contracting and employing, or two companies, one contracting and one employing, or a government-owned plc. The noble and learned Lord accepted that for reasons of national security the physical

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assets—that is, the dockyard land, buildings and plant—should remain in government ownership but was concerned that under the proposed two-company option one company would have the licence to use the assets while the other did nothing more than employ the workforce.
As some of your Lordships may recall, I undertook to consider what the noble and learned Lord said, to discuss further with him the one-company and two-company concepts and, as necessary, to introduce amendments at Report stage. I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and to my noble friends Lady Vickers, Lord Ashbourne and Lord Beloff for discussing this with me earlier this week.
As I explained in some detail at that meeting, we foresaw significant difficulties in a one-company structure at the end of a term contract. We need to separate the liabilities which should properly fall to the first contractor from the dockyard company itself which would be taken over by the next contractor. Your Lordships will I hope agree that the Government must do whatever we can to avoid accepting liabilities which should properly fall elsewhere. I do not say that the one company structure would be unworkable and I believe that the Bill should not rule out the possibility which I know a number of your Lordships favour, but the difficulties are very real.
While I do not, as he knows, share the worries of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, on the two-company structure, I was most grateful to him for explaining his reservations to me, and I have carefully considered his views and those expressed by other noble Lords in Committee. The amendments which I have introduced provide for an alternative corporate structure which is acceptable to the Government, and I hope to the noble and learned Lord and his friends.
In essence, if the two-company structure is introduced at each dockyard the amendments will mean that the dockyard company would have in it not only the dockyard workforce but also the licence to use the dockyards' assets for the period of the term licence. The terms of that licence would of course have to be negotiated in advance with the managing company, selected by competition but when, on vesting day the Ministry of Defence places the term contract for the provision of services with the managing company we would place a licence to use dockyard land and assets with the dockyard company containing the workforce. The dockyard company would pass into the ownership of the managing company for the duration of the term contract.
I understand the strength of feeling that existed on this issue in your Lordships' Chamber when we met in Committee. I believe that the amendments which I have tabled go much, if not all, of the way to meeting concerns which were expressed. I beg to move.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for the amendments which he has put forward. Your Lordships may remember that I took legal objection to the Bill as it was originally framed because it was proposing a company structure by which one company would take a licence to have the assets of the dockyards and another company
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would employ the workforce. In my judgment, in point of law that separation was legally impossible.
I drew the analogy of bees and a hive. You can transfer them both together but you cannot transfer the bees separately from the hive. Now, as a result of that legal objection—and I appreciate that it has taken quite a long time with all the advisers of the Ministry—I am glad to say that by these amendments they have succeeded in ensuring that if a company takes over the management and control of the dockyard, one company—I do not say which it is at the moment—will have both the licence to use the assets and will also employ the workforce. I am most grateful to the Minister for overcoming my legal objections.
Before we get on to the other amendments, I shall say rather more because this concerns the Bill itself and its drafting. I complained at Second Reading how obscure it was and how difficult it was to understand. I could not myself understand it until I had gone through the stacks of papers which were lodged in the Library of Your Lordships' House. After much study I understood the Bill. But is that the right way to legislate? I have often said both outside the House and in it that when a Bill is presented to Parliament it should be presented in such a form that it is clearly understandable by all the Members of your Lordships' House and of the other place so that they can really understand what they are passing into law. I regard that as a fundamental principle of legislation. If I may do so, I shall add a word to it. It should be clearly understandable not only by the Members of both Houses of Parliament, but also by the judges of England if they have to consider it. How often I as a judge have complained, "How obscure this section is… can't understand it"! I have often been tempted to ignore a section of an Act of Parliament which is meaningless on that ground.
Those are my fundamental principles regarding legislation. The words of the Bill should be clearly understandable by the Members of both Houses and indeed by the judges if they have to come to consider it. Does this Bill satisfy those conditions? Did it when brought before the House? I could not understand it until I had studied in the Library all the words. I did not understand the amendments until they were explained at the valuable meeting between the Minister and some of the rest of us. Now I think I begin to understand; and my understanding has been added to by the explanation today of my noble friend the Minister.
I have to say this, though: if this Bill or the Act when it is passed ever comes before the judges of England, they will not have any access to the papers which were in the Library; they will not have any access to the meetings between the Minister and the rest of us; they will not be able to have any access to Hansard, although I have suggested from time to time as Master of the Rolls that the courts should have access to Hansard in order to see what assurance a Minister gave or what explanation a Minister gave. The House of Lords ruled completely that the judges of England are not allowed to have any access to what is said in your Lordships' House or in the other place. So if this Bill ever becomes before the judges of England to consider they will not have any access to all those sources of information. They will have to go by the Bill

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as it stands. I can hear their complaints coming forward: "Gracious, are we expected to understand this? I will not go through some of these sections; they are too complicated". We have often made fun of it. It is difficult to understand these section unless you are a trained lawyer and even then it would be very difficult indeed.
So I cannot do it. I cannot give a preamble to the Act in the same way as the European legislators will do. They have a valuable way of legislating over in Europe. They start off—and you will see it in the directives—with a series of recitals which explain to everyone what mischief is being aimed at and what remedy is proposed. So for the instruction of your Lordships and for the guidance of the rest of the amendments which will go forward, I have framed my own series of recitals so as to tell your Lordships what we are about.
If I were permitted to draft a recital this is how it would run:
"Whereas the present system of running the Royal Dockyard at Devonport has led to waste of money and inefficiency in operation, and it is necessary for the system to be changed;
And whereas it is desirable that this should be effected by putting the dockyard under commercial management to be run on commercial lines by a company formed under the Companies Act 1985;
And whereas it is a cardinal principle that, having regard to the essential security interests of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, such company shall be and at all times remain under United Kingdom control;
And whereas the workforce cannot be transferred without their consent from the service of the Crown to the service of any such company unless by Act of Parliament.
Now it is hereby enacted as follows:".
If that was set out as a recital to the Bill, I believe it would be intelligible. One would be able to see exactly what was being aimed at. One sees the mischief. The mischief is that the dockyard is most wasteful and inefficient at the moment. One sees that that must be changed. One sees that change must be effected, and that one must make a good and sensible proposal for change that will be acceptable. I have taken those very words from one of the documents in the case. Essential national security demands that the dockyards should be completely under United Kingdom control. It is essential for the national security and in the interests of the fleet that the dockyards should be maintained and safeguarded.
I shall not say more on this amendment, except that I wish we could have had a recital of the kind I have suggested, which could have led the way in. As it is, I am most grateful that we have the amendments as they are. But if there were to be a recital such as I have suggested, I believe that the Bill would be intelligible. However, I do not oppose the amendments in the least.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I wish to express my thanks to my noble friend the Minister for all the trouble that he has taken and for the many meetings he has held with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and myself. However, I remain concerned that the Government have still not decided whether or not to press ahead with their agency management plans or to opt for my preference for a government-owned public limited company.
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I understand that a decision will be taken during evaluation of the bids, and perhaps the Minister will tell the House how many companies have now entered bids, and how many remain; because we know that some companies put in bids but pulled out when it came time to apply. Unless I am mistaken, I understand that the evaluation of bids will take place in August and September, and I hope that the Government will then give consideration to the strategic benefits of the scheme, which command a great deal of support both inside and outside this House.
I also welcome the Government's amendments, which are a result of the many meetings that the Minister kindly held with the noble and learned Lord and myself. I hope that they will help to allay the fears that have developed as to the legality of the scheme. Now that the noble and learned Lord has spoken again, I hope that the Minister will be able to put his fears at rest. I feel sure that the House would like to support me in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who has done very hard work. He even paid a visit to the dockyards himself, and I hope that his work on the legal issue will help in the success of this scheme for the Government.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the statement made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that he could not understand the Bill, that he had to spend long hours in the Library, and that even after doing that he still could not understand the Bill, is balm to the souls of those of us who are not lawyers, distinguished judges or experts. As I read the Bill, I found it to be further confirmation of the impact of age on my intellectual abilities.
I now find that the Minister has put down an amendment that is very much clearer in its language than other parts of the Bill. He had cleared it with his noble friends and with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but he has not really explained its practical implications to the House. I wish that the Minister would unbend a little and adjust his intellectual level to those of us who have not attended the meetings and briefings that have been mentioned, and who have not received legal advice. I myself do not understand the practical implications of the Minister's amendment. I shall study it, and on Third Reading I will make an eloquent speech for or against it. From time to time, the noble Lord the Minister must help those of us who have been struggling with great difficulty with this extremely obscure and incomprehensible Bill.
11.45 a.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I take up the point made by those who have been privy to the many meetings that the noble Baroness said have taken place, but which have clearly excluded people like myself who speak for the Labour Opposition. Apparently consultations have taken place with a selected group of individuals, perhaps representing a selected group of views on this Bill. I make no complaint about that, because from time to time we are all excluded for one purpose or another. No doubt the Minister will reply to that point.

539
Those who have been privy to those discussions, such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, are satisfied that the Minister has done his best. The wording is not perfect but is better than it was. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is satisfied, then that goes a long way, because at least I can say on behalf of the workforce that they are indeed grateful for the interest that the noble and learned Lord has taken in their welfare. Not only is that so in respect of getting the Bill right, and of national security, but the workforce has also appreciated the purport.
I remind the Minister that all this started from the basis of the welfare and interests of the employees. According to the arrangement in Clause 1(4),
"The Transfer of Undertakings"—
that is, the TUPE '81 regulations—
"shall apply to the transfer of the dockyard undertaking or any part of it whether or not, apart from this provision, the undertaking would be treated as an undertaking",
etc. The problem facing the noble and learned Lord was that the transfer of the employees could not be done as part of a package deal. There had to be another form of words.
I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, that the Minister has produced a form of words that is apparently satisfactory. However, I have no knowledge that the Minister has consulted the employees or the trade unions. Of course national security and the future of the dockyards is involved, but I am talking about people's jobs and their professional future. There is a great deal of concern, which I shall describe when we reach later amendments. Therefore, the Minister ought not to feel too satisfied that he has done his best. He may have done his best so far as the Bill is concerned and so far as the national interest is concerned, and I would not dispute that. He has certainly done what he undertook to do at the last meeting, which was to find a better solution. But the Minister has certainly not consulted as widely as the House may have been led to believe.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, pointed out the difficulties of the Bill as orginally, and even now, drafted. Imagine employees and councillors in Rosyth and Plymouth trying to understand the Bill without the background. The noble and learned Lord said that he wants to see Bills made much clearer in the future. I am sure that would put a great many lawyers out of business, because the greatest beneficiaries in this growth industry are those who sell their services for the better clarification of that which any government have done in a Bill of this kind.
I am not in a position to do other than accept that, according to those who understand these matters better than we do, this a better form or words. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, has said, there is still yet another stage of the Bill. I shall listen very carefully, not only the Minister's comments in the next few minutes but also to people outside this House, who can tell us whether this amendment represents any improvement on the previous drafting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, was moved to ask questions on precisely what is the raison d'être of the Bill in the context of the Government's intentions.
540
How do the Government intend to proceed? That is one of the great mysteries. Personally, I can well understand the uncertainty of the Government on how to proceed, but it was absolutely clear and beyond question how they were going to proceed to privatise the Royal Ordnance factories. There was no dispute. They knew exactly what they were going to do. There are the same provisions in this Bill in respect of TUPE—that is, the transfer and protection of employment. Those provisions were there.
I can tell the noble Lord that in my local newspaper in Enfield this morning—the Enfield Advertiser, which covers the area of the Enfield small arms factory—there is great dismay, loss of morale and uncertainty as to the future of the workers there. While many of them might have said "Three cheers for privatisation" they now realise, having been told by the Minister that there is no question but that the Government will keep the unity of the small arms factories (the ordnance factories) and that they will not be sold piecemeal, that one of the options the Government have not ruled out is the piecemeal sale of factories that have an honourable record, such as the Royal Ordnance factory at Enfield.
I simply say to all those involved, including the employees at Plymouth and Rosyth, that they must take with a pinch of salt what this Government say about their intentions as to the future, and also the integrity of undertakings which the Government give in this House or the other place. In the event—
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I hope the House will allow me to ask the noble Lord which undertaking he is referring to.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I refer to the undertaking that was given that the Royal Ordnance factories would not be sold off piecemeal.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I gave no such undertaking.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Minister may be right, and I shall stand corrected. Amendments were moved on the Bill dealing with the Royal Ordnance factories to ensure that the factories would be kept as a unit—not the 13 sold off together but that there would be groups. The Minister wags his finger, but I believe the record will show that he wags it in admission of what I have said. However, I shall check my facts.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble Lord should check his facts beforehand.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I simply say that this Minister and the Government gave certain undertakings in respect of how they intended to dispose of the assets of the Royal Ordnance factories. In the event, based upon those indications many people made their arrangements. They have been thwarted. We know why they were thwarted in respect of the ordnance factories. It was because the Government attempted to ensure that when the factories came to be sold off they would be in a better position; that is, that they had a better future with a

