The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Category: Prime Minister (1990-1997)

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the Cambridgeshire Euro-Constituency Business Lunch – 29 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the Cambridgeshire Euro-Constituency Business Lunch, held on Friday 29th September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Europe is a Jekyll and Hyde for most people. There are some things about Europe that are undeniably frightening. But there are things that are undeniably right, such as the single market. A single market is immensely important. Half our trade goes to Europe. Half our trade these days actually goes to Europe. But we shouldn’t forget the half that doesn’t. The single market is a great achievement, a great bonus to British business and British commerce and a great opportunity to British prosperity. Though it isn’t yet a proper single market. It is still closed to telecommunications where by and large we lead Europe.

    We haven’t opened up the insurance and banking industries. The areas where we earn such huge invisibles and the City of London is still closed to much of Europe, that still needs to be overcome.

    We still need to do a great deal to turn the embryo single market that we have that broadly exists for manufacturers into a proper single market right across Europe. When that happens it will be an enormous bonus for overseas earnings and overall prosperity in the United Kingdom. Don’t ever underestimate it. Don’t underestimate either the importance where it is appropriate of Europe working together politically as well as economically. It is a typical criticism of the most federalist of our partners in Europe that all the United Kingdom has ever been interested in is a free and open market, but we are interested in a free and open market and they aren’t and we’re winning and they’re going to have to give way and we’ll get there.

    But that isn’t all we are interested in. We are interested in co-operation across Europe with our European partners. Co-operation on the basis of agreement and consensus. Not co-operation on the basis of a qualified majority vote against the interests of a nation state on matters of great importance.

    One of the issues that comes before the Intergovernmental Conference in a year or so’s time will be whether our common foreign policy should be determined by unanimity with every nation state freely agreeing to a common policy or whether it should give the qualified majority vote with every country being bound by the qualified majority vote. It sounds very communitaire to have a qualified majority vote on foreign policy but we have not agreed, and I will tell you why we will not agree. It is not because we are anti-European but I think the absolute and total absurdity that a common vote in Europe can change a British policy for Hong Kong is as stated in those terms, self-evident. In any event it is impracticable. Can by common vote in Europe mean that Europe can decide that British and French troops could go to Bosnia against perhaps the opposition of the British Prime Minister and the French President? You only have to think to see that it may be an idealistic aspiration and it is desirable for us to work together but the concept of that being imposed is absolutely and totally unworkable and unacceptable to us and I believe unacceptable to others in Europe. But so many of the other nation states in Europe used as they are to Britain fighting the good fight while they stand on the sidelines and say “Tut tut, how anti-community you are” while privately agreeing with us. It is very convenient to have Britain fighting on those issues and we will.

    That is one issue for the Intergovernmental Conference where the more federalist enthusiasts will argue that a common foreign policy – that is to say the present one – is not workable, whilst knowing in our hearts that there is not a snowball in hell’s chance that any British Conservative Prime Minister would agree to sacrifice the direct control of the British Cabinet and the British Parliament over foreign policy matters outside the United Kingdom. They might as well know that now, and I had the opportunity of mentioning it last weekend in Mallorca. But because we have these fears, do not get sucked into this feeling that everything that happens in Europe is against the British nation. It is not true.

    Let me make a couple of points not often made. Some of the nations in Europe 10 years ago, some of the nations inside the European Community are now becoming a good market for this country and embryo industrial nations such as Spain and Portugal. Fifteen years ago before they joined the Community they were governed by men in dark glasses and epaulettes. In fifteen years they have been brought into the Western democratic family of nations and prepared for industrial status in a democratised Western Europe. Don’t underestimate the importance of that to our security.

    Suppose we had, as we envisaged, extended the European Union some years ago further to the East across Europe beyond, for example, Italy. Imagine we had actually achieved the ambition of enlargement right across Europe. Suppose we had actually done it. Would Yugoslavia or Bosnia be such a mess today if it had been brought within a Western free trading area 15 or 20 years ago? Would we have hundreds of thousands of people brutally murdered? Would British, French, Greek, all sorts of other countries – though not the United States – have soldiers actually on the ground there in Yugoslavia if we had actually extended the concept of a free trade area and Western democracy further across Eastern Europe?

