House of Commons Hansard Debates for 4 May 1993

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European Communities (Finance) Act 1988 gave effect to the own resources decision. The House judged that, in order to meet our constitutional requirements, such measures required an Act of Parliament. Similarly, an Act is likely to be the most appropriate method to give domestic legal effect in United Kingdom law to any substantive changes brought about under article 18. The right hon. Gentleman referred to additions to the citizenship rights. Article K.9 deals with transfers into United Kingdom competence.

I remember having an exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), who is not in his place but is in the House. I hope that those who have taken what one might generically call a sceptical view about the Government's wish to ratify the Maastricht treaty might be able, when new clauses and amendments such as this are moved, to step back from their opposition and to consider it as a House of Commons matter. I do not think that the House would wish, on reflection, to pre- empt the possibility of using a parliamentary procedure other than an Act of Parliament, as would be the case if the new clause were accepted. It may be that there could be a less significant substantial change for which the House might feel that an order under section 1(3) of the European Communities Act 1972 would be entirely appropriate.

Mr. Spearing : Is the Minister saying that it is not within the option--I use that word carefully--of the House to determine the way in which the House, rather than the Government, determines its own United Kingdom constitutional arrangements for implementing those changes in the treaty ? If he does not accept the new clause, he is saying that it is in the hands of the majority of the Administration of the day to choose whether it is done with an order under section 1(3), an hour and a half after 10 o'clock if one is lucky, or some other procedure. Why cannot it be, in principle, in the Bill ?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I am not saying that. I shall be dealing with those specific points later. The hon. Gentleman is rightly held in high regard in the House for the interest and the assiduity with which he attends not just European Community business but all business. I am astonished that his commitment to wrecking the Maastricht treaty is so strong that he is prepared, in a House of Commons matter, to write into an EC Act of Parliament the procedures of the House, to subject the House to the scrutiny of another place on matters that are our own procedures. He is well aware that the way that the House of Commons operates in procedure--I know that the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) will confirm this--is not on the basis of the Executive, whatever kind of majority it has, being able, in matters of procedure such as this, to ride roughshod over the wishes of the official Opposition or of the House as a whole. The hon. Gentleman knows that to be the case.

Mr. Spearing : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I want to make a little more progress. I shall return more specifically to that point and if the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene again I shall give way to him.

The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney also touched on new clause 4. It requires the Government to obtain approval in a resolution passed by both Houses

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of Parliament before a Minister agrees to joint action. My contention--I hope that the House will accept this--is that there is no need for this new clause. I shall explain why.

The common foreign and security policy, including joint action, builds, as the House is well aware, on the close co-operation already established under European political co-operation through the Single European Act. Many actions taken under European political co-operation would fit the joint action criteria. It is certainly the Government's position that the best interests of the United Kingdom lie in co-operating with our partners on foreign policy issues to achieve a co-ordinated approach.

As in other areas of foreign policy, considerations of confidentiality and speed are vital to the effectiveness of policy. It would not be appropriate or effective to require the Government to seek parliamentary approval for each decision. In the past 10 days we have had the example of Bosnia- Herzegovina. The House was concerned and representations were made by the official Opposition and by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Of course, in such circumstances the Foreign Secretary needs to come to the House and to appear before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to give account of himself and the Government's actions in that matter to the House.

I assure the House that all major decisions under the common foreign and security policy will be taken by unanimity, including any decision on whether to use qualified majority voting on some procedural decisions on joint action. The Government would certainly not agree to any policy that they regarded as inimical to the United Kingdom's national interests. If hon. Members step back from the controversies that surround the treaty, they will accept that this Administration have not been criticised for not being willing to make statements to the House and appearances before the appropriate Select Committee.

Mr. Shore : I am not entirely convinced, because the nearest thing that we have had to a joint action, a common foreign policy, in Europe in recent years is the recognition of the various republics that once formed Yugoslavia. I strongly believe that the House would have benefited greatly from a debate before the Foreign Secretary agreed to that decision.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I do not agree. There have been a range of decisions under European political co-operation which would fit into the joint action criteria.

