Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 12:42 pm on 23 May 1991.
A considerable time has passed since the House last discussed the important subject of Anglo-French relations, although there was a debate in another place on 18 June last year which coincided with the 50th anniversary of General de Gaulle's historic call to arms from Carlton gardens. I welcome this opportunity to take stock on the anniversary of the defence of Calais in 1940. I am especially pleased, and it is appropriate, that the debate was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer), who told us something about the history of his connection with France. Of course, he omitted to tell us that he served with distinction in the second world war and was wounded in northern France. He has spent the whole of his parliamentary career fostering Anglo-French relations through the Franco-British parliamentary group.
It often passes unobserved how many hon. Members on both sides of the House devote a considerable amount of their time and energies to fostering relations between Britain and various parts of the world in which they happen to take an interest, for either constituency or personal reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West is a particularly fine example.
Anglo-French relations have gone from strength to strength in recent years. We have powerful shared interests as members of the United Nations Security Council, as nuclear powers and as members of all the multilateral institutions which affect our interests. There is hardly any subject on which Britain and France do not now consult closely at all levels. The annual summit has developed into a forum for in-depth discussion of issues of real importance, including our mutual defence interests. This year's summit in France will see a continuation of that trend: substance rather than form, the best characteristic of Britain's relationship with France in the 1990s.
There are countless other contacts. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has had two warm and productive meetings with President Mitterrand since last November, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary sees his French counterpart almost as often as his own Cabinet colleagues. There are also many other long-standing historical links, such as those between veterans' associations, and cultural links, such as town twinning and youth exchanges. My hon. Friend referred to the town twinning that involves his constituency and he will be pleased to hear that my constituency, Watford, has an extremely successful town-twinning arrangement with Nanterre, which is just outside Paris. I agree with my hon. Friend that we must do everything that we can to build on these programmes and especially those that enable our young people to move freely between the two countries.
There are also extensive business links. A much more recent development, and one which we welcome, is the secondment of British and French diplomats to their sister ministries across the channel. I hope that the young diplomats who take part in the scheme do not have to wait for as long as my hon. Friend, when he was in Paris, to find a diplomat who looks after the interests of both Britain and France in the Quai d'Orsay and in our own Foreign Office.
The best-known non-governmental body that is active in the promotion of Anglo-French relations is the Franco-British Council. My hon. Friend is the deputy chairman of the British section. He is an active participant in the council's activities, which have made a significant contribution to Franco-British understanding since its inception in 1972. The Government support the council financially, with a grant of £74,500 in this financial year.
The council has an important role in bringing people together, in breaking down barriers and reducing stereotypes. A meeting last month to analyse the ways in which the British and French media have handled recent events was a good example of that useful activity. My hon. Friend left us in no doubt about the importance of the work carried out in that area. I sometimes think—I dare say that my hon. Friend may agree—that some people who live abroad take certain sections of the British press rather more seriously than we do. Nevertheless, problems can be created for us all.
It is more important than ever that Britain and France should understand each other and work closely together. I am confident that the Franco-British Council will continue its good work to this end which the Government support as a valuable complement to governmental activities.
As permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Britain and France have a role in all major international and regional issues. Both countries contribute in full measure to the deliberations of the Security Council and played a central part in the unprecedented agreement in the international community on the steps needed to reverse Saddam Hussein's aggression against Kuwait. We both sent a swift and sizeable military contingent to the multinational coalition which was forced to carry out the task. We are again working closely each day to alleviate the suffering of the Kurds and others who have fled the savage repression in Iraq. Franco-British co-operation over the crisis has been exemplary. During the difficult weeks of the recent past I spoke on several occasions to my French counterparts, including the Minister with responsibility for overseas development, who was a founder of Médecins sans Frontières. I think that we could claim that with the co-operation between France and Britain we led Europe and perhaps influenced the world in dealing with those matters.
A few more examples should suffice to demonstrate the breadth of Anglo-French relations nowadays. Britain and France both contributed substantially to the Paris charter for a new Europe adopted at the CSCE summit in Paris last November, which set the seal on the more co-operative international environment that has taken the place o f the cold war. The newly inaugurated European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with its London site and French president, is a further symbol of the close co-operation between our two countries.
Britain and France both gladly gave up their rights and responsibilities as wartime allies following Germany's unification last year. We are both proud of our contribution to that historic event, which for both of us has cemented our partnership with Germany. The completion of the service tunnel across the channel and, yesterday, the first rail tunnel, gave Britain and France a physical link again, for the first time since the ice age. I look forward to the opening of the tunnel on 15 June 1993.
