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European National Parliaments (Contact)
41. Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): What plans she has to improve contact between hon. Members and Members of European national parliaments. [66802]
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): My right hon. Friend the President of the Council said that the scheme to allow Members to visit European Union institutions would be extended. I can announce today that, from the next financial year, Members will be able to claim reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses for one visit either to the main EU institutions or to the national Parliament of any EU member state. The scheme will be reviewed after a year to see whether it is possible to allow two visits in the second year.
Mr. MacShane: In welcoming the Minister to his job, may I congratulate him on his appointment and on his excellent answer? The aim of this proposal is to extend our relationship as national parliamentarians with other national Parliaments of Europe. We should move away from the obsession with Brussels and Strasbourg and make connections with national Parliaments, national Governments and national political parties in Paris, Copenhagen, Madrid or wherever it is judged necessary.
Will my hon. Friend keep this matter permanently under review? I am sure that it will be a success, because it will increase the ability of MPs of all parties to represent their constituents' interests in other cities across the European Union.
Mr. Tipping:
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I am sure that he will continue to pursue this matter, as he has done in recent years. He has a strong voice in Rotherham, which he is keen to extend across Europe. It is important for Members to visit institutions and to talk to colleagues abroad.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
If one accepted the validity of the comments of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), would the Minister seriously consider extending this facility to visits by British parliamentarians to the United States Congress, given that our relationship with the United States is closer, better, more natural, deeper and longer than it will ever be with the foreigners on the continent?
Mr. Tipping:
The right hon. Gentleman and his friends have recently been critical of trips to the United States, so we shall not listen to his current suggestion.
42. Mr. Ian Stewart (Eccles):
What progress has been made in ensuring that issues of concern in the English regions are being addressed in Parliament. [66803]
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett):
I announced on 14 January that a proposal would be put to the Modernisation Committee to revive and adapt the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs. A memorandum setting out the proposal will shortly be sent to the Committee, which I hope will report on it in the near future.
Mr. Stewart:
I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. When will the Standing Committee meet and how many MPs will be involved? Does the right hon. Lady welcome the introduction of the regional development agencies as a first step towards regional government in the regions of England?
Mrs. Beckett:
I hope that the Modernisation Committee will recommend, and that the House will agree, a change in the Standing Orders so that the Committee can be convened later this Session. As to how many Members would serve on it, that is a detail which the Modernisation Committee will have to consider. I share my hon. Friend's view that the regional development agencies are admirable in their own right, and I am conscious of the fact that some people want them to develop.
43. Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet):
What assessment she has made of the operation of the procedures for private Members' Bills. [66805]
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping):
Concern has been expressed about the systematic blocking of well supported measures by a few Members. If the procedures are found to be unsatisfactory this Session, then either the Modernisation or the Procedure Committee could examine the matter.
Sir Sydney Chapman:
I am interested to hear the Minister's reply. Whatever the merits or demerits of a particular private Member's Bill, the fact that few such Bills reach the statute book breeds disillusionment among the public about our procedures. Will he consider carefully the suggestion that fewer should be chosen in the ballot, but they should be given more time--without increasing the time available for private Members' Bills in the calendar year?
Mr. Tipping:
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to point out that fewer private Members' Bills gained assent in the last parliamentary Session. We want to consider what happens in the current Session before we make a judgment. The hon. Gentleman clearly understands the wider issue, which is to achieve a balance between the time required for debates and statements and the need to hear all the views in the House. I am not convinced that pledges can be given to make extra time available.
Modernisation
44. Fiona Mactaggart (Slough): If she will make a statement on Government proposals for further modernisation of the House of Commons. [66806]
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): We are in the early weeks of the experiment approved by the House on 16 December for earlier sittings on Thursdays. The Modernisation Committee is looking at the possibility of creating a second forum, or Main Committee. I will shortly invite it to study ways in which the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs might be revived and updated.
Fiona Mactaggart: I thank my right hon. Friend for her reply. She referred to the proposal for the establishment of a Main Committee. Could that perhaps provide an opportunity for our procedures to be made more transparent and slightly less like a bunfight? My constituents find watching the Chamber a depressing experience at times: they gain the impression that Members jeer and shout, and do not listen to each other. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the establishment of a Main Committee might help the Chamber to grow up?
Mrs. Beckett: That would be a dangerous proposition. The Modernisation Committee, however, is currently taking evidence from a number of quarters on the proposal for a Main Committee, and believes that such a Committee might indeed lead to greater transparency--and, perhaps, to some variation in the way in which we debate some of the issues that come before us.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley (South-West Surrey): Does the right hon. Lady realise that, having fought so hard to achieve universal suffrage and their place in the House of Commons, women will judge her harshly if, under the pretence of family-friendly policies, she uses them as an excuse to dumb down the House and reduce the number of hours in which Members of Parliament can argue their case?