541
better order book than they would have had without the Government's intervention.
People whom the Government normally listen to have told them that if that is what is going to happen they will not sell and get money into the coffers. The Government have had to pause. All I say to the Minister is that, based on that experience, the people who are vitally affected by how the Government intend to proceed are entitled to take with a pinch of salt what the Government say from the Dispatch Box today about what they intend to do. Events override and overrule what the Government say they intend to do. So the Government change course. They are a political government. They take heed of the political and financial realities outside this House.
I listen carefully to what the Minister says but I listen even more carefully to those whose jobs and future are at stake.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of this discussion. As I understand it, both the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, attach great importance to there being one company. As I understand the Minister and his amendment—no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong—it will be possible to have an unlimited number of companies because the amendment refers to "a company" under paragraph (a) and "for that or another company" under paragraph (b). Can we have some idea of what is intended? Is it to be one company or several companies? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, attaches great importance to there being one company.
Secondly, on the point that my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton raised in relation to the Royal Ordnance factories, I do not want to get involved in the actual text but I clearly understood that there was an undertaking—I think it is in the statute—that they would not be chopped up into several companies and those several companies put up for sale. We now understand that the Government are going to evade certainly the spirit if not the letter of the law by actually flogging the companies privately and not putting them up for public sale in the normal way which I understood the privatisation programme would do in order to encourage workers in the industry and small shareholders to acquire an interest. I understand that in order to get round the provisions of the Act the Government are going to flog the whole outfit, probably in a private deal, for a specific sum of money. If I have that wrong, I shall be glad to be corrected.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Bill before your Lordships is of course in connection with the Royal Dockyards and not the Royal Ordnance factories. I hope that your Lordships will therefore forgive me if I do not go along the line suggested by the noble Lords, Lord Graham and Lord Mulley, save only to say that there is no question of departing from any undertakings, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, suggested. The noble Lord should check his facts before making allegations of that kind. If the noble Lord will allow me, I shall write to him shortly pointing out that fact to him and I shall expect him to
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come before your Lordships and correct any accusation that he has made.
When Ministers inadvertently make mistakes of that kind, noble Lords opposite are very quick to call for a personal statement or something of that nature. Indeed, on more than one occasion I have been obliged to do that myself and was very glad to do so when the occasion demanded it. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, will be no less willing to come forward in similar circumstances.
My noble friend Lady Vickers, in broadly welcoming what is proposed, as I understand her—though I recognise that she has some reservations—asked about the companies that remain anxious to tender for the various contracts that we are now proposing. As regards Devonport, there are two consortia from whom we expect to receive tenders. They are Devonport Dockyard Limited, which as my noble friend will know is a management company, and a consortium consisting of Foster Wheeler, Vickers and A.& P. Appledore. As for Rosyth, there are three possibilities. Babcock Power and Thorn EMI have formed a consortium for this purpose; so have Balfour Beatty and the Weir Group. We are also expecting a third tender from the Press Offshore Group.
However, as I have made clear to your Lordships on more than one occasion, we reserve the right to accept, if need be, none of those tenders; in which case we would be proceeding along the lines of a government-owned plc. I recognise that that is my noble friend's preferred solution. It is not the Government's preferred solution but it is one which we will follow if none of the tenders we receive is considered acceptable.
As I have explained, two meetings at least have taken place between myself, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and certain other noble Lords and my noble friend Lady Vickers. It was never my intention to exclude any noble Lords from such a meeting. Those invited were those thought to have an interest in the matter. I may add that on two occasions I have written at some length to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, on these matters. If the noble and learned Lord is agreeable, I shall be happy to place copies of those letters in the Library.
Lord Denning: Certainly, my Lords.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has indicated that he is agreeable to that course and I shall therefore be happy to do that. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his constructive approach to the proposals. I am also grateful for what I understand to be his acceptance of what I now propose. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Minister sits down, he invites me after checking my facts to come before the House in a suitable manner and indicate that the allegation I made was wrong. Of course I unreservedly say that that is what I will do. Equally, if the Minister finds that what I have said is correct—that is, that undertakings were given that the 13 or 14 factories would not be sold off piecemeal—I assume the Minister will do likewise in the same spirit in which I raised the matter,

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because errors that occur across the Table can be made not precisely on fact but on recollection. Then of course we can both treat each other with the respect that we deserve.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Ampthill): My Lords, Amendment No. 2 cannot be called.
12 Noon
Lord Denning Lord Denning moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 14, at end insert—
(" ( ) It is hereby declared and enacted that the qualified dockyard service employees cannot lawfully be transferred from the service of the Crown into the service of any other employer except with their own consent or by Act of Parliament or regulations made thereunder. ")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, we come now to a series of practical amendments. In this first amendment I have tried to frame an unexceptionable principle of law which I fear that those who drafted this legislation may not have had in mind. I hope that at all events my own drafting is intelligible. Let me read it out:
"It is hereby declared and enacted that the qualified dockyard service employees cannot lawfully be transferred from the service of the Crown into the service of any other employer except with their own consent or by Act of Parliament or regulations made thereunder".
In view of the line on which discussion has taken place and the great need to make this Bill intelligible, I should like to see that principle enacted by Parliament. I should like to repeat some words that were spoken by one of our great judges, Lord Atkin, in the case of Nokes v. Doncaster Amalgamated Collieries (1940 Appeal Cases). That was a case where an order was made by the Chancery court amalgam-ating two companies into one. It was contended that the workforce was automatically transferred to the new amalgamated company without their consent. Lord Atkin said— his words are very expressive:
"My Lords, I confess it appears to me astonishing that apart from overriding questions of public welfare power should be given to a court or anyone else to transfer a man without his knowledge and possibly against his will from the service of one person to the service of another. I had fancied that ingrained in the personal status of a citizen under our laws was the right to choose for himself whom he would serve: and that his right of choice constituted the main difference between a servant and a serf. But if Parliament has so enacted the result must be accepted".
So my simple proposition on this amendment is for this House to state the law accurately, as Lord Atkin stated it. Let there be no doubt about it: if I have stated the matter correctly it will help those who have to interpret this statute in the future. I beg to move.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I should first like to reiterate that I did take part in the debates on the Royal Ordnance factories and I attended meetings. I also moved amendments but, unfortunately, did not receive any support at all. I think that I was the only one on this side who did move amendments. I know the difficulties that are faced by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton.
I should like to support my noble and learned friend. Perhaps I should also mention that we had meetings
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with the group of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, and with trades unionists, not just with the Minister. However, being on the Government side we really want to get down to the developments in the future. The contact that I have had over the last 33 years with the dockyard employees naturally makes me very concerned for the future. I have had meetings—and so has the noble Lord, but I think that I have had many more—with the management and workforce throughout the consultations on this Bill, and I know that these meetings will continue to be helpful.
I should like to pay a personal tribute to the workforce and management of Devonport Dockyard. The result of the "no-strike" agreement which was negotiated will ensure that HMY "Britannia" will be refitted at Devonport. It is a shining example of co-operation towards a common aim which is the normal working practice of Devonport.
Only by chance I heard yesterday that the Industrial Society had paid a rare tribute to the dockyard when the manager accepted an award for the best employee report. Perhaps I may read it:
"The Devonport Dockyard 1984/85 Annual Report was voted the 'most effective company annual report for employees' in this year's competition, sponsored jointly by the Industrial Society and Accountancy Age magazine. Devonport's entry was chosen out of over 60 entries from companies such as Peugeot Talbot, Boots, British Gas and British Aerospace, last year's winner of the award".
I should like to say how pleased I am about this award and I congratulate the dockyard, which received the trophy yesterday. I hope they keep up the good work.
For these reasons I believe that full consultations should continue with the dockyards. It is essential that the workforce are content with the employer to whom their services will be transferred under this Bill. Therefore, throughout the remaining stages of this Bill, and when the Government are evaluating future plans for the dockyards in August and September, I shall remain convinced that through regular and proper consultation, agreement will be reached as to the best possible future for the dockyards, the Royal Navy which is so important, and the dockyard employees.
It is not true to suggest that employees have only their own interests at heart. Their service to the nation is unquestionable. Their commitment and dedication to the maintenance of a fighting fleet have been proved on many occasions, and most recently of course in the Falkland's crisis. Their history is one of generations of devotion to the Royal Navy, and they will continue to work in this way provided that they continue to be properly consulted as to their future. I hope that the Government will accept this amendment in recognition of the service of the Royal Dockyard employees and ensure their rights to be consulted when transferred to another employer.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, let me say right away that I do not disagree with the thought contained in the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but I must say with the greatest respect that there is absolutely no need for such a provision in this Bill. I think that the noble and learned Lord will well know what I am about to say, but I shall say it for the benefit of the rest of your Lordships and those who may read our Official Report.