Trade relations between our two countries have shown a remarkable increase in recent years. Britain and France are each other's third-largest export market. Britain's exports to France reached £10·9 billion in 1990, an increase of 15 per cent. over the previous year. French exports to Britain have seen similar increases and the upward trend is continuing. Investment flows in both directions have increased noticeably. France is now by far the most important European investor in the British economy.
Defence and security, as my hon. Friend pointed out, are an important part of the relationship. Our positions, as the only European nuclear powers, and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, give us a special range of shared interests and responsibilities, in addition to those that we jointly exercise as members of NATO and the Western European Union. We both have global interests and a global outlook and we both maintain a broad spectrum of military capabilities. Our presence together in the Gulf as the major European ground forces co-operating with the United States symbolised how much common ground we share.
Britain and France co-operate at all levels and over a wide range of defence matters. The Government attach great importance to that close collaboration. We worked closely together in the conventional forces in Europe negotiations and share a similar approach to future conventional arms control.
In the nuclear field as well there is regular dialogue across a broad range of issues. We agree with France about the need for a more effective European contribution to our collective defence arrangements. Under the active French presidency of the WEU, which ends next month, we have made progress together in developing some ideas for a stronger European defence identity based on the WEU.
Of course, we do not agree on everything. The United Kingdom and France have different attitudes to integration in NATO, although we hope that one outcome of the NATO review will be fuller participation by all the allies in the defence commitment to the alliance. However, we differ on the longer-term arrangements for European defence. We have urged that the debate in the inter-governmental conference on a common foreign and security policy should focus on substance, rather than mechanisms, but we and the French are at one in considering that the outcome of the various debates in progress this year should be both a reformed alliance and a stronger European pillar.
The Anglo-French summit in May 1990 agreed that there should be
an enhanced programme of co-operation with particular emphasis on future security arrangements in Europe".
The Prime Minister and President Mitterrand pursued this further when they met in January this year. I am confident that that range of issues will again be on their agenda at this year's summit. We also keep in close touch with the French Government, as with other EC Governments, on progress in the two inter-governmental conferences, to which my hon. Friend referred.
On political union, we share a good deal of common ground. We both, for instance, are very wary of ceding control to the Community, and hence to the Commission, in areas where we feel it more appropriate for national Governments to operate, either alone or in co-operation with each other. We agree on the overall structure—the architecture—of the "union" that is now under discussion in the inter-governmental conferences. That is, we both see the "union" as something different from, but including, the Community. We are both keen to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Community within that broader European "union".
There is also considerable common ground with the French Government in the inter-governmental conference on economic and monetary union. We are both agreed on the need to strengthen the ecu during the EMU process and on the need to establish some Community monetary institution with real tasks to perform in stage II. We also share the view that any European central bank should operate under political guidelines set by the Council. Even the United Kingdom reserve on participation in stage III the single currency union—is now accepted by partners, including France. Of course, there is still a great deal to negotiate, but both we and France are working to overcome our differences.
I feel, as I hope that my hon. Friends and other hon. Members feel, that there is a move in Europe, not just from Britain but towards Britain, to accommodate each other and to find common ground rather than emphasising and exacerbating differences. I hope that the British Government have played their part in bringing that about. I know that the French Government have also played a part.
We do not agree on everything, even under the broad heads of agreement. France, like the United Kingdom, is determined to protect her own national interests within the context of closer European co-operation. That is well understood and I am sure that when we are obliged to take a different line in the inter-governmental conference, for instance on questions of European social policy or the timing and content of economic monetary union stage II, differences of view and the reasons for them are well understood by both sides, because of the closer co-operation that we enjoy. We will continue to work constructively in the inter-governmental conference with the French and others for a satisfactory outcome acceptable to all.
We shall work for an outcome that enables the Community to take the necessary steps forward within the union. Those steps are necessary because the success that the Community has acheived through the single market, which the United Kingdom played such a prominent role in bringing about, has made the Community an important trading and economic bloc. Whatever our approach to it —our approach places an emphases on intergovernmental co-operation—we know that an economic bloc of such consequence must develop commensurate political and defence personalities. That is why my right hon. Friend has made proposals for an enhanced common security policy. That is why Britain and France are playing a leading role in discussing how the Western European Union, outside the union itself, can develop a European defence personality that will enable western Europe to defend its economic and strategic interests outside the NATO area.
Relations with France and Germany are at the heart of our European policy. As we move through the inter-governmental conference, the stakes are high but the prize, in terms of the future security, stability and prosperity of our continent, is also high. Productive relations with France and Germany are an important means to that end. Let no one be in any doubt that it is not only desirable but feasible to have good relations with both simultaneously. The vigorous pursuit of British interests does not require us to be permanently at odds with one or other of our partners. I am confident that, with Britain and France working together, we shall succeed in sustaining the objectives that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West, with others of my hon. Friends and, I should like to think, with Opposition Members.