New clause 19, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), and new clause 38, in the name of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, refer to parliamentary approval for conventions drawn up under the justice and home affairs pillar. Paragraph 2(c) of article K.3, to which the new clauses refer, already requires such conventions to be recommended for adoption by the member states in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. In other words, such conventions will acquire a kind of ratification by member states.

In the United Kingdom, the position will vary in accordance with well- established practice according to whether the convention requires any change in United Kingdom law before it can be given effect. If it did, Parliament's approval of the legislation would be required before ratification. If it did not, the Ponsonby rule would

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apply and there would be the usual opportunities for debate. There is no need to treat international conventions drawn up under paragraph 2(c) of article K.3 any differently from those concluded elsewhere--such as in the United Nations.

I understand the wish of the right hon. Gentleman and of other right hon. and hon. Members to examine proposals, and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the House will be kept fully informed, as it is under our existing scrutiny procedures. As I explained in Committee, it is essentially a matter of how the House arranges its own procedures for scrutinising Community business. It is a question of domestic housekeeping for the House and wholly inappropriate for enshrinement in an Act of Parliament, as the amendments seek. 12.15 am

Mr. Rowlands : The Minister's whole case is that these procedures are a continuation of European co-operation. Will he confirm that there was no suggestion that European co-operation of the kind that we have known would be subject to any form of qualified majority? Will he further confirm that a contentious decision--such as the recognition of a future Croatia-- would only be reached by unanimity and would never be subject to a qualified majority process?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I made it clear that the decisions to move to qualified majority voting can be taken only by unanimity--and even then will only be for a limited period. It goes without saying that no United Kingdom Government of any political colour would agree to matters that we would regard as being of great consequences or which had a significant effect on our national interest being decided by qualified majority voting. I can give that commitment on behalf of not just this Administration but, I believe, any future Administrations.

I have tried to show that any changes under articles 138, 236, 237, and so on, would in any event be covered by an Act of Parliament. In Committee, I touched on the general point that it has not been the practice of the House to embody parliamentary procedures in legislation.

Mr. Spearing : This is not a procedure.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Perhaps I may continue. Procedures laid down in statute are, by definition, inflexible. If these procedures were found to be deficient in any way or in need of fine tuning, we would require additional legislation to make the necessary changes, however minor they might be.

That has two implications, which I ask the House to consider carefully. Changing an Act of Parliament by statute is a relatively slow process. It would eat away at parliamentary time that could be devoted to other purposes. Also, altering an Act of Parliament requires the consent of the House of Lords. I mean no disrespect to the other place in pointing out that the effect would be to surrender in some sense control over the internal procedures of this House to the other place.

I will give the House a good example of that. The existing scrutiny procedures of this House have proven themselves flexible to meet challenges in the past, and I believe that they will meet our new requirements. As I reminded the Committee, the 1990 review of scrutiny arrangements gave rise to two particularly significant developments. The six-monthly debates on European

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Community developments were made more forward looking than in the past, and the two European Standing Committees were established. In Committee, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)--whom no right hon. or hon. Member would describe as a Euro -enthusiast but who is a member of European Standing Committee A--spoke well of the kind of scrutiny of EC directives that is undertaken in the European Standing Committees. She clearly thought--and I share her view-- that the work done by those Committees was useful to the House.

The Procedure Committee's review in December 1991 of the first session of the new Standing Committees led to some minor changes. Hon. Members should note that, were these procedures enshrined in an Act of Parliament, even such minor changes would have required statutory backing. The new clause strikes me as a way of fettering the House's freedom of manoeuvre--as a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Mr. Marlow : My right hon. Friend suggests that he is concerned about tying the hands of the House. It seems more likely that he is concerned about tying the hands of the Whips and the Government's business managers. He said that we should not enshrine in legislation the way in which the House should deal with some future events arising from the European Community, but we are doing that in the Bill by saying that the single currency must be subject to an Act of Parliament.

The new clause seeks to add two other aspects. It does not apply to all Community legislation, but it seeks to add "changes in voting procedure" and circumstances in which a decision is made

"after assent by member states and in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements".

