Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: As the House would expect, we have been and are making contingency plans but, of course, those will be relevant only if a real peace agreement is signed. As I said in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), we do not intend to commit British troops against the uncertain background which currently exists, and which might be exacerbated if wrong measures were taken.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: Yes, I can give my right hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks. The protection and well-being of our troops are the highest priorities for this Administration.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for conveying to us the horror that he and, I am sure, all of us would have felt at that manifestation of what is happening in the former Yugoslavia. It makes the point that all of us—even the Government, who are pursuing, as we see it, the right policy, albeit that is a difficult furrow to follow—must understand that hon. Members who seek to advance...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: The co-operation of neighbouring countries—my hon. Friend mentioned Bulgaria—is absolutely essential to the success of our policy. I certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I accept the latter part of his question. We have expressed in the House—my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary did so when the matter was last debated—our reservations about air strikes, but, as we seek to sustain the pressure, the House will accept that we would not want to rule out any option.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I very much agree with my hon. Friend and, as the House will be aware, were we to pursue that policy, there would have to be a serious doubt as to whether we could continue with the humanitarian efforts that we have been successfully engaged in for the past year. He is also right to say that the effort by the European Community has, on the ground, substantially meant a troop commitment by...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I cannot add much to what I have already said. We do not discard any option, but it would not be helpful at this stage if I were to speculate in the way that the hon. Gentleman invites me to do.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity, if I have not been clear enough about it, to reiterate that the one option that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence have ruled out is the commitment of combat British troops to war on the ground in Yugoslavia. That option is entirely ruled out, and...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I believe that the Vance-Owen plan is the best option that we have at the moment, and it is the one around which the international community has rallied. The hon. Gentleman referred to atrocities committed by Croatians. I do not believe that any ethnic group in Yugoslavia is free of guilt in those matters, but most right hon. and hon. Members are clear where the main burden of guilt lies.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: The hon. Member's point about the Bosnian Serbs seeking to gain advance by conquest is one that they will no doubt have in mind. The international community is absolutely determined that no territory gained by a conquest of that kind shall be accepted by the international community. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his speech, those so-called conquests by the Bosnian...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that political pressure is the route down which we must go. The sanctions regime has in some instances not proved to be wholly satisfactory. We have taken a number of measures to tighten sanctions, which are having a substantial effect now. From our experience, most of us believe that a sanctions policy that is as tight and strict as we can make it can be one...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I regret that I shall have to disappoint the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) who, unusually for him, has moved a wrecking amendment. We are debating a House of Commons matter and I do not disguise the fact that the new clause is a wrecking amendment.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I accept that. By definition, any amendment selected by the Chair is not a wrecking amendment because it is in order. In case you thought that I was being disrespectful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should say that in my terms a wrecking amendment is one that would render the Government incapable of ratifying. The new clause and the other clauses and amendments that are grouped with it call for some...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I am not saying that. I shall be dealing with those specific points later. The hon. Gentleman is rightly held in high regard in the House for the interest and the assiduity with which he attends not just European Community business but all business. I am astonished that his commitment to wrecking the Maastricht treaty is so strong that he is prepared, in a House of Commons matter, to write...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I want to make a little more progress. I shall return more specifically to that point and if the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene again I shall give way to him. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney also touched on new clause 4. It requires the Government to obtain approval in a resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament before a Minister agrees to joint action. My...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I do not agree. There have been a range of decisions under European political co-operation which would fit into the joint action criteria. New clause 19, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), and new clause 38, in the name of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, refer to parliamentary approval for conventions drawn up under the justice and home...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that as regards Wales the Labour amendment is wholly otiose because all the discussions that the hon. Member and his hon. Friends had with the Treasury Bench were at all times on the basis that all representatives should be representatives of local government? So there is nothing in the amendment for Wales.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: The hon. Gentleman might find it helpful to throw that question back to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) because when we debated an amendment in the same terms in Committee, he voted for the proposition that he is now questioning.
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. I am seeking to establish, not just for the group of amendments now before the House but perhaps for others, that the votes that my hon. Friend casts are cast primarily for tactical reasons rather than For any attachment to a cause. He seems to be suggesting that, although I do not wish to lead him down a route that he does not intend to...
Mr Tristan Garel-Jones: I hope that it has not escaped the attention of my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) and for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) that the way to have cast aside the fears now being expressed with such eloquence by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North would have beer to support the Government in defeating Labour's amendment in Committee. Had they done so, none of...