Mrs. Beckett: I can only say that, in listening to what was said about the proposed changes and the experiment that is being undertaken in the House, the right hon. Lady has clearly failed to take into account the fact that there has been no diminution of the hours in which the House sits and no dumbing down; nor would any be proposed by this Government.
Kosovo
3.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): With permission, I should like to make a statement about recent developments in regard to Kosovo.
The situation on the ground remains tense. On Friday, more than 20 Kosovo Albanians were shot in Rugovo. On Saturday, a hand grenade was lobbed into a cafe in Pristina frequented by Serbs, injuring eight people, including one Albanian. Yesterday, two Serb policemen were injured when a grenade was fired into their van while they were returning from the funeral of a casualty of earlier conflict. More than 200 people have been killed since the Holbrooke agreement last October provided for a ceasefire.
At its meeting in London last Friday, the Contact Group called on both sides to end hostilities now. It insisted on full compliance by Belgrade with its undertakings of last October, and on real co-operation with both the verification mission and the International War Crimes Tribunal.
The main focus of the meeting was on the urgent need to put momentum into the political process. Since last October, Ambassadors Hill and Petritsch have developed the Contact Group's framework document for a political settlement, which reflects extensive consultation with both sides. The detailed document provides for an interim accord for three years. That period would providean opportunity for the creation of democratic self-government in Kosovo, through free and fair elections supervised by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The new institutions of Kosovo would enjoy a wide range of self-government, including control of Kosovo's own police and internal security. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would retain competence only for foreign policy, external defence, monetary policy, the single market, customs and federal taxation. Both Serb and Albanian communities would be fully protected, with the right to elected institutions preserving their national cultures, language and education. The framework document also provides that, at the end of three years, the future status of Kosovo would be reviewed under international auspices.
Despite the extensive consultation and the detailed work that has gone into the framework document by representatives of the Contact Group, in three months there has not been one negotiating meeting on it between Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanians. On Friday, the Contact Group resolved on a programme of action to break that stalemate.
We agreed to summon both sides to negotiations on the basis of the framework document. We set a tight timetable that requires both sides to attend talks by this Saturday and to conclude negotiations within less than two further weeks. France has offered to provide a venue for the talks, which will take place under the joint chairmanship of me and Hubert Vedrine, the French Foreign Minister. Also on Friday, the United Nations Security Council welcomed the Contact Group's strategy and demanded that both parties should comply with it.
On Saturday, the North Atlantic Council gave its full support to the Contact Group's strategy and warned that
I was instructed by the Contact Group to convey our demands to both parties and, on Saturday, I visited Belgrade and Skopje. I was accompanied throughout by Bill Walker, chief of the verification mission. The visit increased my respect for its valuable work. It has provided instant and reliable information on atrocities, which invariably occur in places where it is absent, and has undoubtedly deterred further atrocities where it is present.
In Belgrade, I met jointly with President Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and President Milutinovic of the Republic of Serbia. I stressed to them that I came with the mandate of the united Contact Group, and backed by the authority of the North Atlantic Council. Our requirement on them to take part in negotiations under international chairmanship is the best opportunity that Belgrade will get to extricate itself from a conflict that it cannot win. President Milosevic undertook to study the Contact Group proposals and to reply within a few days.
In Skopje, I met Dr. Rugova, Mr. Demaqi and Mr. Qosja, who between them represent a broad spectrum of Kosovar opinion. I stressed in all my conversations with the Kosovo Albanians that the proposals of the Contact Group offered a democratic, self-governing Kosovo free from the bloodshed of recent months.
Dr. Rugova, who was elected overwhelmingly last year as leader of the Kosovo Albanians, welcomed the opportunity for talks and committed his party to participate fully in them. I also spoke by telephone to Mr. Surroi, an independent publisher and a leading political figure in Pristina, who gave his full support to the proposals and expressed his willingness to participate. Mr. Demaqi, who acts as political spokesman for the Kosovo Liberation Army, and Mr. Qosja, leader of the third largest Kosovo Albanian party, both undertook to consult their colleagues and to let me have their responses within days.
I cannot confirm that the talks that we seek will take place. Nor can I guarantee that, if they take place, they will succeed. Serious issues of difference remain between the two sides, which it will take hard negotiation to resolve, such as the nature of the review to take place in three years' time and the relationship between a self-governing Kosovo and Serbia, but I can confirm that the meeting of the Contact Group showed real unity and a common determination to provide for progress towards a political settlement of the conflict.
"NATO is ready to take whatever measures are necessary"
1 Feb 1999 : Column 598
to avert the humanitarian catastrophe by compelling compliance with the demands of the international community. In the meantime, the North Atlantic Council delegated to its Secretary-General, Javier Solana, authority to order military action in the light of the responses of both parties.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister discussed Kosovo with President Chirac during his visit last Thursday. They agreed that both Britain and France would be willing to consider the deployment, with their allies, of ground troops in Kosovo to provide a period of stability and peace during which a political settlement could take root.
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