First, I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. I have often seen you in the Chair in Committee, when you always acted with great fairness to all members of Committees.

If the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) had any fears that his nerves would show through, he disabused us of any such impression. He did extremely well. I am sure that if Sir John Farr had been here, he would have been very proud of his successor. He represents a beautiful part of the country, of which he shows a keen awareness. He paid an excellent tribute to his predecessor, who had been a Member for a long time before I entered the House and who was greatly respected. I am sure that his successor will be heard many times in the future and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. He said that he was a good European and I am pleased to hear that, although we may have differences of opinion on exactly what a good European is or should be.

Everyone in this country today knows what the European Community is, even if he or she still uses the expression "Common Market". I cannot help but think back to a selection interview held in Liverpool for a parliamentary candidate. One of the people to be interviewed was a member of the markets committee of Liverpool city council. When asked what he thought of the Common Market, he looked up at the ceiling, then at the floor and about him, and said, "Well, I don't care where they put it, so long as it's not in Great Homer street."

No one misunderstands what we are talking about when we refer to the European Community. However, when we deal with the Maastricht treaty, we should do so against the background of what we believe is in our constituents' interests. On the doorsteps during the general election campaign, I heard not one suggestion—I doubt whether other hon. Members differ from me—that my constituents were worried about sovereignty. What really matters to us is our electors' sovereignty and what they want, which is a decent life, a decent chance for their children in education, a decent chance in health matters, and proper social and public services. If those are to be obtained through various layers of government, so be it. If Europe can provide the goods that my constituents want, that is fine by me.

There can be no doubt that the various functions of Government and Administration must be administered at different levels. Euro-sceptics exist on both sides of the House, although it is interesting to note that those Opposition Members who expressed scepticism on Europe tend, with one or two notable exceptions, to be conspicuous by their absence. They will doubtless read Hansard tomorrow and be converted to the view that we should now expect our country to play a full part in the Community.

I am astonished when I hear Conservative Members talk of centralisation. They also talk about subsidiarity. The hon. Member for Reigate (Sir G. Gardiner) said that the highest form of subsidiarity was the nation state and that that was where we could expect all decisions to be taken. He said that it was the lowest level—the nearest to the electors—at which they could be taken. I find that absolutely astonishing, because the Government have defied all the principles of subsidiarity in this country.

There was a time when local authorities could bask in the sunshine of local self-government and democracy. It was the former Prime Minister—who now says that we should fear centralisation from Brussels—who abolished the Greater London council, Merseyside county council and all the metropolitan councils simply on the grounds that they were controlled by a party that opposed the one of which she was leader.

This Government have not sought to grant any subsidiarity in relation to the financial powers of local authorities. Alone in Europe, Britain's local councillors, whether good or bad, can be disqualified from office, not because they fail to win the electors' votes, but because they do not abide by the financial constraints placed upon them by a highly centralised Government. There can be no doubt that the most centralised state in Europe today is the United Kingdom, where the buck stops at 10 Downing street and Whitehall. If I were not a Member of the House, I would not rush to be a member of any of this country's councils, denuded as they are of power and control.

What pleases me about the treaty of Maastricht, which was signed by the Prime Minister, is that it refers to a committee of regions. God knows how the Government, who signed the treaty, will interpret the committee of regions, on which the United Kingdom is to have 24 members. I suspect that the Prime Minister thinks that he can ensure that those 24 members are like the bureaucrats—the placemen—that he has put on the hospital trusts that have been created under recent national health service legislation.

However, I have no doubt that the people of this country will be looking for proper representation of the regions in the corridors of power in the European Community institutions. I believe that, no matter how strongly the Conservative Government—alone of all Governments in Europe—resist the idea of regional government, democratic regional government will come, as the pressures for it exist in the Community.

When people in this country see that the citizens of Bavaria and the various regions of France and Italy have rights that they do not, I am sure that they will say that they want the same regional representation as those other countries. They will see that subsidiarity stops not at the nation state, but much lower down the scale, nearer to the elector—the consumer of services. I am sure that, irrespective of the wishes of the Tory Government, that is what will happen.

Furthermore, I believe that the Government will be forced to accept the social protocol. Of course they do not accept it now, and have put up various notions that the country will be strike-torn and there will be other industrial relations problems if the social protocol is accepted. But as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) said earlier today, if one reads the treaty—I wonder how many people have done so—and studies the social protocol, one will see that the last paragraph contains no reference to pay and conditions of negotiation. The treaty of Maastricht is not trying to control that aspect of industrial relations and its provisions do not cover strikes and lock-outs.

Any Member who says that the Maastricht treaty embraces the possibility of more militant industrial action in our factories and places of work is lying. Such ideas are merely the excuse that the Tory party used to attack the Labour party's support for the social protocol in the recent election. Most people do not know any better, but Members of this House should know better than to say such things.

There are certainly faults in the treaty, and I do not agree with everthing that it contains. Some aspects of it will have to be changed—and will be changed as they prove to be impracticable. I believe that the stricture that budget deficits may not exceed 3 per cent. of gross national product will prove impracticable—and not just in this country. The British people will also continue to press the Government to ensure that we are not left behind in the move towards acceptance of the social charter.

As for the free movement of labour, given the mass unemployment in some of our regions, there is every reason to expect that many of the people whom we represent will soon be represented by deputies in the National Assembly or by members of the Bundestag, because they will move where the jobs are. As British workers move around Europe and discover that conditions in the Siemens factory in Munich are better than those in the GEC factory in Liverpool, word will get around. We want the same health and safety conditions in this country as workers abroad enjoy.

While the docks legislation was being pushed through the House I came across some Liverpool dockers in London who had just been to a meeting of the Transport and General Workers Union at Transport house. They said that they had been to Hamburg and discovered to their amazement that workers there were represented on the supervisory boards of the works in which they were employed. They had always thought that Britain enjoyed the best working conditions. In future, employers in Germany, France, Britain and Italy will find that they have to provide the same rights and conditions for their workers no matter which part of the Community they work in.

I strongly believe that we should support the Opposition amendment. We cannot oppose the treaty as such because that would send the wrong message to those who represent working people in the rest of the Community. Our sister parties throughout the EC will expect us not to give our blessing to everything in the treaty, but, with them, to try to correct some of the faults in it and to develop the Community to the point at which it will have the full support of all our people.

There are grave divisions in the Tory party and I know that there are some dissidents on the Opposition Benches, too. [Laughter.] I take the point. We do not have a Bruges group and we did not meet at the Carlton club. The Conservative party has a problem. It has a small majority and does not know what will happen when there is a new leader in another place.