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This amendment is a statement of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. At common law a man cannot have his contract of employment transferred to a new employer except with his consent. As your Lordships will know, the common law can only be overridden by statute law. The supremacy of Parliament is accepted as the keystone of the British constitution. I suggest that it is therefore quite unnecessary for this or any Bill to state, as this amendment does, that what is unlawful at common law cannot be made lawful except by an Act of Parliament. Therefore I hope that the noble and learned Lord will accept that this amendment should not be pressed.
Lord Denning: My Lords, in view of what my noble friend the Minister has said, I shall not press this issue. I am glad to have his agreement that this is the law of England.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Denning Lord Denning moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 14 at end insert—
(" ( ) It is hereby declared and enacted that the transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employee) Regulations 1981 of themselves do not give any authority by which the Secretary of State can transfer the qualified service employees without their consent from the service of the Crown to the service of any other employer.")
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is somewhat different. We are dealing with the mechanics by which Parliament can transfer a man without his consent to the service of someone else. When this Bill was introduced in the first draft it was thought by the advisers that it could be done by the simple process of applying the 1981 regulations dealing with transfer of employment. That is how the Bill was first drafted. But if one looks at those regulations, one can see quite clearly that they cannot be applied in that manner because those 1981 regulations do not apply to an undertaking which is not in the nature of a commercial venture. Those are the very words of the 1981 regulations.
They do not apply to the dockyard undertaking run by the Crown in Devonport. That is certainly not a commercial venture. Like the army or the navy, it is run on a Vote by Parliament out of those moneys, and does not concern profit, loss or running risk. It is not in the nature of a commercial venture, and so the 1981 regulations do not apply to it. That is why the Government have had to put forward one or two amendments.
They put down amendments first at the Committee stage. I wondered whether your Lordships would understand the provisions. I am sure that you would not; I did not at first. There were phrases such as
"the services of the qualified dockyard service employees without more".
Some of them were virtually unintelligible.
The Government have amended the provision substantially, but I still think that it is very difficult to follow. That is why I suggest that the provision should be left out and instead there should be inserted the subsection which I suggested originally at the Committee stage. It reads:
"The provision of European Community Law contained in Council Directive 77/187 shall apply to the transfer of the dockyard
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undertaking to another company; and shall take precedence over any regulation or enactment which fails to implement the Directive correctly".
I hope that that is intelligible. I am more in favour of that than the provision in Clause 1(4) which the Government suggest because of the difficulty of understanding it.
If there is any inconsistency between the two. no doubt Community law will prevail. Community law was upheld in the case of the retirement of women at the age of 60 and men at 65 which went to the European Court. It was the case of Mrs. Marshall and Southampton. It was held that our law was inconsis-tent with the directive and that the directive had priority. That is the reason why I should prefer my original provision to remain as it is. The other may give rise to difficulties.
Whichever we adopt, the 1981 regulations modified or my suggestion, both have this important provision. We shall come to this later. It states that before the transfer is effected the workforce has to be told the legal, social and other implications of the transfer. They must be told of the measures proposed to be adopted and be consulted a long time before so that they have the chance to reply. Their replies should be considered with a view to getting agreement. Whichever is adopted, there is the important provision that before the transfer is effected, the legal, social and other implications are to be told to the men. they should be given the opportunity to reply and agreement should be sought.
I do not much mind whether we have my provision in Clause 1(5) or the Government's. What I ask is that my first amendment, No. 4, be accepted. I think that it corrects a misapprehension by those who originally drafted the Bill. I should like the Government to acknowledge that to be correct. I do not much mind whether we have my subsection (5) about the Community law or the Government's provision, which is much more complicated. It might be sufficient if I move Amendment No. 4. The regulations by themselves do not give any authority for transfer. I beg to move.
12.15 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 4 and 6 concern the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employee) Regulations 1981 which we debated in Committee. Since there is a later government amendment, No. 8, to page 2, line 29, which seeks the removal of Clause 1(5), which is related, it might be for your Lordships' convenience if I were to cover that amendment as well. I shall formally move my amendment in due course.
Your Lordships will recall that in Committee there was a discussion of the regulations and whether the dockyard undertaking was one to which the regulations would apply. The Government's view has always been that there is in law an undertaking at each dockyard within the meaning of the regulations but that there was legal doubt as to whether a transfer of the services of the employees alone would be a transfer of a part of that undertaking attracting the application of the 1981 regulations. That particular doubt was removed by Clause 1(4) of the Bill as it was originally drafted.

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The noble and learned Lord had, however, suggested that, because there was no undertaking in the nature of a commercial venture at the dockyards, the regulations would not apply. The Government, the Opposition and I believe the trade unions representing the workforce are as one in wanting to ensure that the 1981 regulations apply. The debate was not therefore about whether the regulations should apply but rather whether the wording of the Bill ensured that they would apply.
Notwithstanding our satisfaction on that point, in Committee I introduced an amendment to Clause 1(4) to put the matter beyond legal argument. In Committee the noble and learned Lord said that he did not object to the principle underlying the amendment but he thought that the subsection might have to be amended further because of the references to
"the services of the qualified dockyard service employees without more".
As your Lordships know, I have already moved an amendment to delete the reference to "without more", and to provide that the dockyard company would have within it not only the workforce but also the licence from the Secretary of State to use the dockyard assets. I hope that the noble and learned Lord and other noble Lords will accept that the further amendment to Clause 1(4) which I have introduced today and about which I have written at length to him removes any concerns which he previously had on the question of the 1981 regulations.
As I hope he will accept, there is no need for Clause 1(5) to remain in the Bill. In Committee he said that the wording simply stated the law of the land. If that were so, there would be no reason to include such a provision in the Bill. However, the directive to which subsection (5) refers is not directly applicable and it required implementation in domestic law through the 1981 regulations. In any event, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will accept—I believe that he will—that Clause 1 (5) is inconsistent with the first part of Clause 1(4) to which your Lordships have now agreed, because the words,
"shall take precedence over any regulation or enactment"
would have the effect of subverting the words in Clause 1(4).
I believe that Clause 1(4) makes our intentions clear and that Clause 1(5) should no longer remain in the Bill. I shall move my amendment at the appropriate moment, but in the light of what I have just said and our very full discussion I invite the noble and learned Lord not to press his amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, may I ask for some clarification? I listened to what the Minister said. He pleaded in aid the unanimity which exists that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations should apply. He said that the trade unions wished that to be the case. Will the Minister put on record, in the light of what has transpired which caused the Government to reflect and delete Clause 1(5), that there have been recent conversations with the trade unions, and that he is fully satisfied that what the Government propose meets with the trade unions' approval?
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These matters are watched very carefully by those who are directly affected and whose professional future and lives are at stake. The Minister will be aware that the professional, manual and non-manual unions took a deep interest in the matter when we discussed the future of the Royal Ordnance factories. My recollec-tion is that at the end of the day they were not satisfied by the manner in which their interests were protected. I should be grateful if the Minister will tell us whether he is in possession of any up-to-date information about the reaction of the trade unions to what we are going to do about the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the deletion of Clause 1(5).
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I have your Lordships' permission to speak again (because we are of course on Report) so far as I am aware the trade unions are content about the way we are now proceeding. I shall check that we have received a recent communication from them, and if I am mistaken I shall write to the noble Lord.
Lord Denning: My Lords, in view of our discussions I do not press Amendment No. 4. I shall accept Clause 1(4) and leave out Clause 1(5); in other words, deal with the three matters comprehensively.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Denning Lord Denning moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 14, at end insert—
("( ) The Secretary of State may by order transfer qualified dockyard service employees from the service of the Crown to the service of any such company without their consent, provided that before such transfer is effected he shall take sufficient steps to ensure, to their reasonable satisfaction, that on such transfer taking place—

(a) the parent companies, the holding company and the subsidiary company at the date of the transfer, are and will at all times thereafter remain during the continuance of the contract under United Kingdom control and not under the control or influence of any foreign body or person;

(b) the qualified dockyard service employees will be given security of tenure (including redundancy and pension provision) equivalent to those which they had in the service of the Crown; and

(c) the qualified dockyard service employees will be granted a reasonable proportion of shares or equivalent participation in the profits expected to be made by the company which aims to make profit by the use of their services.").

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 5 is of almost paramount importance because if the scheme is to go through it must have the co-operation of the workforce. The workforce wll not give its consent. If it is completely opposed to the new management scheme, the workforce can disrupt it entirely. It can delay the refitting of ships. It will not deal with the fleet as it should. It may even go on strike, even in the Royal dockyards where it is so essential in the national interest that it should work voluntarily and well.
That is the real objective of paragraph 10(3) of the 1981 regulations to which I referred a little while ago. It provides that long before a relevant transfer is made the employer should inform the representatives of the unions that the transfer is going to take place, and of the reasons for it. It includes the important point that the workforce must be informed of the legal, economic and social implications of the transfer on the affected employees.
The legal implications now are different from those that applied when the Bill was introduced. The workforce must be told of the economic and social implications. The whole objective is that it can make observations during the consultations and object if it pleased and receive replies to those objections. If one is going to override the consent of the workforce everything possible must be done to see that what is proposed is reasonable. The workforce should be persuaded to consent.
That is why, as a supplement to the regulations, and to achieve the co-operation of the workforce, I have proposed the amendment. It contains the points about which I understand the workforce is most concerned. If we are to obtain the co-operation of the workforce, or at least its acquiescence, the amendment should become part of the Bill. I hope that I am making this all clear: The amendment says:
"The Secretary of State may by order transfer qualified dockyard service employees from the service of the Crown to the service of any such company without their consent, provided that before such transfer is effected he shall take sufficient steps to ensure, to their reasonable satisfaction".
The employees do not have a veto; they must be reasonably satisfied.
"that on such transfer taking place".
There then follows three important matters about which I gather the workforce is concerned. The first is:
"the parent companies, the holding company and the subsidiary company at the date of the transfer, are and will at all times thereafter remain during the continuance of the contract under United Kingdom control and not under the control or influence of any foreign body or person"
How important that is to the workforce. It has been employed in the Royal Dockyards until now serving the Crown and the country. Is it to be put against its will under the control of a company which is whole or in part or to any degree is under foreign control? Surely the workforce has a right to say that it works in the Royal Dockyards and that if it is to be transferred to a company it must be a British company, with no foreigners. That is my first point.
The second is:
"the qualified dockyard service employees will be given security of tenure (including redundancy and pension provision) equivalent to those which they had in the service of the Crown."
Is not that right? If the employees are to be transferred against their will, surely they should be no worse off on compulsory transfer.
Surely the next provision is reasonable:
"the qualified dockyard service employees will be granted a reasonable proportion of shares or equivalent participation in the profits expected to be made by the company which aims to make profits by the use of their services."
That is an important principle. The employees are working now for the country, but they will be working for a company. The company will be making profits out of their services. Surely the modern concept demands that those who do the work by which the company makes a profit should have a share or participate in that profit. That is the theory behind workers' shares. Let us give employees an incentive and a stake in the company to ensure that they work well.
Those are the three concerns that I suggest should be written into the Bill to protect the workforce and,
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more than anything else, to obtain its co-operation for the future. I beg to move.
12.30 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I wish to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who has, within the amendment, included three matters of great importance. My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton has down as amendments new clauses that cover a number of the points; foreign ownership, redundancy and so on. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, would not take offence if the Minister said that he accepted the points but preferred the new clauses.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, can I assure my noble friend that if the Minister were to say that the sense of what is contained in the proposal now before us is acceptable, I would certainly expedite the business of the House by not moving the subsequent new clauses.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, as always, my noble friend Lord Graham shows himself to be at the service of the House and seeks expedition of its business. There will be widespread disappointment, I believe, in all quarters of the House, if the Minister does not accept the amendment, for three simple reasons. I do not wish to become involved in controversy about the accuracy of one's recollection. I recall, however, that, at the Committee stage, the Minister expressed a great deal of sympathy with the concept of worker shares in any company that might come into being. I accept at once that the noble Lord was not able to, and did not, give any commitment that he would bring forward such a proposal. I imagine, however, that a man of his sensibility would not have lost his sympathy in the short time that has elapsed between the Committee and the Report stages. The fact that this is a Friday should not make any significant difference to his attitude in respect of the way that the Bill should be tackled.
I would have thought certainly that paragraph (c) could be accepted. It seems that several companies will be involved in this complicated and most unsatisfactory arrangement in the Royal Dockyards. Should it happen that we have the fallback position of a Government-owned plc, we would like an absolute assurance that all these points will be met. I would have thought that no one in the House, no matter what their views, would dissent from the contention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that it would be a disaster if the companies running the Royal Dockyards were under the control or influence of foreign bodies or persons.
With respect, I would correct or, rather, modify, something that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said. I do not think it is sufficient that the company should be registered as a British company. We know only too well that a number of companies registered in this country are actually owned and controlled by people outside. We want an assurance in some form in the Bill—we have made the point in other cases—that there would be absolute control. This is important in a number of other Bills with which your Lordships have been concerned. In this