    The objective that will deliver the certainty of security in Europe not just for this generation but for our great-grandchildren and our great-great-grandchildren is to take the opportunity of developing the European Union much further across Europe. Wars this century started in Western Europe. Western Europe and Central Europe like Sarajevo and Bosnia. That’s where they started. Inconceivable for that to happen now in Europe if you can spread the inter-relationship of trade and political interest and influence further across the European Community through the Balkans, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania. Let us think that will happen in our lifetime. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that it will. And there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that when it happens there are future generations that will be more secure in their lifetime that ever we could be in ours. That is the long-term point of our aim in British foreign policy to secure the safety and security of the British nation. Despite the disagreeable views of our press about Europe that is our goal.

    Let me talk about some of the issues. Why is the European Union that has helped safeguard democracy in Western Europe, that is helping to enhance the prosperity of security and democracy in Europe and has opened up the richest market, British business and commerce we have ever known, richer by far than the old Empire, why is it so unpopular? There are people whose ambitions are more visionary than most. I do not accept for one second that it would be sensible today or in 10 or 20 years time for us to have what many people feared we might have, a European Government taking most of the effective decisions involving Europe and taking them in Brussels and not taking them in Britain. For all its deficiencies and difficulties in Westminster where you can support the Government and your directly elected members and you can have direct contact with your MP. I do not believe we will ever accept such a transfer of fundamental authority but people fear and they see the changes that have been made and they say is there is a European government inevitable?

    I remember in the 1960s the feeling that existed at the time. Socialism was inevitable. I remember the argument ran very strongly until people actually saw what socialism was like and it became anything but inevitable. It has found itself out of government for 16 years already and I hope please God for a long time. So we are not going further down that road but it is because people fear that they poke suspiciously at everything that emerges from Europe and ignore as a matter of right all the things that are of interest and worth in it, that is essentially the competitiveness of Europe.

    How much more expensive it is to employ people in Europe. This is an argument I have repeated again and again. If you take the graph of unemployment across Europe for the last 25 years, it goes steadily down. For 25 years in good years and bad years, in boom and in dust, the underlying level of unemployment right across Europe and beyond is rising. There are 20 million European citizens unemployed, 20 million. In France, the country nearest and most comparable to us, there is just around 13 per cent unemployment and no sign of it decreasing. In the mighty German economy their unemployment is rising above us for the first time that most people can remember since the Marshall plan brought back prosperity to Germany. It is Britain that is bringing unemployment down in a changing world today. The labour skills of so many millions are no longer required in the way they were before. It is Britain that is providing them and the reason it is providing the new jobs is partly what Robert said earlier. It isn’t just the Social Chapter. Were we to sign the Social Chapter or were any future Government to sign it, all those social costs across Europe that at present lie outside the Social Chapter would rise. They would be brought into the Social Chapter and it would add something like 20-40 per cent to the average labour costs of more people in British industry.

    At the moment we are taking markets in Germany, taking markets in France, taking markets as we should for this is a competitive European Union right the way across Europe and beyond. Because we are more positive and efficient than the other nations. We want to stay that way and that means no Social Chapter. It means no other extra artificial burdens on employers because the burden on an employer means more people unemployed and out of work and that is the principal, single, economic problem of Western Europe.

    I despair sometimes when I sit around the European table and I hear my European partners talking about competition between France and Britain and Germany and Italy. Can they not understand that France and Germany and Britain and Italy must compete with the United States and Japan and the countries of the Pacific Rim? It is an argument we are determined that Europe accepts and wins. We understand it here and I have every intention of following policies here that will make Britain better, even if our European partners disagree with what we are doing and regard us as being very uncommunitaire for trying to keep our nation in work, while their coalition governments buy popularity for the majority of their people in work by giving them more benefits in work at the expense of the minority who are not in work who will be joined by others not in work and who will have less and less chance of getting work if they particularly go down that route.