It is suggested that that assent should also be by Act of Parliament. There is no difference between such matters being decided by Act of Parliament, and the single currency being decided by Act of Parliament.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Let me correct my hon. Friend. I think that clause 3 specifies that if the conditions were ever to pertain for Britain to consider going into a single currency, the matter must be debated in the House first. The essential point that he misses, however, is that a range of weapons is available to the House of Commons, allowing it to scrutinise the way in which Community business is handled.

I do not of examples of decisions taken in Council in which what we in the House would regard as constitutional requirements in the United Kingdom would involve an Act of Parliament. Certainly, any decisions made under the provisions for inter-governmental co-operation in the justice and home affairs pillar that would change the law in the United Kingdom would require an Act of Parliament ; but a number of other decisions may not require an Act of Parliament. The House may need to scrutinise those in a different way. For all my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North and I know, in the coming years--as the House becomes more accustomed to dealing with Community business--it may wish to elaborate on the Standing Committees that have already been set up, which give it additional powers. One of the beauties of the House of

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Commons is its flexibility in this regard-- its ability to scrutinise, and to call Ministers in for statements and debates.

I assure my hon. Friend that the Executive has substantial powers in the House ; but, as someone who has spent quite some time working in the usual channels, I know that it is simply not possible to run the British Parliament if the Executive believes that it can trample over the Opposition's rights--and, indeed, the sentiment and the will of the House. That is part of the mix that goes into running the House.

Mr. Shore : The right hon. Gentleman says that it has not been the habit of this House to legislate on its own procedures and that the new clause would curtail the freedom of the House. When I hear remarks like that, I think that I am standing on my head. We are considering legislating on our own procedures precisely because it was never the habit of this Parliament, before the past 20 years, to hand over its powers to agencies outside its control and to submit itself to their superior authority and to treaty law. That is the essence of the difference. The purpose of my new clause is to impose stricter parliamentary control over any further transfer of powers. That, surely, the Minister understands.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Of course I understand that, but, with the greatest respect, the real position of the right hon. Gentleman--it is a perfectly respectable one, and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) was prepared to resign from the Administration on account of it, which was not a light decision to take--is that he has never accepted the treaty of Rome. As he says, for 20 years or more, a parliamentary practice has built up. I maintain that the scrutiny requirements and procedures of the House will almost certainly need to be reviewed--in particular, the examination of activity under the two intergovernmental pillars--at an appropriate time, not just through the usual channels but by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The House, in its own way, will grope its way towards what it considers to be the right and appropriate procedure for keeping a check on Ministers.

For the reasons I have given, I do not believe that the European Communities (Amendment) Bill is a suitable vehicle for changing the scrutiny arrangements of the House.

Mr. Marlow : My right hon. Friend corrected me. Can I try to correct my right hon. Friend ? If I am incorrect, he can correct me again. My right hon. Friend said, with regard to the single currency, that it was not necessary to have an Act of Parliament. I think that he referred to clause 3 of the Bill. However, clause 2 says that "No notification shall be given to the Council of the European Communities that the United Kingdom intends to move to the third stage unless a draft of the notification has first been approved by Act of Parliament".

Mr. Garel-Jones : I stand corrected. My hon. Friend is right.

Mr. Spearing : To use the Minister's words, we are now about to grope, are we not ? Does he not make the distinction, which we make, between report and scrutiny on the one hand and control on the other ? We are talking about parliamentary control, not all the other issues that the Minister mentioned. Can he help me to determine

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whether I am mistaken, or whether he is ignorant, or whether he is trying to deceive the House ? One of those three must, I think, be right.

About 10 minutes ago, the Minister said that it is not the practice of the House to lay down what procedures shall be found within an Act, but surely he agrees that Acts of Parliament abound with requirements for reports and with requirements for statutory instruments--whether it be an ordinary order, an order that is subject to the negative procedure or an order that requires resolution--to be made by Ministers to achieve a certain purpose. That happens thousands of times in Acts of Parliament. Why should we not say that we do not want a resolution, we want an Act of Parliament?