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case, it is an overriding matter that the Royal Dockyards should not fall into the hands of whatever foreign body might possibly be tempted to acquire shares in rather nebulous companies, of which we know little, that the Government are proposing to set up to do the work.
It may be that the terms of pay and working conditions will be different under the new arrange-ment. One difficulty is that dockyard employees have been rather badly paid over the years. There may be a need for them to be brought more into line with industrial pay rather than the pay of Civil Service manual workers that applies in many cases. This has been a source, no doubt, of some of the problems. Certainly, security of tenure and redundancy and pension provisions should be fully taken care of. It would be totally wrong if a person who has worked for 30 years in the Royal Dockyards and who is then transferred to a company for a few years before he retires, were made redundant or retired on pension only to find that his previous service was not counted fully in the calculation of the redundancy payment or the pension provision to which he is entitled. It seems to me that the principles that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has set out so clearly and has explained so well should be accepted without any qualification by the Government. I suggest that we put these matters into the Bill now. If the Government then feel that it is necessary to amend them in respect of drafting, we can deal with that matter on Third Reading.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I wish also to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but in so doing to examine the problem from a completely different angle. As we get buried further in the minutiae of this, I almost said incomprehensible Bill—it is clearly a Bill that some of your Lordships, including myself, find pretty difficult to understand—it is easy to lose touch with the overriding requirement transcending all other considerations, namely, that the dockyards should give the best possible service to the fleet. I believe that paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) greatly help from this point of view. The purpose of paragraph (a) is perfectly obvious to every straightforward, clear-thinking person. Paragraphs (b) and (c) concern the motivation of the workforce. Obviously, if one has not got the workforce on one's side, or even the acquiescence of the workforce, one is in a very difficult and, I would go so far as to say, dangerous position. For this reason, and looking at the problem from the point of view of the fleet, I strongly urge the Government to accept the amendment.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I should like to add my voice to those in all parts of the House urging the Government to accept the amendment of the noble and learned Lord. The amendment gives the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, the opportunity of spelling out a little more the names of those expected to apply for the contracts. One of the names that I heard was Foster Wheeler as one of the members of a consortium about to bid for Devonport. That is, of course, a foreign firm. I was unable to catch the other names of members of the consortium. I should like to be assured as to their
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British basis and to know the Government's mind as to how much foreign participation in the consortium is acceptable to them. What is a consortium? I am not clear. Will the noble Lord define a consortium? When he says that Foster Wheeler—a foreign firm—is a member of a consortium, what does that mean in terms of Foster Wheeler's control of the other members of the consortium? Does it mean an equal partnership, equal holding of shares and equal control? I am astonished that there is nothing in the Bill that ties down the Government on this matter.
It seems extraordinary that Parliament should be asked to pass a Bill about the future of dockyard services that says nothing about British control. The amendment covers the point. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, has said, it also covers points essential to the effective operation of the navy. It is absolutely essential, in my view, that these things should be in the Bill and that the Government should be required to take these steps before making an order under the Bill. I should like very much to hear the noble Lord reassure us on these points.
All of us, I believe, appreciated the offer of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, who has a number of lengthy proposals under new clauses. The noble Lord has offered, should the Government make a positive reply to the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, to withdraw his amendments. It is an offer that the Government might well take seriously to the benefit of all sides of the House.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I fear that it may be an offer that the Minister will be tempted to refuse. But if he is tempted simply to tell us that he has every sympathy with this, that discussions are going on, that understandings are abroad and that there is no need to write this into the face of the Bill, we are faced with this dilemma. Far too often we are told that some other words in the Bill mean exactly what we wish to write in. We are simple men and women. We want to see in writing what we want the Bill to mean. When it comes to foreign ownership I am sure that the Minister will tell us about the golden share, and about the inability of anyone to aggregate sufficient financial power to outweigh that held by the Government. There is nothing wrong with writing into the Bill the words of this clause. The Minister says, "From our point of view there is no need for this." However, we are not talking about the Government's point of view. We are talking about the point of view of the ordinary man and woman in the street, the employee, and so on.
The details of the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord are in very general terms. Paragraph (b) refers to
"security of tenure (including redundancy and pension provision) equivalent to those which they had in the service of the Crown".
If the Minister says that it is not within his gift to give those assurances because new relationships will have to be forged between the new employers and employees, we say that the Government are very prone to make conditions which set a precedent over a range of matters. We are saying, "Tell the new gaffers—the new bosses of the workers—that we insist that these are part of the arrangements." The Minister

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will give the game away if he says, "We cannot tell those people what to do. They may not bid. They may not buy. They may not be interested in what they can do". We are more concerned with the interests of those who have served the nation well, not only over the past few years but for centuries. They are telling us that they would like to have better guarantees. If the Minister says that there is no need for such guarantees, we see every reason for them.
I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, will agree when I say to the Minister that if he is prepared to accept the intention that we want words written into the Bill in respect of the new clauses, I shall not move them. Each time I come to them I shall simply reiterate the assurance that I hope the Minister will give us now. I am not procrastinating today. I say "today". The Minister smiles because he realises that there have been other occasions when that might have been my tack, but it is not so today. There is an important Bill to follow and I am anxious to respect the limitations of a Friday. I am sure that the Minister realises that we want not merely words or intentions but assurances. If they are not assurances that he accepts this amendment now, they are to be assurances that we shall have better provisions put forward at Third Reading.
12.45 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I had intended to speak to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, but I shall speak now, as he too has done.
The issue of foreign control of the dockyards concerns everyone. I am sure that everyone in this House must be concerned about it. I firmly believe that no foreign company or person should have any powers over decisions regarding the Royal Navy. I am supported in that by the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne.
I wish to emphasise at this point that I am not anti-American. I am anti any foreigners coming in on this Bill, because I do not see many reasons why they need to do so. We managed these dockyards well for nearly 300 years. They have been managed very effectively. I say to the noble Lord—I heard his whisper—that they have been very effectively run and saved us in two World Wars and lately the Falklands. They have done extremely well.
While I do not accept that the agency management offers the best future for the nation, I am convinced that with a foreign company running the dockyards the profits will not even remain in this country. I know that other amendments today deal with this question, as I mentioned just now, but even the smallest foreign interest in running the dockyards will have an effect on the decisions and security of the realm.
There have been mentioned those who are putting their names forward. We had the Trafalgar company who quite legitimately pulled out because they said they would have to get rid of 7,000 employees. They thought that they could not start off like that. We now have Foster Wheeler, Vickers (nothing to do with me) and Appledore. Appledore is a very poor little organisation in Falmouth, I regret to say, who put its name forward with Trafalgar and pulled out at the same time. Now I have had it confirmed that it is making a mess with an organisation in Gibraltar which
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it took over. It does not, therefore, seem to me that it is very active.
The other consortium mentioned by the noble Lord is 10 of the people who are at present working in the dockyard. They have formed a consortium. They have full knowledge of all the work and I shall not therefore repeat it.
The second point which I wish to mention is my concern for the protection of the dockyard employees' conditions of service. Again I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, when he stated how important it is that these matters are written into the statute.
I am very concerned that the workers of the dockyard should not suffer anything detrimental to their working conditions. When one thinks that they have probably had great-great-grandfathers working over the years in the dockyards, they naturally want to continue to have some such security as they have had over these many years. It is one thing to make the dockyards ever more efficient; it is another to take away the hard-earned rights of a devoted workforce. I am not complaining about redundancies. From time to time these are necessary and 2,000 have already been agreed. I am concerned that the redundancy provisions should not deteriorate under this scheme. Equally, it will be no surprise to noble Lords to hear that I would wish to see the Government's assurances on pension rights and apprentice training in the future.
To conclude my few words on this point, I should like to appeal to the Government to accept into the drafting of the Bill conditions to ensure that the employees are offered shares in the future. I am sure that most people would agree that this would be an excellent incentive to the workforce to ensure that the excellent relationship already established at Devonport Dockyard is continued under these new arrangements.
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, I to should like to support this amendment and the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. At Committe stage he referred to four different options for transfer of the workforce to a new organisation. He demonstrated very convincingly why the best option is to have one company to take over the dockyard undertaking.
The noble Lord, Lord Mulley, referred to the assurance given at Committee by my noble friend the Minister, that if the single company structure were to be adopted the Government would see to it that the dockyard employees had a proper share in the enterprise. While this point is covered in paragraph (c) of the present amendment, all three subsections appear to be aimed at gaining the co-operation and support of the workforce. At the same time they do not conflict with the purpose of the Bill which is to try to reduce red tape and to encurage enterprise and development in the dockyards. Apart from that, it is clearly desirable that during their contracts the companies concerned should be seen by dockyard workers as well as everyone else to be under United Kingdom control.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, seeks to provide many things in this one amendment. He wishes the dockyard

