European Community (Developments)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:19 pm on 11 June 1990.

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Photo of Mr George Robertson Mr George Robertson , Hamilton 9:19, 11 June 1990

—that if he wants any expansion of that statement he should consult my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) who, I am sure, will be glad to give him whatever information he has.

The Government's policy, as outlined in the report to which I referred, contrasts with the positive programme put forward by the Labour party. The Government talk green but they sent the Secretary of State for the Environment to the Environment Council last week to weaken curbs on carbon dioxide. The Government preach that the single market, to quote the glossy documentation published by the Department of Employment, entitled "The United Kingdom in Europe: People, Jobs and Progress": is not a charter for business alone. It is for people, essential if their quality of life is to improve. The Government also say in response to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs report: There should be fair competition and a level playing field across the Community (which requires proper enforcement). But at the same time they stubbornly and ideologically oppose the action programme and the social charter.

The Government's document also says: Training for skills and jobs is vital … we cannot afford our workforce to be undertrained and undereducated compared to our competitors. In that respect, I draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, a speech by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) which should be read by every Conservative Member of Parliament. I have chosen three quotations from it: We have a large and skilled army on the Rhine and an army of semi-literate unemployables at home. We have well-equipped forces to help us win wars which seem increasingly unlikely to happen, while we strive to win contracts with an under-skilled and under-educated workforce … When it comes to staffing our Embassies abroad, we are highly selective. Only the best will do.[Interruption.] I welcome the author, and take him back to his speech last Thursday when he said: In stalling our schoolrooms, we take on anyone who is willing to do the job … The Victorian staircase of the Foreign Office is expensively re-gilded to delight the eye of foreign Ambassadors, while our shabby schools are administered from a squalid sixties building on the wrong side of the river. Those are not the words of a Labour Member of Parliament but of the former Minister with responsibility for higher education in the Prime Minister's Government, and I pay tribute to what he said.