    And then there is the single currency. I know of no issue that has so torn apart the sinews of British politics. In all our long history there are about two illustrations of the sort of deeply damaging divisions in our Party. First the corn laws of the 1840s and the second example is tariff reforms at the turn of the century.

    A single currency across the whole of the European Union will only work by changing the Union out of all recognition. So there is no question of a single currency across the whole of Europe. You may safely rule it out. All you would get is massive structural unemployment, social difficulty in for example Greece and a demand for huge transfers of money from the more wealthy Northern European nations straight to Greece to deal with that social difficulty and social unrest. Perhaps a small group of nations could go ahead with a single currency. They had ambition for 1997. I said I would not believe those ambitions would be realised. They had ambitions for 1999. I believe that when we get closer to 1999 they will increasingly see that is not safely achievable. In our discussions over the weekend at Mallorca, I believe I saw the dawnings of understanding of this. So perhaps 2001 or thereabouts might be possible? But only for a small minority.

    But the European Union must weigh the arguments very carefully indeed. It would be the biggest economic and political change in the structure of Europe that Europe has ever seen. Do not be in any doubt about the scale of change. If a small group of say six go ahead with a single currency, what does that do to the whole of the European Community? What does it do to the other 21, for we will be 27 nations within 15 years time? What will it do to the other 21 who are outsiders? How do you run a single market? How do you deal with structural funds? What happens if the countries outside the single currency devalue competitively against the single currency? Do they really believe that Greece and Portugal and the others are going to enter a new rigid, unmoving exchange [indistinct]. It cannot be done. Those are the problems. A huge number of problems. I can stretch them to the door and back again and then up to the far corner but have not remotely begun to be understood by the people who passionately care for the best of reasons about building a single Europe whose slogan is “If you have a single market you must have a single currency”. Economic codswallop. But not because we are anti-Europe.

    I think I can say in public and in private I have taken more pain because I am trying to take a middle road that I think is right for the long-term of this country on Europe than any other British politician in this country. So I think I have a right that almost nobody else has to lay out in crystal clear terms the problems that I actually see if they move down that road. It might one day be right. We would be mad to say it would never happen, one never knows what is going to happen in the future. We could not and should not rule it out for ever as some are urging us to do. But we should prod very cautiously at this beast with a very long stick, and we should not rush at it because of the impact it will have on every citizen in Europe.

    What would be the feeling in Scotland if we were to abolish the Scottish pound and replace it only with pound sterling? And yet that we are familiar with that example and situation. The Scottish pound is acceptable in Manchester as it is Dundee. I must say I look forward to the sight of French farmers as they finally realise the franc has gone for ever and I must say I find that extremely amusing. And what about the gentlemen of the Bundesbank when they realise that the mark is no more?

    We have got to discuss these things. They have been the undiscussable subjects of Europe. It has been politically correct not to say that the emperor just possibly may have no clothes. Or if he is not naked he is hardly dressed for a ball. And it was those matters that I was starting to put with delicacy and charm to my European colleagues in Mallorca. My arguments got more support there than many previously would have thought possible. For they know as I know. Is Belgium going to be in deficit and going for a single currency by the year 2000? It is no more enlightening than Old King Cole galloping out of his nursery rhyme to their rescue. And what about Italy? Or France?

    They will have to change. I passionately believe that because I wish Europe to succeed. But when I continue to raise these problems in Europe it will not be because I want Europe to fail. It will be because I want Europe to succeed.