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companies on vesting day and thereafter not to be under the control of any foreign body or person. The Government not only wish to ensure that the dockyards are not run by foreign companies but intend to take steps to ensure that, quite apart from control, even a small foreign interest will not be tolerated if it would prejudice our security interests.
The noble and learned Lord wishes to ensure that conditions of service, including redundancy and pension provisions, will transfer with the workforce when they leave the service of the Crown. The Government not only wish to ensure that redundancy procedures and levels of compensation will transfer and that pension schemes are set out as closely as possible to resemble those of the Civil Service, but, as my noble friend Lord Glenarthur made clear in Committee, we have made sure that redundancy procedures and levels of compensation transfer under the 1981 regulations. As regards pensions, we have made it clear that the pension funds which are set up for those transferring from the Civil Service will have benefits as near as possible to those of the principal Civil Service Pension Fund.
Finally, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, wishes to ensure that the dockyard workforce should have an interest in their company. I entirely agree with the thought that the commitment of the workforce to the company is important, but, as the noble and learned Lord implies in his amendment, some sort of profit-sharing or perhaps incentive scheme might be more appropriate, particularly since the dockyard assets will be remaining in Government ownership.
As the noble and learned Lord knows, I am with him in spirit, and I hope that he will be reassured to hear that. However, I have to say to him that on several grounds I cannot agree that this amendment should be accepted. With your Lordships' permission, I shall say as briefly as possible why I take this view.
The amendment refers to an order, but the Bill does not say how such an order would be exercised or what parliamentary scrutiny of it there would be, and so on. The amendment refers to the need for "reasonable satisfaction" of the workforce to be obtained before they are transferred. What would be reasonable satisfaction? The noble and learned Lord has referred to the fact that the transfer would not be with the consent of the workforce. The noble and learned Lord agrees that it does not make sense that the workforce should remain in the Civil Service but would, I think, prefer the Government-owned plc. However, even under that option the workforce would have to be transferred from the Civil Service. The workforce have made it clear that they will do all in their power to remain in the Civil Service. What chance would there be of getting the trade union to say that they were reasonably satisfied if, by saying so, they would leave the Civil Service? In short, if this amendment were accepted, we would see no change in the dockyards for another decade.
The amendment refers to the requirement for the dockyard companies to remain under the United Kingdom control. There is no definition of "control". That is not a requirement for this Bill because, under the Government's proposals, although there will be a
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trigger point at 30 per cent. foreign shareholding, the contract could be terminated at any point below that if we felt that essential security interests would otherwise be prejudiced. However, under this amendment, by using the word "control", it would be held that a 49 per cent. foreign holding, even by the Soviet Union, was acceptable, provided that 51 per cent. was in United Kingdom hands. It would be equally bad to provide in the Bill for a reasonable proportion of shares for the workforce or equivalent participation in the profits. Reasonable to whom? Equivalent to what?
In conclusion, although I believe that it is unnecessary to include in the Bill provisions along the lines proposed, I believe that what the Government propose—to ensure that security interests are paramount, that conditions of service transfer, and that companies are encouraged to come forward with positive proposals for worker participation—meet the very reasonable desires of the noble and learned Lord in these respects.
I have spoken at a little length on the individual provisions of this amendment. As your Lordships will know, there are other detailed amendments on several of the aspects covered, but in the light of what I have said, both in terms of the content of this amendment and in the light of the undertakings that the Government have given, I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot withdraw this amendment. If the Government are to have the co-operation of the workforce, then this amendment is essential. Comment was made about an order. My noble friend Lord Mayhew has tabled an amendment on that. If there is to be an order, let it be approved by both Houses. That deals with that point.
I am not troubled about the details of each one of these paragraphs; they can be worked out between the workforce and the Government. Before any of this goes through, before they lay all their plans, a long time in advance they have to tell the workforce about the legal, economic and social implications of the transfer for the affected employees. It is no good telling us and obtaining our consent. The Government have to get the consent of the employees; they must tell them the details, how these companies will be formed, and whether they will be British. It is the employees who have to be told and whose co-operation should be sought.
On each of these points, what good are assurances or undertakings given to your Lordships' House? As I have said, the courts take no notice at all of any undertakings or assurances given to your Lordships' House. I would simply say that if the workforce is to be protected and if our national security is to be protected we must not have any foreigners. I have seen the clause in the contract about foreign control and I think nothing of it. I do not hink it affords sufficient protection, because nominees and the like can be put in.
If this clause is accepted, the legal and social implications must be told to the workforce. That is why I stress this and why I tabled my first amendment concerning our national security. I do not mind about

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the details—those can be worked out later. I do not mind about the details concerning the security aspect or the point about equal participation in shares. The details will have to be discussed with the employees. I care about the principle, which I have tried to set out in this amendment, of security for the workforce. The details can be worked out later.
This is a matter of principle. I deliberately included the phrase "to their reasonable satisfaction". Surely that is right. They cannot have an unreasonable veto. They can consider whether or not there is sufficient British control when they get the details. Therefore, I have said that they are to be consulted. If they are unreasonable that is another matter. However, if the situation is to their reasonable satisfaction, surely it is right to say, "This is what Parliament has enacted; you should really go by what Parliament has enacted". Therefore, I would ask your Lordships and the Government to accept the amendment, and I propose to test the opinion of the House.
12.59 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 35; Not-Contents, 66.

DIVISION NO.1

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Lawrence, L.

Attlee. E.

McNair, L.

Broadbridge. L.

Mayhew, L. [Teller.]

Brockway, L.

Mulley, L.

Brookes, L.

Parry, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Phillips, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Denning, L.

Rea, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Ennals, L.

Seear, B.

Fitt, L.

Stallard, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

[Teller.]

Strabolgi, L.

Hanworth, V.

Tordoff, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Underhill, L.

Ingleby, V.

Wigoder, L.

Jeger, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Ypres, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Auckland, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Gainford, L.

Beloff, L.

Gisborough, L.

Belstead, L.

Glanusk, L.

Bessborough, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone,

Brabazon of Tara, L.

L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Halsbury, E.

Caccia, L.

Henley, L.

Caithness, E.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Hooper, B.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Ironside, L.

Carnock, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Cathcart, E.

Kinnoull, E.

Coleraine, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Craigmyle, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Davidson, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Long, V.

Eccles, V.

Lyell, L.

Effingham, E.

McFadzean, L.

Elton, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

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Mancroft, L.

Shannon, E.

Merrivale, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Morris, L.

Swinfen, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Orkney, E.

Teviot, L.

Portland, D.

Teynham, L.

Saint Brides, L.

Trefgarne, L.

St. Davids, V.

Trumpington, B.

Saint Levan, L.

Vaux of Harrowden. L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Vivian, L.

Selsdon, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 6 not moved. ]
1.7 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 25, leave out ("without more") and insert ("together with the rights in or over the dockyard and property used for the purposes of the undertaking").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is consequential upon an earlier amendment. 1 beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 29, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendments Nos. 9 and 10:
Page 2, line 35, leave out ("(a)") and insert ("(b)").
Page 2, line 40, leave out ("(a)") and insert ("(b)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 are both consequential on Amendment No. 1, which I moved earlier. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 together.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Mayhew Lord Mayhew moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 3, line 3, leave out from beginning to third ("of) in line 5 and insert
("(8) No order shall be made under subsection (1) above unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment would make any order under subsection (1) subject to an affirmative order of both Houses. The proceedings on Report so far have increasingly convinced me of the importance of this amendment. Over and over again we have been asked simply to trust the Government, and we have had nothing written into the Bill about the rights of the employees or about the question of foreign control. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said that they were "going to do this, and that", and that we could rely on the Government to do "such and such", and nothing was to be written into the Bill.
It gives the Government wide powers. We do not know whether it is going to be a single company. We do not know what the single company will be like. We do not now anything about the contracts. We are disposing of £770 million worth of public assets, and it seems to me that by the time an order is made Parliament will be—and should be—much better

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informed than we are now about the Government's intentions. We do not even know anything about the costs, on the Government's estimated savings, or dissavings, as a result of all this. We have been told during the debates on the Bill that as time goes by and when the tenders come in, the Government will be able to make better estimates about costs. As it is, we are in the dark. We have been kept in the dark by the Government about matters which we really need to know before we pass this Bill.
At the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, explained what the order will consist of when it comes. He argued that it would simply designate Devonport and Rosyth as the designated dockyards, that it would list the services and would define qualified dockyard service employees. Therefore, he argued, as we knew all this, surely there is no need to make the order subject to an affirmative resolution.
However, by the time the order is made we shall at least, I hope, know (or we may be told) who the contractors are and the estimated cost to the Government of undertaking the scheme. Therefore, there is in my view a very strong case for requiring the Government to come again before Parliament before they take final action. We have had some talk about the Royal Ordnance factories—and here I must tread delicately in view of the exchanges between the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Lord, Lord Graham. But I recall all kinds of assurances about parliamentary monitoring of the ROF scheme which has not taken place, so the ROF scheme has got into trouble.
This is all the more reason for Parliament to have a right to debate what is going on. I recall that in May last year the then Defence Procurement Minister, Mr. Pattie, said about the ROFs:
"We will at a later date put forward detailed proposals on privatisation in the light of the circumstances at the time. There will no doubt be an opportunity to discuss them should the House so wish at the time".
That has not happened. There has been no opportunity. I am afraid of the same thing happening in the case of this Bill.
I urge the Government not to try to bypass Parliament, not to try to push this Bill through. We all agree that it is difficult to understand, not only in itself but because it is very difficult to estimate the practical consequences of what we are doing. I urge the Government not to try to bypass Parliament, not to try to push us into passing a Bill without the information we need. I beg to move.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I should like to support this amendment moved with great clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, who himself was a Navy Minister some years ago and has personal knowledge of the problems of the dockyards. All of us who were in defence had to wrestle with them from time to time.
I gather that on the point about costs, no informa-tion has been given. The noble Lord the Minister seems to find this an extremely amusing situation. I should have thought that the likely consequence of this legislation that he is gaily letting through is going to be
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disastrous for the defence of this nation and for the Royal Navy. That is my conviction. As to the cost, the Select Committee, I think, put forward the thought that the initial setting-up costs could be as much as £400 million and that the annual extra costs above current expenditure on the dockyards could amount to £50 million.
I understand that the Minister or his colleagues have said that these figures are exaggerated. They may be. But if they are exaggerated, what are their figures? We have not been given any figures. I would not myself suggest that the purpose of having an order is that we would want to have a vote on it. I know that one of the difficulties about parliamentary instruments is that they cannot be amended; but at least it means that if you have an affirmative order a place must be found for it in the timetable of both this House and another place. It is virtually impossible these days in another place to get the negative resolution procedure, and I do not think that it is too easy to get it here. I shall gladly give way if the Minister wants to correct me on these matters.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I shall be happy to explain the position to the noble Lord when I come to reply in a moment.
1.15 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I thought that the practice of Ministers trying to explain matters sotto voce on the Bench was not the practice in this House, but I am a relatively new Member and perhaps it is the custom. Certainly the great merit of an affirmative resolutions is that it has to be debated and all the relevant considerations surrounding the order can be put by noble Lords.
In this House, we have a great number of Members such as, for example, the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, who has had close association with the dockyards over very many years as a parliamentary Member and who is a very loyal and devoted supporter of the Royal Navy; the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, with his naval background; and, when they come, we have several ex-First Sea Lords or Chiefs of Naval Staff or Chiefs of Defence Staff. Perhaps one of these days, on an order such as that, we could get them to come and give us their views. Certainly I think it would be an act of faith on the part of the Government in the intelligence and validity of the scheme if they were prepared to accept this amendment so that they could, if need be, defend it to your Lordships.
Lord Denning: My Lords, may I add a word in support of the amendment? I have to remind your Lordships of the principle with which we started off today. You are going to overrule the workers and compel them to be transferred without their consent to a company. That is agreed to be a principle of law that has got to be authorised by Act of Parliament. Surely in those circumstances and from what we have heard already, there is a lot more to be done before they can be transferred. They have got to be told the legal, economic and social implications of the transfer and its effect on them. That still has to be gone through under the regulations.