Mr. Garel-Jones : The answer to those three questions is that there is a fourth question. The hon. Gentleman deceives himself. It is a matter of judgment for the House. It is not a question of the different views that are held about the merits of the Maastricht treaty. I believe that the flexibility that the House has to change and alter its procedures will be needed by the House in the years to come as the functioning of the treaty on European union gets under way.

As I said in Committee, I am sure that the irony of the situation would not be lost on the House were any of the new clauses to be accepted because our procedure would then effectively be regulated by a piece of European legislation, which is not a happy prospect for those of us anxious to preserve the House's position.

12.30 am

Mr. Spearing : I shall take up the Minister's point straight away. He claims that he will resist the new clause because it is anti-Parliament and something which will bind our successors in a way that they would not wish to be bound. He is nodding his head, but I think that he, not my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), is standing on his head.

Is the Minister afraid of an Act of Parliament which will affect any future Administration, not just the current one? We are talking about the next X number of years, as long as the treaty lasts. I thank the Minister for his initial statement and I agree that the debate is about the scrutiny of procedures and about control. At the beginning of his speech, the Minister properly said that, if the new clause were accepted, it would not affect ratification of the treaty in any way. As he rightly says, we are discussing House of Commons procedure.

In a homely term, the Minister said that we should not write into an Act how Parliament should operate in what he called a "housekeeping" capacity. I suggest that it was a slightly misleading term because our procedures in relation to housekeeping come under the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services), along with the way in which the buildings operate, the salaries and wages of staff and even our own returns. There is a great difference between the order of the House under the rules of procedure, which are neutral and which cross the whole range of activity, whether it be a question on foreign affairs or an Adjournment debate--the latter has brought down a Government before now--and what the Minister is now saying. The Minister is saying that he does not want any future Executive to be bound by the duty and need to bring

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an Act of Parliament. He says that it is a rigidity which will bind the House itself. Surely, the real binding is the binding of the Executive of the day.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The hon. Gentleman must not put words into my mouth. I began my remarks by giving a list of instances in which, on past practice, it is well accepted that an Act of Parliament would be the constitutionally appropriate way for the House to give its assent. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) waggled one of those instances--changes in the electoral process for the European Parliament--before the House as a skeleton. I am saying that the new clause seeks to cast the net in such a way as to make it not only cumbersome but inconvenient for the House. None of us is naive and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that under many of our procedures the usual channels have to dragoon hon. Members in to keep the debates going. Let us not deceive ourselves about what we would be shackling the House with. In matters of scrutiny, I believe that the two new Standing Committees have been successful. The House has the ability to build on them and will do so. I do not want that process to be inhibited by an Act of Parliament.

Mr. Spearing : I do not think that I misunderstood what the right hon. Gentleman was saying. Just before I gave way, my charge was that the shackles were not on the House but on the Executive and Government of the day. With due respect, he has not answered that charge. Clearly, a requirement in the Bill for, say, a resolution or an affirmative order would mean a requirement on the Government. As it happens, an Act of Parliament rather than a resolution is specified in the set of amendments. That shackle is stronger and bigger and it may be a more inconvenient and cumbersome instrument, but it is not in a different category ; it is an obligation of the Administration of the day towards the House. Surely that is the essence of the matter.

Mr. Garel-Jones rose

Mr. Spearing : I shall give way in a moment, but first may I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that that is not a cut-and-dried issue? I shall reply to what he said to me before I give way again. He may say that in the past there has been an Act of Parliament for this, that or the other, but may I remind him of a certain famous occasion on which Lady Thatcher of Kesteven said that there would be an intergovernmental agreement to raise the financial contribution. Does the Minister remember how the Government got round the 1 per cent. arrangement? The money was topped up through an

intergovernmental agreement outside the treaty. As the Minister said, an attempt was made to do that under section 1(3) of the European Communities Act 1972.

I am glad that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) is in the Chamber, because I intend to talk about something that happened during his premiership, or just afterwards. Under section 1(3) of the 1972 Act a simple affirmative order in the House, which would have agreed the treaty, was tried. There was a challenge in the courts and a judicial review and a separate Act of Parliament--a Consolidated Fund Bill- -had to be introduced instead of the order that the Government of the day tried to use.