  • Mr Major’s Opening Remarks at the Cambridgeshire Euro-Constituency Business Lunch – 29 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s opening remarks at the Cambridgeshire Euro-Constituency Business Lunch, held on Friday 29th September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    What I’d just like to do today is share a few private thoughts with you about some of the things relative to Europe. They are private thoughts, it is a discreet meeting, I do not expect to read about it anywhere else. This is not a meeting of Cabinet. What was referred a moment ago to Helmut Kohl, I have known Helmut for a long time, since he was a young, slender figure. I am in fact going to Germany on Sunday, Helmut and I are going to drive around in a Kohlmobile. I must tell you I have rarely met a man so unlike the public and artificial image as Helmut Kohl. I like him very much. He is an extremely good friend.

    He invited me a year or so ago, two years ago, to go and join him at a health hotel that he goes to once a year. It’s not quite a health farm it is just over the hill where one of his predecessors used to go, a place called Berchtesgarden, I believe. Whenever he goes there he fasts for 13 days. When I got there on the 8th day, I thought he’s going to be in a foul mood, but he wasn’t, he was in an extremely good mood. On Saturday afternoon there were three of us, Helmut, myself and his interpreter, Dorothea, who is one of the best interpreters, as she has to be translating to one another. She is one of the best interpreters I have ever come across. And Helmut had ordered a six course lunch, he sat there drinking what looked very much like diluted lemon-juice. He walked out of the hotel, he got into his car, he drove up a mountain after this huge lunch, he got out, he went straight into a restaurant and he ordered cheesecake. Cheesecake for Dorothea who ate it, cheesecake for me, given to Dorothea, who ate it. We then came out of the hotel, we got back into the Kohlmobile and drove back down, we got out and went back in the hotel and told the press what a wonderful walk we had had. And I look forward to a similar walk and since I believe it is not one of the times of his annual fast, I look forward to lunch with Kohl on Sunday and I think it will be very agreeable.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Huntingdon – 29 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Huntingdon on Friday 29th September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Question related to Northern Ireland]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The circumstances we have set out about decommissioning are, I think, a statement of the real political position. The reality is that the people in the North and the Unionists in the North – and I do not just mean the Unionist leadership, I mean the Unionists across the board in Northern Ireland – believe it is necessary for there to be some decommissioning before there can be round-table talks.

    QUESTION:

    Have the two recent court rulings against the Government damaged the peace process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The peace process is entrenched. Anybody who seeks to damage it, anybody who seeks to end the ceasefire which has existed, will have to answer to two very severe audiences.

    Firstly, the audience of Irish men and women north and south of the border. They do not want this to end. They want it to carry on and they believe everyone has an obligation to make it carry on. I think they would have to answer to the audience of history, which sees an opportunity here that has not been seen before.

    We have heard over the last year repeatedly from Sinn Fein that they are seriously seeking peace. If they are seriously seeking peace, there can be no question of the IRA returning to violence. If there is no question of them returning to violence, then there is no need for them not to make this start on decommissioning their weapons. It is a very straightforward and very easy point for everyone to understand. And I think it is a very important point.

    QUESTION:

    [Question related to the National Grid]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is clear what the public opinion is on this matter.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with Yasser Arafat – 27 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with Yasser Arafat, held in London on Wednesday 27th September 1995.

    MR ARAFAT:

    First of all, I have to thank His Excellency for giving me this opportunity to come here and to offer His Excellency the whole brief of our very difficult and long discussion until we had achieved what has been achieved between us and our partners and cousins, the Israelis in Gaza and I offered to His Excellency a copy of this agreement and at the same time we can’t forget and I have to offer to His Excellency in my name and in the name of my people our thanks for what he has done to facilitate and push forward these negotiations by all means and in all directions so I have to say to your country from my heart “Thank you very much! Thank you very much!” and at the same time we had the opportunity to speak about the next text and the economic issue concerning the meeting at Barcelona and the meeting which took place in Amman for [indistinct] Conference and help to coordinate together and at the same we cannot forget that His Excellency was the first G7 leader who came to visit us in Gaza which for us meant a lot; it gave us a very big push in our very difficult circumstances so I have to repeat again and again in front of all of you: “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr. Chairman, thank you very much indeed! Perhaps I can say that the Chairman is a very welcome guest here at Downing Street today. I have been delighted to renew the discussions that we were able to have in Gaza earlier this year and also delighted to congratulate him most warmly on the remarkable agreement that he has reached with Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Secretary Peres on the future of the Occupied Territories.

