Mr Michael Foot: The hon. Gentleman may not have had the advantage of doing so, but I heard the right hon. Member's speech and he was talking about the whole issue. I do not believe that there is much difference between any hon. Members who consider what may be the consequences of a terrible war, if they do it faithfully and honestly, but some people have a rather subdued idea of the consequences which could...
Mr Michael Foot: I am very glad to follow the speech of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). I am sure that the House and the country will have listened with great care to what he said. When he went on his visit to Baghdad he was strongly criticised in some quarters, but I think that it was a most courageous action on his part; he helped to break the deadlock surrounding the hostages...
Mr Michael Foot: That, at any rate, was how I construed his intervention. I am glad if he does not take that view, which would strengthen the arguments against the authority of the United Nations. The Labour party has no need to be apologetic about these matters. On several occasions, Conservative Governments have refused to support the United Nations charter; indeed, they have acted in flagrant defiance of...
Mr Michael Foot: Certainly not. The resolution does not mean that—it refers to all appropriate means. I shall come later to how the danger of nuclear weapons being used in the middle east might be averted. That will involve upholding the authority of the United Nations, not casting it away. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield and others have suggested that the United Nations lacks the moral...
Mr Michael Foot: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman because I am coming to the end of my speech. As my hon. Friends have said, the possibilities are enormous. I know how passionately and strongly my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield feels on this, and he has stated his case with his usual skill and determination. However, a vote against the Government's policies would be a vote not...
Mr Michael Foot: I hope that the Prime Minister will not depart immediately. I know that she has many other pressing engagements. She has to listen to those who will follow her, which I am sure must be a great strain. If she has to go, then she must, but I was about to comment on her speech. There seemed to be a great mystery about it. If her record and that of her Government is as plain and as good as she...
Mr Michael Foot: As far as I can see, the Secretary of State's statement makes no reference—any more than did his defence statement of a few weeks ago—to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, even though it comes up for possible renewal or may end in a few months. The Government must surely have a policy on that issue. Do not the Government understand that, especially in the light of the most welcome...
Mr Michael Foot: Further to the point of order about the events of yesterday and today, Mr. Speaker. Today we have seen a repetition of some of the difficulties that occurred yesterday, which caused great difficulties for the House and for you, Mr. Speaker. The reply given today by the Secretary of State for Health surely underlines how absurd it was for the Government to think that to interpolate that type...
Mr Michael Foot: I hope that the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) will forgive me if I do not discuss in detail his remarks about the Select Committee on Defence. I do not mean any disrespect to him or to his Committee, but I wish to return to the speech of the Secretary of State for Defence who defended the Government's policy. The Government's attitude and response to worldwide international...
Mr Michael Foot: Indeed. I doubt whether the first world war was caused because some nations were weak. It is much more likely that it was caused because some nations which had the greatest power thought, "If we do not strike now, other countries will become strengthened and will rise against us. We must strike first before that happens." In those fanciful days our fanciful methods of describing such matters...
Mr Michael Foot: We thought that we had that with the Dreadnoughts. We had some of the most powerful weapons in the world but that did not stop the war. It did not stop the calculation of what was going to cause the war. The Prime Minister says—I suppose that some people must take some notice of her— Wars are caused by the weakness of nations, not by their strength. That is an invitation to every country...
Mr Michael Foot: I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the unchallengeable works of reference to which I have drawn attention. He will find the story and the arguments set out much more fully and much better in those works. If he reads them, he will learn exactly what happened and why it was more the alliance of Conservative Ministers with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the rest than any single factor that led to...
Mr Michael Foot: He has the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) as a friend.
Mr Michael Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Some of us who have been here for a long time think that it extraordinary that, after two of the events of the weekend—both of which have been raised on previous points of order—no Minister has volunteered to make a statement to the House. First, there is the question of the poll tax confusion; secondly—equally important in a constitutional...
Mr Michael Foot: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that quite a long time ago, when we had a decent Government in this country—[Laughter.]—and when Lord Palmerston was in charge, he stated the principle, "Civis Romanus sum"—[Interruption.] When someone was arrested in Greece he got him out very quickly. Why does the right hon. Gentleman not act in a similar way?
Mr Michael Foot: Following the extremely important question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller), and as this matter affects the rights of the House against the Executive, will the Leader of the House, first, say when the Solicitor-General or the Attorney-General will make a statement on the legal aspects of the matter? Secondly, will he give an absolute guarantee that the...
Mr Michael Foot: My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and the hon. Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) have made an overwhelming case against the motion. I do not know whether anyone on the Government Front Bench is treating those speeches in a derisory manner. The spokesman for All Souls apparently is—he should pay a little more...
Mr Michael Foot: Talking of defence prospects generally, as I suppose Ministers did at the summit, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has just achieved the astonishing feat, in 1990, of producing a defence White Paper which, as far as I can discover, does not make a single reference to the non-proliferation treaty and the Government's obligations under it? Does that mean that the Government have given...
Mr Michael Foot: I am glad to have this opportunity to speak in the debate. I have spoken on one or two guillotine motions before and I shall refer to them. The Leader of the House should have waited to listen to the debate. Whenever I moved a guillotine motion, I at least had the courtesy to listen to the debate. This is an important occasion, and he was at his lucid and most effective best—those were the...
Mr Michael Foot: My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) made an effective speech from the House of Commons' point of view, and everyone who heard it knows that it was a good speech. He is here to listen to the debate. I should have thought that every Conservative Member would understand that for a Leader of the House to move a motion and then clear off without having heard any of the replies...