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I tell the Minister, therefore, that the practice is not a rigid one. One cannot always rely on custom and practice, unless the precedents are well built in. The example that I have given shows that the House had to go through the financial procedure of a Consolidated Fund Bill to agree to the payment out of the Consolidated Fund, because there was not an automatic Community obligation under the European Communities Act introduced by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup.

Sir Teddy Taylor rose

Mr. Spearing : I shall give one more example before giving way again to the Minister.

Shortly after the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup ceased to be Prime Minister there was a debate when he was in opposition and my right hon. and hon. Friends and I were in government. A statutory instrument was introduced under section 1(3) of the European Communities Act, designating five or six treaties--they made quite a high pile--as Community treaties. One of those treaties altered the arrangements of the European Parliament on non-obligatory expenditure and the way in which the tennis match took place vis-a -vis the Council of Ministers. That effectively altered the treaty of Rome by way of a statutory instrument that did not even mention the treaty. The amendment to the treaty was contained in a schedule to the order. That is how the Community has been able to deal with legislation and obligations in the past, by a subterranean method ; perhaps that will happen again in the future.

To ensure that there is proper control of the House, as opposed to reportage and scrutiny, which is a different function and can bring about only a certain amount of visibility, there has to be an Act of Parliament. No Government, including the present Government, should try to suggest that we demote that method in favour of some other way, as yet undefined. The Minister has not said that he thinks that a statutory instrument resolution would be better. The method could involve section 1(3) or any one of all sorts of other means. So the Minister is using subterranean tactics, which are too flexible for comfort in this highly charged and vital matter of public control. Does the Minister wish me to give way to him now ?

Mr. Garel-Jones indicated dissent .

Sir Teddy Taylor : After our experience involving merchant shipping and the Spanish fishermen, is not it rather silly to try to pretend that Acts of Parliament passed by the House can any longer give rights to the people of Britain ? In connection with what the Minister said about article K, if there were an agreement by unanimity that we should, for example, allow the entry of 100,000 people from eastern Europe, and if that required parliamentary legislation and the House rejected that legislation, would the rights disappear ? Would the 100,000 people from eastern Europe have no rights, simply because the Houses of Parliament had turned the legislation down ? After all the Acts that we have passed and all the treaties that we have agreed, is it not bogus nonsense to pretend that Acts of Parliament can afford any protection now, when they can be overturned by European agreements interpreted by the European Court ?

Mr. Spearing : The hon. Gentleman tempts me down a road that I do not wish to travel because for once the Minister and I agree that the matter relates to

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parliamentary procedure. I should be adducing the same argument if I were on the Government Benches, even if I were in favour of the Bill.

What the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) says may or may not be true, but it is clear from the Minister's remarks that citizens of the United Kingdom are being deprived of the right to peruse a parliamentary measure that has been published and put on the Table and on which there must be a Second Reading, Committee stage, Third Reading and perhaps a Report stage in another place. They are being deprived of the opportunity to know what is being done in their name by their representatives as a result of the sort of decision that the Minister is taking today. In that respect, he is not only taking away power from the people and this House, but at the same time is reducing visibility.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The House knows that, even if the hon. Gentleman were on these Benches, he would be arguing the same case with the same vehemence. I shall not labour the point further, but his problem is that he has never accepted the treaty of Rome.

The hon. Gentleman might have reminded the House that the judicial review to which he referred was won by the Government of the day and that that Government chose afterwards to proceed by way of an Act. There should be choice in such matters, with the right legislative method being adopted in each case.

There being many experienced hon. Members present, I need not labour the point that the hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that section 1(3) orders were a kind of pushover. In fact, they require affirmative resolutions in both Houses. The hon. Gentleman is slightly spinning the ball in the wrong direction on that matter.

Mr. Spearing : I agree that that judicial review was lost by the person who brought it, now deceased. But is the Minister really saying that if that had not been challenged in the courts, the Government would have produced an Act? Of course not. The order in question was printed and laid. Was not it legitimate for a citizen of this country to bring the matter into the open? I agree that the Government of the day, perhaps using their wise discretion, took a certain course. Even the present Government occasionally wander into the area of wise discretions, as they did earlier today when they accepted some amendments.