561
Suppose that they reasonably object to the government proposals and the Secretary of State says, "I don't mind your objections. I'm going to push it through. I'm going to make the order". Surely Parliament itself by an affirmative order should approve the Minister's doing it in that way. At the moment, if you entrust him with it without the negative order. Parliament never has a voice in it again and has no opportunity to see whether or not these men are lawfully or rightly being compelled against their will to go to another company. Surely a simple protection for the men is a constitutional principle and it ought to be only by an affirmative order that they are compulsorily transferred from the Crown to a company.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I, too, should like to support this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, has great experience. I was going to support the noble Lord, Lord Graham, if he had his amendment going, and now we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Mulley. He must know how many Ministers of State there have been in recent years. They all seem to have had different ideas. This is what worries me about Ministers of State for Defence. Therefore, we should have some power given to Parliament to discuss the matter and to object to it if necessary. Furthermore, perhaps (I do not like to mention this) there may be a change of government and therefore there may be a quite different attitude towards this matter.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, there will be!
Baroness Vickers: Well, my Lords, there you are. Noble Lords are laughing now, but sometime they may have to laugh on the other side of their face. I must be fair to both the Liberal and the Labour parties. They both have a chance.
I consider that this amendment should be supported. I do not mind whether it is agency management or the setting up of private companies. We should have real knowledge. After all, these dockyards have been under government for generations and we have no idea what is going to happen in the future, especially in view of the way things have gone in the debate today. Therefore I should very much like to support this amendment. I am not particularly keen to vote upon it today and perhaps if we leave it until Third Reading we might have more backing.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, Lord Mayhew's amendment seeks to provide that any order made under Clause 1(1) of the Bill should be subject to an affirmative resolution of each House of Parliament. In the context of two similar amendments at Committee stage, I set out what we intend that such an order will contain and why therefore I thought that those amendments were unnecessary. Nothing has happened since then to give me any reason to change my view that such an amendment is unnecessary, but it may be helpful to the House if I briefly set out once more our intentions in respect of orders made under Clause 1(1).
We intend that orders—one in respect of each dockyard—will, subject to the Bill receiving Royal
562
Assent, be laid before Parliament in the autumn. These orders will designate the dockyards to which the arrangements for which this Bill provides will apply. The orders will also designate the services for or in connection with ships or vessels or related establish-ments in the service of the Crown provided at the dockyards. These are the services which we intend will be provided by a company under contract with the Secretary of State and I explained at Committee stage the sort of services these would be.
The designation of dockyard services in this way will, by implication, also provide a definition of the "qualified dockyard service employees", to which Clause 1(1) also refers: they are those employed in or in connection with the provision by the Crown of designated dockyard services at the dockyard on a particular day, which will be Vesting Day, in April 1987.
Under the usual arrangements, the House will have an opportunity to consider such orders. In view of this, and in view of the fact that the orders will contain very little information of which your Lordships are not already aware, it would make little sense to provide in the Bill that the orders must be subject to an affimative resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
If I could elaborate a little in response to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, earlier, I dare say it is true that it is difficult for honourable Members of another place to find time in that House to debate a negative resolution on an order. However, these orders will be subject to negative resolution by either House; and even if it is difficult to do that in the other place, it is very much easier to do that in your Lordships' House. Indeed, I think there are certain procedures by which it can be put on the Order Paper more or less on the day selected by the noble Lord in question, although no doubt the usual channels will have something to say as well. But certainly there is much less difficulty about debating such orders in your Lordships' House. Indeed, I recall myself, when I sat on the Benches opposite, having moved such resolutions on previous occasions and I recall that there was no great difficulty, even though I dare say my order was unwelcome to the Government of the day, in finding an occasion on which they could be dealt with.
I hope I have persuaded your Lordships that there really is adequate parliamentary scrutiny of these arrangements and that accordingly the noble Lord will not wish to press the amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, is the Minister in a position to tell us what would happen to the negative order procedure in the event of a dissolution of Parliament and a general election? Am I right in assuming that in such circumstances—I appreciate the Minister may not be able to give me a precise answer now—certain powers will be in the hands of the Government, in which case they can proceed—so even the limited opportunity to which the Minister has drawn attention can be denied us in some circumstances.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am speaking without advice on this matter but I think I am right in saying that the order has to be before Parliament for 40

563
parliamentary days, and those days do not run of course while Parliament is prorogued, for example, or while a general election is in progress. So the noble Lord would have a further opportunity to look at the matter again when Parliament resumed.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Or in fact, my Lords, if Parliament resumed with a different Government, which would take an entirely different attitude from the previous government? I am grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I dare say in those circumstances that if the new government wanted to put a spanner in the works they could support the order.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, repeated again, as at the Committee stage, the content of the order that will be placed, and he argued that since it was so restricted and already familiar to us, there would be no point in debating it again. That was the argument, as I understood it, and I suspect we shall have the same argument again when we reach the Third Reading.
May I ask the noble Lord this question? It concerns the reasons why Parliament should pass the order. One of the major reasons why I am asking for an affirmative order to be required is that the Government then have not to explain what the order is but to give their reasons why Parliament should accept the order. Later on we shall know better the costing of this exercise: we shall know how much it is going to cost the Exchequer—because in the end I believe it is going to cost the Exchequer money—and we shall know what undertakings the Government have given to the contractors. We shall know by then who the contractors are and whether they are foreign controlled, since nothing in the Bill can prevent that. We shall know things which are really important to us in deciding whether we approve the order. That is why we want an affirmative order. We know what the order is going to be: that is not the point. The point is that we do not have the information on which to judge whether that order is in the national interest.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew. He has very good experience: much better than I have. I should like to know whether these contracts—
Viscount Long: My Lords, may I intervene to remind my noble friend that we are on the Report stage and we are not really supposed to speak twice.
Baroness Vickers: I only wanted to ask one question of the Minister—
A noble Lord: By leave of the House.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I wanted to ask this question. When are these firms going to be interviewed? Will it be during the Recess or do we have to wait until Parliament is sitting again?
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I am sure the House will give leave for the noble Minister to reply.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I have your Lordships' permission to speak again—and I think I have now risen at least three times in the course of this discussion—the answer to my noble friend is that we will be proceeding with the discussions and the negotiations in accordance with the timetable that I have already indicated to my noble friend and to which I referred at an earlier stage.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I make no undertaking not to return to this on Third Reading; but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Trefgarne: No.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 19, after ("provides") insert ("services which are").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment concerns the definition of "dockyard contractor" in Clause 1(9). It is in the nature of a drafting amendment and I should be very happy to describe it in more detail if your Lordships wish me to do so. In the meantime, I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 21, leave out from ("by") to ("enables") in line 22 and insert ("making the services of employees or property available.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is consequential upon Amendment No. 1. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Provisions as regards premises used for transferred services]:
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 4, line 3, leave out ("by the Secretary of State").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, earlier today we discussed the amendments which I introduced to provide that under a two-company structure at each dockyard the licence to use the dockyard land and assets would be placed with the company employing the workforce. This amendment is consequential upon those earlier amendments, and I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 15 not moved.]
1.30 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 16:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Negotiating machinery.
.—The company formed under section 2 above shall have a duty to consult and agree with the recognised trade unions as to the setting up and maintenance of suitable machinery for negotiating and resolving terms and conditions of employment, to provide reference to arbitration in default of settlement and to discuss other matters of mutual interest to the company and their employees.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I was very dismayed at the Minister's insistence that the

565
amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, could not be withdrawn, because the noble Lord was raising very important issues and he will wish to reflect before Third Reading on what the Minister said. I simply say to the Minister that all he is inviting Members on this side to do, when they wish to withdraw amendments for tactical reasons and he does not allow them to do so, is to force us to have a series of votes which we do not want. I hope he will understand how we wish to proceed.
Amendment No. 16 relates to negotiating machinery. We have had a great deal of experience since the Royal Ordnance Factories were privatised. Although the Minister appears to believe that the TUPE 81 regulations are the be-all and end-all of what the trade unions should accept as a satisfactory basis on which to proceed in the future, I am very sorry to say that that is not the experience of the trade unions. They have told me that the application of TUPE '81, in the case of the Royal Ordnance Factories, does not appear to cover the change in the structure of organisations when they lose a national identity and assume a local bargaining unit type structure. I have already spoken about how the privatisation of the Royal Ordnance Factories will proceed. All this modest amendment will do is to insist that, before this Bill gets Royal Assent, everyone is satisfied that arrangements have been set up to maintain machinery for negotiating and resolving terms of employment.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has insisted more than once that no future arrangement for the management of the dockyards will be successful unless there is reasonable satisfaction. I am not talking about someone having a veto or about trade unions being obstructionist. Certainly, I, as a trade unionist all my life, recognise the reality of the sovereignty of Parliament. But, once the trade unions see that there is to be a change, they will want to get the best arrangements for their members and they will not be unreasonable.
What we are saying in this amendment is that it is crucial to have negotiating machinery through which grievances can be resolved. The structure of the machinery to resolve a grievance is sometimes more important than the actual grievance itself. The fact that there is a proper, fair and democratically equal way of resolving a grievance will, in itself, very often make the parties to a potential dispute reach an agreement without even having to use the machinery. But if there is dissatisfaction about how disputes are to be resolved, that, in itself, may create friction which will cause a dispute.
So I hope that the Minister will not tell us that there is no need for this amendment. What we are saying is that this is what the trade unions want, in order to assist them perhaps in achieving a more positive attitude towards resolving matters in the future. I beg to move.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is the Government's intention that the TUPE regulations, as they are called, should apply to this transfer. While I know that many noble Lords are conversant with the provisions of these regulations, let me emphasise in particular that they provide for the transfer of both the recognition of independent trade unions by the new
566
employer, and the transfer to that employer of collective agreements made with the previous employer. So on vesting day the new employer—the dockyard company—will employ the workforce at the dockyard on the basis of the collective agreements and the recognised trade unions in the Civil Service immediately before the transfer.
Among those collective agreements are those pertaining to the consultative machinery which operates in the Civil Service and thus in the dockyards. As my noble friend Lord Glenarthur pointed out at the Committee stage some days ago, this machinery is highly centralised: it devolves upon London-based Civil Service committees, one chaired by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, another by my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement. Currently, terms and conditions, pay and allowances are agreed by the central negotiating machinery operated under the auspices of the Treasury. If there is at the local level a disagreement which cannot be resolved locally, then that must be referred to headquarters in London.
Clearly, in the situation of an independent commercial company, these links will no longer be appropriate: the determination of, and negotiation about, terms and conditions cannot take place in London with the Treasury. So some adaptation will be needed from the very outset, since the machinery will need to encompass functions it has not dealt with before. I hope that in the light of those broad considerations the noble Lord will not wish to pursue this amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I do not intend to pursue the amendment, but the Minister fails completely to meet the legitimate concern of the unions, because, as in the case of the ordnance factories, we are talking about the removal of employees from the Civil Service and, therefore, their withdrawal from the existing machinery. The Minister may be satisfied that the other arrangements will work out, but what the trade unions are saying is that before the Bill proceeds the arrangements for the negotiating machinery should be made and understood.
The Minister must understand that the trade unions are not reading the book; they have been through the action. Over the last two years, they have had experience of trying to make new arrangements with a new organisation. They have experienced severe problems in getting an acceptable negotiating structure and to this day such a mechanism does not exist. If two years after the privatisation of the ordnance factories a satisfactory negotiating procedure does not exist, how long will it take in this case? All the Minister is doing is storing up trouble, because if these matters are not resolved there will be a canker.
I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, talked about the dreadful possibility of strikes and industrial action. At the end of the day, trade unionists have only the withdrawal of labour as the ultimate weapon. They are not talking about using it, but they are being pressed very hard to consider what else they can do to get sense and sanity into their relationships with their employers. I do not wish to press the amendment, but I cannot say that it will not be raised

