Foreign Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 1 March 1977.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Ted Rowlands Mr Ted Rowlands Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) 12:00, 1 March 1977

No such assumption should be made. Mr. Haines' book might be a mine of information, but it is also a minefield for any junior Minister to walk into.

I should like to concentrate on two issues, because most hon. Members have concentrated on issues as well as ranging widely. The first is the Falkland Islands, from which I have just returned. The islands have been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. I also want to respond to the speech of the Opposition spokesman about Southern Africa and Rhodesia. I shall deal with the Falkland Islands first because I have just returned from an exhausting and exhaustive range of consultations. I feel as if I was 6 ft. 2 in. tall when I went out there and I have been reduced in the process.

Just before he died, Tony Crosland asked me to go to the Falkland Islands and to Argentina. The reason for my visit was the statement he made on 2nd February, when he described the Government's attitude to the economic and political problems facing the 1,900 islanders. He spoke of the limited prospects that he saw for them without some form of political and economic co-operation with Argentina. He contrasted that with the considerable potential of the area that was identified in the Shackleton Report and that could be the salvation of the island.

The object of my visit was to discuss with the islanders and the Argentine Government whether a broad climate existed for discussing the future of the Falkland Islands. Mr. Crosland also said that any such discussions would inevitably raise the fundamental relationship between Britain, Argentina and the Falklands.

I had five days in the Falkland Islands and four days of full and close consultations with the Governor, the joint councils and people in all walks of life. In a score or so meetings I met and talked with as many islanders as I think it was physically possible for me to meet during the time available to me. Their numbers ran into several hundred. I talked to individual groups in their homes. I had meetings in the wool sheds and in the community halls and in the farmyards. I do not think that anyone can challenge the claim that my consultations were unprecedented in the history of the colony and as comprehensive as is humanly and physically possible.

I put to everyone absolutely straight what Tony Crosland saw and the Government see as the main issue: the development of potential resources and the investment which could be severely inhibited if a hostile political climate and relations persisted, punctuated periodically by mini-crises that have been a feature of the situation not for just one or two years but over many years, as the Opposition spokesman explained.

I put forward that we should try to find a way forward to create a stable relationship that would encourage young islanders to stay—because they have been leaving—to see their future in and around the islands and not thousands of miles away and that would also ensure the continuation of a way of life which generations of kelpers have enjoyed. In all my meetings I made clear that any negotiations would have to include the issue of sovereignty, and that it would be a part of the negotiations on the twin themes of political and economic co-operation.

Anyone talking to the islanders—hon. Members on both sides know them well—both those in private life and those holding official positions in the islands, cannot fail to be impressed by their loyalty to the Crown and their desire to remain British. I am in no doubt about this. But the islanders also left me in no doubt that they were worried about their future. They have lived in proximity to Argentina for many years, and I found that many of them appreciate the practical realities which arise from their geographical location.

One major consideration to emerge from my talks is that many islanders, in considering their future, are looking not for a grand design or major projects—but for developments on their doorstep before the long-term development of offshore resources. The problems of internal communications, travel between Darwin and Port Stanley, small local industries, better schools and education and the problems of a few people trying to service a community are their main priorities.

I found a general acceptance among the islanders that I should go to Buenos Aires to talk to the Argentine Government to see whether terms of reference for formal negotiations could be established. At the conclusion of my tour, however, it was for the islands' councils to say finally whether, in the light of my discussions with them direct and how they viewed islander reaction to the meetings I held, I should try to have discussions to see whether we could set up negotiations with the Argentine.

The councils informed me that, in the light of all my consultations during my five days in Stanley and in the farm settlements, they could approve the Government's intention to try to establish a basis for negotiations with the Argentine. I should like to pay tribute to the spirit of realism and understanding and to the seriousness of approach to their problems which all those I met and who live and work on the islands have demonstrated.

I went to Buenos Aires and held two days of substantive talks with representatives of the Argentine Government. I gave an account of my visit to the islands and stressed the assurances given to the islanders by the Government that there would be full consultation throughout any negotiations and that any such negotiations would be conducted under the sovereignty umbrella.

My talks in Buenos Aires were solely intended to establish whether terms of reference could be agreed for subsequent negotiations. I believe that, as a result of the talks that I held, we shall be able to make progress towards a possible agreement on future negotiations. However, there is still some way to go before concrete terms of reference can be agreed.

It is essential that each side should be clear in its own mind from the outset how the other side is approaching the problem of negotiations. It is important to get the inter-relationship between the themes of economic and political cooperation absolutely right. We shall be exchanging further views with the Argentine Goverment on terms of reference through diplomatic channels and as a follow-up to my own talks.

A number of hon. Members have raised questions about sovereignty, particularly the Government's attitude to bringing proposals to the House. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) asked for a specific assurance that the Government will not propose to Parliament a transfer of sovereignty without the full acceptance of the islanders. I can readily confirm that that is the Government's position, and I should like to emphasise that during any negotiations, as well as towards the end of the negotiations, there will be close and continual consultation with the islands' councils and their people.

As other hon. Members can testify, it was not a duty or a chore to visit the islands and carry out these consultations. It was a privilege. I can assure the islanders that, before any decisions are made as a result of any negotiations, a Minister will return to the islands. The islanders deserve a relationship that is better than the one we have created between them and ourselves. They deserve a better relationship with those here who have a say in their future and their destiny.

One cannot cull one's policy from objective assessments made several thousand miles away. We must go to the people themselves and talk to them. It is a criticism of successive Governments when I say that it is a shame that it has taken nine years for a Minister to visit the islanders and discuss their problems. It is nine years since a Minister last visited the islands. That transcends Ministers representing Governments of both parties. Before I went to the islands I cared objectively. I had come to understand and appreciate the problems. I now understand how one leaves at least half one's heart in the islands. I now have a subjective caring as well as an objective caring. I am sure that that has been the pleasure of hon. Members from both sides of the House who have had the pleasure of visiting the islands.

I have read a number of descriptions of our motives. They have described our discussions and possible negotiations. Some of the motives that have been described are not mine or the Government's. Neither I nor my right hon. Friend would be party to any sell-out of the islanders. I hope that I have been able to give the House a satisfactory account of my visit and of the problems and issues that still face us.

I turn to the second part of my remarks, which concern Southern Africa and the problems arising therefrom. There have been some interesting and constructive speeches. It has been said from both sides of the House that at present Southern Africa probably presents the international community with the greatest challenge in its efforts to solve not merely the great strategic problems that some hon. Members have spoken about but the fundamental conflicts of race, freedom and ideology. All those issues are boiling up in the crucible of Southern Africa. It is a challenge to the international community to try to solve the combination of the problems not by war or by the gun but by peaceful negotiation and discussion. That is at the heart of the issue and I challenge the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) that were directed to what he considered to be our attitudes. Certainly I challenge his attitudes to the problem.

Our whole policy towards a settlement in Rhodesia and Namibia is based on the belief that freedom should be established by negotiation and not by the gun. That has been the direction and aim of British and many other international efforts in trying to solve the problems facing both Rhodesia and Namibia.