The Conservative Government under the previous premiership may not have been too good at doing that. They did not see some of the rocks ahead. But the present Government are more sapient in that respect. Why should the citizen be denied the opportunity to erect warning lights, even by taking court action? The fact that the Minister reminds us that the case was lost, and that the Government took some notice of it, reinforces my point.

The Minister claims that statutory instruments are no pushover. I accept that on occasions they may not be, but he knows from his experience of many years in office that on certain days, when business is light after the main debate and an instrument comes up after 10 o'clock, it is not difficult to get through important abstruse matters after a one and a half hour debate. As for visibility, a statutory instrument does not have the visibility of a Bill.

I reinforce the important points made my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney relating to new clause 4 and foreign and security policy. I

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want the Minister of State to comment on that subject as I do not understand it. People think that I have read the treaty many times, but I am mystified by the specific sequence of events. It is important because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said, we have recently expressed a unanimous decision on Croatia--on which there were various views that I shall not adumbrate.

12.45 am

Article J.3 states :

"1. Whenever the Council decides on the principle of joint action, it shall lay down the specific scope, the Union's general and specific objectives in carrying out such action, if necessary its duration, and the means, procedures and conditions for its implementation.

2. The Council shall, when adopting the joint action and at any stage during its development, define those matters on which decisions are to be taken by a qualified majority. Where the Council is required to act by a qualified majority pursuant to the preceding subparagraph, the votes of its members shall be weighted in accordance with Article 148(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, and for their adoption, acts of the Council shall require at least fifty-four votes in favour, cast by at least eight members."

I am puzzled about the stage at which there is a change of gear. The Council--I presume, the Foreign Affairs Council--is simultaneously acting in various dimensions. It is dealing with scope, general objectives, specific objectives, duration, means, procedures and conditions for implementation. The treaty states that the Council shall

"when adopting the joint action"--

presumably in the process of deciding to do so--

"and at any stage during its development"--

foreign affairs certainly develop--

"define those matters on which decisions are to be taken by a qualified majority."

It does not state which form of voting will be used to do so. It does not state whether the voting will have to be unanimous. The treaty is a difficult one to read and no doubt somewhere within it--the article may be at the fingertips of the Minister of State, who may be present in the Council where the voting is being held--is the procedure to be followed when decisions are being taken on whether to move from common action to that requiring a qualified majority vote. Perhaps such a move would require a unanimous vote. A well-laid-out treaty should state the means by which that decision is made. Therefore, I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney. It would be for the benefit of the country and the House to know if, when that change of gear takes place, subsequent assent is needed to a policy that is to be a common policy. There have been difficulties in Europe--in former Yugoslavia--and we can imagine problems anywhere in the world to which the procedure would apply. We can imagine it being applied to problems that we have experienced in the past two or three years. What would happen within the joint Council when the matter is decided by a qualified majority vote ? How would the House retain its influence and control ? At present, on anything that is tabled in co- operation or unanimity, the House can have an Adjournment debate and the supporters can chunter away in the Members' Lobby, the Tea Room, or by letter or deputation, and tell the Foreign Secretary what they are willing to tolerate. They have

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probably been doing that over recent events. The Government know that they must keep within those lines--that is the hidden force of Members of Parliament.

However, if the matter is decided on qualified majority voting, the Minister can bargain. We know what happens in the European Community--there is package bargaining in the Council. If a matter is to be decided by qualified majority voting, one decision is offset against another. That is done in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, which is--and always was--part of the treaty. One of the functions of that Committee, which is not often mentioned in the House and about which I know a little, is that of a sort of bargaining place where one makes a minor concession to gain what one considers to be a major concession. It is, in a sense, a policy market and it has a currency. If I am wrong, the Minister will correct me. Perhaps he will clarify two points. First, on change of gear, how and by what method is it achieved ? Secondly, although we are not voting on it as unfortunately it has not been selected, in those circumstances, why should not the House control that Minister, who might well be outvoted anyway, by resolution rather than by general debate and what passes for scrutiny ?