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in some other form at a later stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 17:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
(" Redundancy fund: payment for dockyard workers.
. In pursuance of the arrangements made hereunder the Secretary of State shall ensure that the redundancy provisions applicable to all employees of any dockyard company shall be equivalent to those presently embodied in the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme and will set up out of monies provided by Parliament a redundancy fund for the benefit of all qualified dockyard employees declared redundant after the transfer of the dockyard undertaking.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I certainly do not intend to press this matter today, but the Minister must understand the present anxiety. Again, we need to look at the experience in the ordnance factories which I raised earlier with the Minister. The same assurances, the same indications of satisfaction by the Government were given then as are being given now. Let me tell the Minister, without remotely running the risk of getting into trouble, what has happened. When the ordnance factories were privatised, Government Ministers gave assurances that the arrangements for redundancies would be satisfactory. But because of the present order book position, the Royal Ordnance Factory plc is declaring redundancies and the money allocated by the Government is exhausted. I am sure the Minister did not anticipate either the change in the order books or the consequences, but he does not have to live with the reality. The reality is that the proper payment of redundancy is now a matter for consideration. What happens if there is insufficient money in the funds? One result is that people are not made redundant, because you cannot make someone redundant if you are not able to meet the redundancy payments.
The Minister can perhaps take on board that point in what is a severely unhappy situation. I am not talking about employees who either want to stay or who want redundancy. I am talking about the background of the redundancy part of the package, which in 1986 is very much part of a severance or termination package. What are the redundancy arrangements? We are asking that they should be equivalent to those presently embodied in the principal Civil Service pension scheme. If the Minister believes that the Government are in the driving seat and they can make the terms, then they can say precisely what they want to see happen to their existing employees once they are under future arrangements. If people who are going to buy something out of which they think they will make a profit say, "We do not like it", the Government should say, "Well, lump it, because we have the interests of our employees at heart". I beg to move.
Baroness Seear Baroness Seear: My Lords, when privatisation takes place as in this case, it is a dramatic change in the terms and conditions of employment of people many of whom may have been for years in the employment of the Government. It would certainly be good practice in good private enterprise to see that, so far as
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possible when a sale of this kind is made, those conditions are not grossly less favourable than the conditions they have had while they have been serving with the original employer. What is the Government's policy in relation to people whose conditions of employment are changed in this way? We have no guarantee apparently that they will not be changed greatly to their disadvantage.
Lord Trefgarne: Well, my Lords, we go to very considerable lengths to secure the interests of the workforce in these circumstances. Perhaps the first and foremost protection is what are called the TUPE regulations themselves. I have referred also to the arrangements about pensions where we are setting up new pension schemes which mirror just as closely as we possibly can the arrangements that exist in the present principal Civil Service pension scheme; to which most, if not all, of the present dockyard employees belong. What we cannot do is ensure that these identical arrangements are perpetuated for ever and a day. That would negate many of the arguments in favour of the privatisation process as a whole.
That in essence is the reply to this amendment, but perhaps I could add that this is not the first time that we have dealt with the redundancy arrangements in the new companies. Under the TUPE regulations the Civil Service redundancy procedures and levels of compensation transfer to the new employer. It is quite inappropriate, however, to seek, as this amendment does, statutorily to perpetuate the redundancy arrangements and to deny the possibility of any adjustment whatsoever, just as it would be for the Government to set aside moneys effectively to underwrite decisions which are properly for the management of the company. I hope that the noble Lord will not wish to pursue this matter.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, in another place on 8th April the Minister then involved with the Bill, Mr. Norman Lamont, said this:
"But the overall intention will be to set up a scheme paying redundancy benefits either exactly the same or of equivalent value, and reckonable service accrued under the Crown will not be lost".—[Official Report, Commons, 8/4/86; col. 106.]
That is the intention. The reality is that the Ministry of Defence has given evidence to the Public Accounts Committee which suggests a further reduction in the number of dockyard employees after privatisation. Secondly, the whole ethos of the future of the dockyards is risk capital. We are inviting people to invest their money with the prospect that they could make a loss. That is not the hope or the intention, but if we are talking about a commercial undertaking the possibility of a loss arises. In the light of the Government's legislation on redundancy, what do employers do if they make a loss? They adjust the terms of redundancy. This goes on all the time. The Government themselves are changing payments under the Redundancy Payments Act from at one time more than 50 per cent. down to 40 per cent., down to 30 per cent., down to nothing at all in some cases.
One can understand the position of employees who hitherto have enjoyed a valuable package—I simply say a reasonable package—part of which was the redundancy terms. They are very worried indeed that,

