Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee.
Date:
1992
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [Mr Wareing Contd] not keen to see the negotiating sessions which the Council undertakes carry on in public because they think reasonably that you would never get an agreement and that if people are forced to make their concessions in public they are not going to make them. What you then get is negotiating in corridors and speech-making in public and that would actually slow things down very consider- ably, so they have a point there. We have to respect that, but there are various ideas and I do not want to be pinned down on them this morning because they need to be negotiated, but there are various ideas which different people put forward as to how the Community can meet your point and can show that it is not just a group of people try- ing to conceal what they are up to, but that it is trying to show that it is proceeding on objectives which are public and in ways which need not be concealed. Sir John Stanley 14. Foreign Secretary, may I return to the key issue of public understanding of the Maastricht Treaty? You said earlier that the Government were at some future date going to produce a booklet of an explanatory nature and this apparently is not going to be immediately available. I do not under- stand the reason for the delay. Could you also con- sider the possibility of providing something in addition to simply an explanatory booklet which, from what you said, may be fairly heavily glossed and for the Government to do what two major Sunday newspapers did yesterday which is to pub- lish an intelligible version of the Maastricht Treaty? The present documentation is largely unin- telligible and, as has been confirmed, it has not even been read by members of the Cabinet and there is a critical need for the Government to pro- duce and to have available an intelligible version of this Treaty. Will the Government produce one? (Mr Hurd) The booklet will get the go-ahead unless there is some unexpected set-back at Birmingham. As the Committee knows, the Prime Minister has always said that the process of ratifi- cation here depends on greater clarity from the Danes which we now have and on good progress at Birmingham. I have set out what are our aims at Birmingham. If, as I explained, that goes rea- sonably well, then we will press ahead with the booklet and there need not be any great delay in that because, as I say, the work has been done. I have also explained the limitations on its distribu- tion under the rules. We have put out the Treaty of course. I do not want to open ourselves to the charge of presenting it in a way which is not true. It is complicated and I have been a little reluctant to, as it were, simplify it for your purpose, Sir John, because I know exactly the minefield you then run into with people saying, “It isn’t like that; you’re cheating”. You are perfectly right, the Treaty, the actual text even if published alongside the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act, is still pretty obscure to the citizen. I am perfectly ready to look again at that and see if in addition to the booklet I have mentioned we could, without running into the minefield, give further informa- tion; we have, of course, to the House and the charge of neglecting information there. Whether we could actually devise something which is a bit more sophisticated than the booklet but for the wider public, I am perfectly ready to consider it. Chairman: There are obviously very complex questions of the timing that unfolds, particularly in light of what you said, Foreign Secretary, about the Danish situation, and this House of Commons is going to be caught up in this timetable in a very complex and bewildering way. Mr Canavan would like to ask some questions on this. Mr Canavan 15. I understand that there is to be a paving debate in the House in the next few weeks proba- bly with a view to the Government re-introducing the Bill which received a Second Reading just before the Summer Recess. What exactly will the House be asked to approve in this paving debate? (Mr Hurd) The paving debate had its origin, I believe, in exchanges between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister before the recess. It was felt, understandably, that since we had the Second Reading Debate in May the situa- tion changed and a lot had happened, and before the Bill was put to a committee stage (albeit the whole House) it should have an opportunity to express itself again on the principle. No date for that has been fixed. As you say, Mr Canavan, it looks as if it will be soon after we get back, and no motion has been set but clearly the point of it is to enable the House to express again a view on the principle of the Treaty. 16. The Treaty, as it stands, has been rejected by the people of Denmark; it missed rejection in France by a mere whisker; there is growing doubt abut it in this country and elsewhere. Now you are telling us that the Government is determined to proceed with this paving debate and to re-intro- duce the Bill before any compromise or Maastricht Mark II has been agreed either by the Danish Government or by the Danish people. You are asking Parliament to buy a pig in a poke, are you not, while at the same time denying the people of Britain the right to have a say by means of a refer- endum? (Mr Hurd) Parliament will decide these things. This is the crucial centre of our own constitution. Parliament will decide these things. Parliament will decide, after all that has happened, whether we are going to proceed with the ratification of the Treaty or whether we are in effect going to destroy it. This argument went on, as someone has already referred to, at our own Party Conference, but rather more languidly at the Labour Party Conference. There was, I understand, a discussion of some kind, but it is quite right that the House of Commons should tackle this problem. I cannot see much point in hanging about on it. Things are