Opposition Day, 13th February

EDM number 634 in 1994-95, proposed by David Nicholson on 17/02/1995.

That this House, recalling the Lib-Lab pact of 1977-78, that Liberal Democrat honourable Members vote with Labour on 17 out of 20 occasions, and large numbers of local Lib-Lab pacts, notes the recent abortive attempt by the Liberals to form another such pact on their Opposition Day of 13th February; expresses its sympathy for the honourable Member for Fife North East who appears to have been blamed by the Right honourable Member for Yeovil for this failure; notes the honourable Member for Fife North East's memorandum to the Right honourable Member for Yeovil stating 'it seems to be accepted that I misunderstood my instructions in relation to what I was to advise Robin Cook'; that these were noted on 'a piece of paper which I threw away after implementing them'; that they involved the honourable Member for Fife North East telling the honourable Member for Livingston that 'The subject was to be Europe' and 'we would try to draft a motion which as many people as possible could support including obviously Labour', that it was the honourable Member for Fife North East's clear understanding that nothing should be said about a referendum until Russell Johnston and Roy Jenkins had been squared'; and calls on the Right honourable Member for Yeovil to make a full statement about these cloak and dagger negotiations with the Labour Party which so patently failed, and to explain why his Party devoted this scarce Opposition Day to such a hypothetical issue when Liberal-Democrat dominated councils are threatening deep cuts in school expenditure and hundreds of teacher redundancies.

This motion has been signed by a total of 8 MPs.