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despite the best intentions of the Government, what I have just said can still happen. What we have sought to do is to get the Government to put their money where their mouth is in respect of redundancy payments; but the employees will not be surprised that the Government have failed to do that on this occasion as on others. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1.45 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 18:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Equality of pension rights.
. Where in pursuance of the arrangements referred to in section 1 (2) a qualified dockyard service employee ceases to be employed in the Civil Service of the Crown and becomes employed by a company all pension arrangements made by such company shall be equivalent in all respects to such pension arrangements as applied in the Civil Service of the Crown and shall be applicable to all dockyard company employees.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, once again I want the Minister to address himself to why—and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, again echoes this puzzlement—the Government do not recognise the sensitive nature of what is happening to individuals who may not be losing their jobs but are changing their employers. Goodness gracious me, I am not saying that the Government are a good employer but the Government—the Government of the land—are a good employer to these employees and there has been a good relationship. In this amendment we ask that the pension arrangements that were applied in the Civil Service shall be applicable to all dockyard employees. I very much hope that the Minister can be helpful on this occasion. 1 beg to move.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, noble Lords will recall that at every part of the Committee stage my noble friends and I supported these amendments which try to urge the Government to guarantee the rights of the employees. Here again we have an instance. I should like to take up with the Minister a point he made on the previous amendment which I think applies to all these questions of employees' rights. He said that he could not guarantee them,
"for ever and a day".
That seems to me to be a rather misleading expression. First of all, no matter what is in the contract, the Government cannot guarantee anything at the end of the contract's term. When a new contractor is offered the contract there is absolutely no undertaking to the employees, as I understand it. But worse than that, the Government cannot guarantee the continued financial standing of the contractor. They cannot therefore in theory guarantee anything more than a minimum period of time of the running of the contract. So when the Minister says that he can make no guarantees,
"for ever and a day",
I am not sure that that is accurate. I am not clear what guarantees he can offer and does offer for any period of time. Perhaps when he comes to reply he will clear that up.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Government have taken considerable care in addressing the question of
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future pension arrangements for the new companies. We intend to have set up pension funds with benefits which follow as closely as possible the provisions of the principal Civil Service pension scheme. There will be two schemes for transferred employees, one at each dockyard, which transferring civil servants will join on vesting day. For those who choose to transfer their past service into the schemes, the Government will make a transfer payment from the PCSPS. That initial funding will be added to in the form of contributions set at a level that will enable the fund to meet its future liabilities.
Therefore, the pension schemes for transferred employees will start on a secure financial basis with benefits as close as possible to the present Civil Service scheme, and that includes index linking. Like other private sector funds, they will be managed by trustees who will be independent of the commercial manager and who will make the normal range of decisions about the funds, their investment policies and their benefits. It is our intention that the trustees should include nominees from the contractor, the Government and of course members.
Those trustees will have a range of very real responsibilities to the fund and its members. It is very important that they should be allowed to carry out their duties with the ability to exercise those responsibilities. With the proposed new clause, the noble Lord seeks to set aside a whole section of those responsibilities. The benefits of the scheme would have to remain, in perpetuity, exactly the same as the Civil Service pension scheme. That would not be appropriate. It is for the trustees to manage the scheme in the best interests of the members on whose behalf they hold their trusteeships.
Once again the noble Lord is seeking to protect the interests of the workers; but once more the real effect of his proposal would be to re-impose on the dockyards a constraining influence of the Civil Service, which this Bill is designed to lift. The Government are sure that the future of the dockyards lies in their being run as independent commercial companies. The new clause would restrict that independence and the responsibilities that must accompany it. I hope that your Lordships will reject the amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Minister has failed to satisfy me and, I believe, other fair-minded Members of your Lordships' House. He has done nothing to allay the genuine worries of the workforce. I give no undertaking that I shall not return to this matter in some other form on Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 19:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Report to Parliament.
. The Secretary of State shall set out and itemise in a report to be laid before each House of Parliament prior to the acceptance of tenders for the management of the Royal Dockyards and subsequently on an annual basis all the costs either actual or estimated in excess of £ 100 incurred by and owing to the Exchequer from any arrangements made in consequence thereof for the provisions of designated dockyard services by any company or companies.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment very much overlaps that moved earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, which sought to ensure that major matters would come before your Lordships' House or another place for approval, to provide what is called parliamentary scrutiny. We are here dealing with the costs that will be incurred by the Exchequer from any of the arrangements,
"made in consequence… for the provisions of designated dockyard services by any company or companies".
One of the sprigs of the argument made by this Government for taking any action is that such action will save public money and reduce costs. It has never been denied that one of the reasons why the Government wish to change the present arrangements is their dissatisfaction with the efficiency and productivity of the dockyards. They also wish to reduce what they see as a burden upon the Exchequer.
However, over the past year or two it has been revealed that, far from reducing costs, the proposal is likely to increase costs. There is likely to be a net on-cost to the Exchequer as a result of the new arrangements. I shall indicate to the House our understanding of the situation, having read very carefully what has been said in many places. The private pension scheme that needs to be arranged will cost an estimated £200 million. That is from figures provided by the MoD. Redundancy payments will be an estimated £40 million. That figure was provided by Dr. Michael Harte at the MoD planning team on 4th April. Payments to private consultants will cost an estimated £30 million. That information was supplied to the trade unions within the MoD. There is a sum of £46 million estimated for the new supply and store organisation. That information is given in the report of the dockyard planning working team. A sum of £3·5 million will be needed for the expansion of the fleet maintenance base. Some £95 million will be required for the management, financial ledger and accounting package. They all amount to more than £400 million.
In addition, for year-on-year costs, there are the contractors' profits, the new monitoring organisation, the additional VAT contributions (still to be costed) to the European Community, staff costs for running the fleet maintenance base, and staff costs for the Ministry of Defence store organisation and accountancy divisions. They add up to a total additional yearly running cost of £52 million.
The Minister cannot be sanguine if the figures I have read out are correct. The Minister may argue that they are not correct. He may say they are an overestimate or are exaggerated. However, as my noble friend Lord Mulley said, if those figures are exaggerated or overestimated, then why not do the noble thing and come clean? Why not give this House and the country the true figures? It is no use resting on the argument that our figures are either untrue or incorrect. What we want are the real figures. This amendment seeks to provide both Houses of Parliament with the true facts before we proceed with this Bill. It is a very poor substitute for the Government to say, "We have the figures and your figures are not correct", or, as we suspect they might say, "We do not have the real
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figures, but anyway they would not be anything like the figures you have given". Such would be a very poor substitute for open and honest government in this particular respect. I beg to move.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will take this opportunity to give the House a clear statement as to how the Government see the finances of this scheme. We have received some official estimates from the Government on the savings. The amount has gone down. At one time it was estimated at £28 million a year but now it is £21 million a year, unless it has further decreased since earlier proceedings on this Bill. That is a specific point on which the Minister could reassure the House.
This whole Bill has had a very hard battering from the workforce, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and from noble Lords on all sides of the House. The heaviest blow to the Bill came with the 21st Report of the Public Accounts Committee. It is an all-party committee whose recommendations were unanimous, and I have seldom read a more withering destruction of a Bill, from the financial point of view, than that which appears in its report. It is time that the Government tried to answer. I will read from one paragraph of the report:
"We note MOD's assurance that their costings are as reliable as they can possibly make them but they are still based on many assumptions, there are still considerable uncertainties and they are almost certain to be revised again before contracts are placed for commercial management; we therefore wish to be supplied with further costings as they are revised".
The Minister now has an opportunity to give your Lordships' House the latest costings. A little later in that report there is this statement:
"While agreeing in principle with the establishment of a customer supplier organisation, we are surprised at the envisaged size and cost of the proposed Directorate General of Ship Refitting, and trust that every effort will be made to keep the extra costs of the new organisation within strict limits".
It is an absolute model of how to construct a new bureaucracy. Here is something that is not needed now but which the Government scheme will make necessary. It will employ a staff of 800 and will cost £11 million a year. It really is scandalous. Those points have been made before and I shall not repeat them, but I beg the Minister to seize this last opportunity, at this stage of the Bill, to make clear how much money the Government really think they will save and to dispute the view held by many noble Lords that, overall, the Government will lose money with this wretched Bill.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am happy to reassure your Lordships that no such thing is going to happen. We estimate that annual savings will be of the order of £28 million a year. The noble Lord said we had reduced it to £21 million. That is not correct. What will happen is that over the early years of the new arrangements—say, the first 10 years—savings will be slightly less because during that time we shall be amortising the setting up costs which we estimate at £70 million. I think my arithmetic is right when I say that £70 million amortised over 10 years is £7 million a year, and if you deduct £7 million from £28 million you get £21 million.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, is the Minister seriously saying that those figures from the sources I have produced are wholly fallacious? I am certainly prepared to give the Minister, outside this debate, at least the basis upon which I have been supplied with that information. The figures total more than £400 million in order to start. If the Minister is saying that there is a wide discrepancy between the £400 million and the £70 million, then an explanation is needed not just to myself but, more importantly, to those outside the House.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I have your Lordships' permission to speak again, may I say that I dare say we are not comparing like with like. I have not seen the noble Lord's figures, but naturally I shall look at anything he cares to give me. I assume the figures he gives include large sums of money which would have been spent anyway.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I feel sure that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, would not wish to end the proceedings with a mathematical howler. I stated that the estimated savings by the Government were £21 million a year. By savings of course I mean net savings. The Minister then says, "No, it is £28 million a year because we are going to have to amortise £70 million worth of starting expenditure". But that does not work out. The net savings are not £28 million; they are £21 million.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, of course I accept the noble Lord's arithmetic.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, with the leave of the House, the Minister said that perhaps the figures I gave are separate, and that we are not comparing like with like. He said that in any event many of the expenses would be incurred anyway. I refer to the private pension scheme arrangements. They would not normally be undertaken. That is a new commitment. I am told that the redundancy payments could amount to £40 million. The Minister says that, overall, the figure is £70 million for all sorts of costs. Therefore, I shall certainly be very happy to give the Minister the information I have which, I repeat, is from the Public Accounts Committee; the Ministry of Defence; information given by Mr. John Lee; information supplied to the dockyard planning team and from other factors in the Bill. I will certainly give that information to the Minister.
Again, as on a previous exchange between us, if the Minister needs to say anything to correct what he has said, no doubt he will come forward. Equally, I will be happy to do the same. It has been an interesting discussion, and again I am not prepared to indicate that I shall not come back at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Bill
2.4.P.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [Appointment of authorised representatives of disabled persons ]:
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 12, leave out ("provide—") and insert ("make provision with respect to the appointment of persons to act as the authorised representatives of disabled persons, including provisions—")
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I speak at the same time to Amendment No. 2.
This Government amendment is designed to ensure that the position of disabled children in local authority care is adequately covered in the part of the Bill relating to the appointment of representatives. It has been tabled with the agreement of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham.
Subsection (3)(a) of Clause 1 envisages that in general the parents or guardians of disabled children should be able to appoint representatives for them. Parents could appoint themselves as representatives if they wished to do so. In some cases appointment of a representative by the parent would still be appropriate even if the child is in local authority care. But in other cases it would be wholly inappropriate, and indeed contrary to the child's best interests, to allow the parent of a child in care to appoint a representative, or for a representative appointed by the parent—who could be the parent himself—to have physical access to the child under the provision of Clause 2(5). Indeed, as I need hardly spell out to your Lordships, the reason for the child being taken into care in the first place will often be to protect him from his parents.
Nevertheless, it would in our view be wrong not to let a child in this position have a representative at all. The amendment would accordingly provide that, in circumstances which would be carefully set out in the regulations, it will be for the local authority to appoint a representative for a child in their care. We would propose to consult further on the exact circumstances in which these provisions would apply. The aim would be to cover all the situations where it would not be in the interests of the child to allow the natural parent to appoint a representative himself or herself. I beg to move.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I welcome the principle of this amendment; but I realise the complexities of how it might operate in practice. I am pleased that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, has said that some of the outstanding issues will be examined in detail by the Government in their proposals for the new child care legislation. The noble Baroness said that on the last stage of the Bill.
The officers of the department have been working very hard to make this amendment as helpful as possible for children. I thank them and also my two advisers, Peter Mitchell of RADAR and John Healey of MIND, for all the work done and the advice given.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I also say a word of thanks to the noble Baroness? Though she did not say so, I suspect that this amendment must have resulted from consultation that took place following four

575
amendments at Committee stage—one of which I tabled and three of which I spoke to. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for going into this question. I am glad also that she said that she would consult further about this matter as regards the regulations, and I hope that she will consult with organisations such as the Family Rights Group and others who have taken a special interest in this Bill in order that we can make quite certain that finally it is right. I am most grateful to her and I support the amendment.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I also welcome this amendment. I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister to bear in mind the need to ensure that the disabled person's representative is someone who can understand and communicate with a disabled person, who may find difficulty in communication. As I have said before, very often disabled people are able to communicate through only one or two people, and it is very important that that channel of communication be used.
With regard to children perhaps I may also say that as they grow older they often do not want their parents to be their representatives because, like able-bodied children, they are trying to leave the nest. It is sometimes difficult enough for able-bodied children to leave the family home and get away to become independent. It is even more difficult for a disabled person to do so, and sometimes parents and relatives can be a hindrance rather than a help.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my noble friend, Lord Swinfen for their welcome to this amendment. I should like to assure them both that what they have said this afternoon will be very carefully noted and will form part of the consultation process.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2. line 7, leave out ("and") and insert—
("(aa) may provide for the appointment of a person as the authorised representative of a disabled person who is a child in the care of a local authority to be made by that authority in such circumstances as may be specified in the regulations;"').
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Authorised representatives of disabled persons]:
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 4, line 4, after ("(3)") insert ("(aa) or").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a consequential drafting amendment following the earlier amendment to Clause 1. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 5, line 24, leave out ("and (8)").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4 and I shall speak to Amendment
576
No. 5 at the same time. These are both drafting amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 5, line 29, leave out ("in subsection (7)").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 7 [Persons discharged from hospital]:
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 11, line 32, leave out ("where that person will be") and insert ("in the case of a person").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Amendment of section 29(2) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970]:
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 16, line 16, leave out ("Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968") and insert ("1968 Act").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, perhaps at the same time I may speak to Amendment No. 10. These are purely technical amendments reflecting the draftsman's preference for referring to an Act in its abbreviated form. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Persons leaving special education: Scotland]:
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 17, line 33, leave out ("an establishment of further education") and insert ("a further education establishment").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this is a purely technical drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 18, line 22, leave out ("obtained") and insert ("attained").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this is another purely technical amendment, correcting a drafting error. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 18, line 30, leave out ("Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968") and insert C1968 Act").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 7. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 15 [Co-operation in planning]:
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 20. line 23, leave out from beginning to ("or") in line 25 and insert—
("15. In relation to disabled persons the duty under section 13 of the 1978 Act").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, again, this is a purely technical amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Interpretation]:
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 21, line 23, after ("1(6)) insert ("—(a) in relation to England and Wales,").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 together. The term "guardian" is already defined in Clause 16 of the Bill. The main amendment provides a parallel definition in terms applicable to Scotland, and the other amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 21. line 25. at end insert ("and
(b) in relation to Scotland, means a person appointed by deed
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or will or by order of a court of competent jurisdiction to be the tutor, curator or guardian of a child; ").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 22, line 11, after (" "parent" ") insert ("—(a)").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, 1 should like to speak to Amendment Nos. 14 and 15 together. The term "parent" is already defined in Clause 16 of the Bill. The main amendment provides a parallel definition in terms applicable to Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Davidson Viscount Davidson moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 22, line 13, at end insert ("and
(b) in relation to Scotland, means in the case of a child whose father is not married to the mother, his mother, to the exclusion of his father;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
House adjourned at a quarter past two o'clock.

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