Mr. Garel-Jones : In passing, let me ask the hon. Gentleman a question. Were it appropriate, would he like to see similar controls over decisions taken by unanimity in the Security Council of the United Nations, or is it just the Community that he finds offensive ? Unanimity is the general rule for common and security policy as set out in article J.8(2) :

"The Council shall act unanimously, except for procedural questions and in the case referred to in Article j.3(2)."

That means that any decisions to use qualified voting will be taken by unanimity.

Mr. Spearing : I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification and simply express the thought that it might have been better drafted by putting it in a different place in the treaty. However, we are relieved to know that that is so.

The Minister asked me a personal question about the Security Council, but I do not consider it to be comparable. The United Nations, which many of us heavily support, is an international organisation in which individual nations get together and fulfil their roles, co-operating where they can and, one hopes, all the time, but our Foreign Secretary and our Prime Minister speak for the United Kingdom.

The treaty will require a certain amount of harmonisation even in the United Nations, as in every international forum, and that will blunt the originality in foreign affairs for which the United Kingdom is known. Be that as it may, I would answer the Minister's question by saying that it is a different matter. In many foreign policy matters, we will have a common policy, some of which may be subject to qualified majority voting. It is entirely different.

I know that the Secretary of State has said in that beautiful way of his-- he is very skilled--"But this is nothing more than we have at the moment. We have it under title 3 of the Single European Act. We have come together under political co-operation ; we shall have a few more political directives and hot it up a bit, but it is only putting into treaty form what we already have." However, it is not. What we have at the moment is co -operation, or so we are told by the Foreign Secretary, in which any

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member state is free to say, "I am sorry, but we cannot go along with that," and they exercise their common judgment.

As the Minister said, states do not have to come to a common view on anything. However, there is pressure in article J to reach a common view and a presumption that, where possible, we shall come to a common foreign policy. I am glad that the Minister is nodding in agreement. The presumption to come to that common view is stronger than the desirability in the Single European Act. The Minister now shakes his head, but any reading of the treaty comparing the two groups of articles would suggest that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stephney referred to Croatia. May I refer the Minister to the Foreign Secretary's words in one of the last debates in Committee ? When tackled on the matter, he said that it was perfectly true that the Germans were changed in their view on the recognition of Croatia. He said that if it had not been for the necessity for a common decision, the Germans would have recognised Croatia earlier than was the case. He then said that the United Kingdom would have recognised Croatia some time earlier than was the case. I do not have the exact words, but I know that they were something of that kind. The Foreign Secretary did not say how much sooner the United Kingdom would have recognised Croatia. We are now in a different ballgame altogether and I am surprised that the Minister denies that.

Mr. Garel-Jones : In the United Nations, an organisation that the hon. Gentleman and I strongly support, the United Kingdom seeks, along with other members of the Security Council, to arrive, whenever it can, at consensus and unanimous decisions. The hon. Gentleman, I and most hon. Members regard such international co-operation as a good thing. It is, of course, true that in the context of the United Nations, the United Kingdom sometimes makes concessions and sometimes makes changes to its policy to arrive at international agreement. The hon. Gentleman approves of that. I do not understand why he does not approve of similar efforts to co-operate with other nation states in a European context. I believe that the reasons is that the hon. Gentleman has never accepted either the treaty of Rome or Britain's membership of the Community, and that he is obsessed about those matters.

Mr. Spearing : One may not go along with a particular Act, perhaps because one is in opposition. The Minister was not here when his party was in opposition. Is he saying that, just because a certain Government are in power and because certain Acts of Parliament are enshrined in the law of the state, one must go along with those laws ? Of course, one must obey them. Is the Minister saying that one must stop arguing against them or saying that they are wrong in principle ? Even his hon. Friends said, time after time, that the poll tax was wrong in principle. Is the Minister denying their right to say that ?

Mr. Garel-Jones indicated dissent.

Mr. Spearing : The Minister says no. What difference is there between the right of hon. Members to dissent from an Act of Parliament or a policy imposed by one

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