Hon. Douglas Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is trying to excite me. I have always found my hon. Friend a most courteous and constructive critic and I am grateful to him for that. I cannot add very much to what the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have said on this subject. The Prime Minister has shown over and again his wariness— that is the phrase that he rightly uses—[HON. MEMBERS:...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: The hon. Member can address that point to his Front-Bench team. Of course, this is an important issue and it has political, constitutional and economic aspects. We do not believe that the pros and cons can be fully assessed in 1995.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. His personal example has encouraged me to follow him into an active and eager life on the Back Benches. As he has raised this point, may I take the opportunity to thank and congratulate any of the present Foreign Office Ministers of State who may be promoted or moved during the afternoon.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the position. Thanks to the Prime Minister's efforts at Maastricht, we are in a remarkably advantageous position. That is seen clearly—all too clearly perhaps—by our partners on the continent. We are able to take a full part in preparing this project without being committed to joining it. It is not often in life that we can have our cake and eat it, and...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I do not think that anything is wrong with a single currency in a true single market. I believe that a single market can exist without a single currency and it follows that the merits—the pros and cons—of a single currency need to be carefully weighed when and if the choice comes before us.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I lost the hon. Gentleman in the last bit. I was trying to find a way of paying him a compliment as the third shadow Foreign Secretary with whom I have had the honour to match. They have all had their pluses and minuses, but I have found the hon. Gentleman courteous. Normal courtesies between us have been performed—and perhaps from time to time exceeded. The extremist agenda turned out not...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: Our co-operation with Argentina has developed rapidly since we restored relations in 1990. Trade and investment are growing fast. Our exports have risen by 165 per cent. since 1991, and we have made agreements on visa abolition, air services, judicial co-operation against drug trafficking, investment promotion and fisheries. We disagree over the Falklands and South Georgia. Argentina...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I shall send my hon. Friend the comparative figures. We are certainly building up our trade fast and rebuilding those assets and investments in Argentina which, in fact, we had to sell to win two world wars. The British position in Argentina is being rebuilt fast. That certainly owes something to the policies of President Menem, as my hon. Friend said, and a good deal to the energy of British...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I think that that is something which the islanders have to work out for themselves. I have often told the Argentine Foreign Minister that I am not prepared to start leaning on the islanders about the question of contacts with Argentina. There has been some movement, an example of which is the small but very sensitive matter of Argentine next of kin visiting newly discovered war graves on...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend—another invariably courteous critic. I would have liked, and I think that we would all have liked, a Cabinet Minister to attend President Menem's inauguration. That was in hand, but certain rearrangements have made it difficult to carry through. I am glad that Lady Trumpington will be going. She has proved herself a doughty and highly successful...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: No, we have taken a different course, and with the full approval of the islanders. The islanders need the agreements that we have struck with Argentina about fish and we are now seeking—we have not found it yet—a way of agreeing with Argentina on the exploitation of oil. Both those things are very much in the interests of the islanders if they can be achieved. The policy that we have...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I discussed the position of the former British prisoners of war and civilian internees with my Japanese counterpart when we met in Halifax on 16 June. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister met a group of former prisoners of war and internees on 21 June. He emphasised the Government's deep respect and sympathy for those who suffered as prisoners of the Japanese. We will continue contacts...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: On the legal point, the hon. Gentleman knows the position. In 1951, both the Labour and Conservative Governments settled that question, so far as the law is concerned, in the San Francisco treaty of that year. So far as Governments are concerned, we are not talking about a legal case, although there is a case brought by former prisoners of war in the Japanese courts. When my right hon....
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said at the beginning of his question, although there is an element of exaggeration in what has been said about my five and a half years at the Foreign Office. I am particularly glad that such remarks should come from those who have been among my sternest critics at moments during that period. I sympathise with what my hon. Friend has said. We both know...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: We support the special meeting of the IPU planned in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: I think that it will be. We support close co-operation between the UN and the IPU. A resolution has been submitted by Senegal for the next session and we are looking to see whether it is sensible from our point of view.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: The answer to the latter part of my hon. Friend's question is yes. I remember the car to which my hon. Friend referred: I believe that it was an open-roof Sunbeam Rapier. It had to be taken to Long Island for repairs rather too often in its life, but I am glad that it served my hon. Friend well.
Hon. Douglas Hurd: We have taken the lead in trying to strengthen the United Nations in preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention. Last September, I made some specific proposals for the UN to give more effective help to regional preventive diplomacy in Africa, and in 1993, with the French, outlined proposals to help enhance UN capability in that respect. We strongly support UN work to prevent conflict in...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: The hon. Gentleman does not exaggerate the seriousness of the conflict. I received a sombre report this morning from Mr. Carl Bildt, the new European negotiator, who is working very hard on the military agenda, to make it possible for UNPROFOR to function effectively on the ground with the minimum of consent from all concerned, including the Bosnian Serbs, and on the contact group agenda...
Hon. Douglas Hurd: Yes. I believe that President Milosevic realised some time ago that the only future for his country, Serbia, lies in a negotiated peace and that he must use what influences are at his disposal to bring the Bosnian Serbs to the same conclusion. Neither he nor we nor anyone else has yet succeeded in that, but it is in his interests and intentions to continue.