    We hope very much – and the Chairman is very confident – that it will now be possible for elections to go ahead perhaps in December, perhaps in January – the date is to be decided – but it clearly is a very remarkable step forward and I know the Chairman looks forward to signing this agreement in Washington tomorrow.

    I am very pleased indeed that the European Union will play a significant part in monitoring these elections and that the Crown Agents will also be playing a significant role in various matters. We have been able to provide a certain amount of assistance to the Chairman in the difficult circumstances he faced; that will continue. We will look to see where we are able to increase that as a very tangible indication of the please that we have at the progress that has been made towards what has been a very intransigent problem for so very many years.

    I know the Chairman has some very heavy negotiations still ahead of him next year but they have already determined the time-scale at which those talks will start and I think the prospects for the future look a good deal brighter than any that might have been imagined just a short while ago so for those reasons I have been very pleased to welcome the Chairman here today, very pleased to continue the dialogue that we had in Gaza and I look forward to that dialogue continuing both directly between the Chairman and myself and also between my Ministers and his representatives.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Humphrey, the Downing Street Cat – 26 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on Humphrey, the Downing Street cat, made on 26th September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if Humphrey had killed three robins].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am afraid they are dead, but it’s natural causes, Humphrey has been unjustly accused, but I can tell you beyond any doubt at all, Humphrey is not a serial killer.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on the Majorca EU Summit – 23 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the Majorca EU Summit, made in an interview on 23rd September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if his view on the future of the European Union went down well with other EU leaders].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it went down extremely well. The point that I was making to colleagues was that the European Union is changing. Nothing is going to stop some of that change, it is growing. It was 6 members at one stage, it is now 15; within a decade or so it is going to be 27. That means there are going to be changes in the European Union itself, inevitably so.

    No-one supposes that every member of the European Union can move towards a single currency. If they do not, then we need to consider what that means with some members within a single currency if that happens and other members outside it.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if other EU countries understood Mr Major’s political constraints that a Conservative leader could not join the single currency].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You make these assertions but those are matters that lie some years ahead. What we have been discussing here is how we actually proceed from the present circumstances and the point that I was making to my European partners is that there are many things that need examining before decisions should be taken and the examination of those matters simply hasn’t begun. What is to be the relationship between the inner core and the outer core?

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference Interview in Majorca – 23 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Majorca, held on Saturday 23rd September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We came here this weekend without a set agenda, without pre-prepared positions, with the opportunity of having a look at some of the problems and opportunities in front of Europe over the next few years. And I have to say I think the meeting was all the better for not having been pre-prepared and not having large scripts in front of one on each and every subject that might be raised. I think we have had a much better, freer, franker exchange of views than I can recall on many occasions in the past. And by frank, I do not use that as a euphemism for rows. It has not been a bland meeting, it has been a very good meeting, but it has certainly been conducted in an excellent spirit on every side throughout the weekend. And I think that Felipe Gonzalez has had a very considerable success in calling this meeting and having so many things examined so thoroughly.

    Let me just say very briefly a few words about the three component parts of the meeting we have had over the last day or so. Yesterday we spent the majority of the time discussing the challenges and the opportunities that lie immediately ahead of the European Union. The old slogans and the old prescriptions won’t do any longer. We are now coming to a position where it is not sufficient just to hold out an aspiration of doing this or that at some stage in the future. We are now reaching the position where clear-cut decisions will need to be taken on a whole range of things – enlargement, a little later the single currency, the financial perspective again at the turn of the century and of course the matter we discussed this morning, defence architecture and all the other matters that will be discussed in the IGC. I think most of you know what I had to say yesterday so I won’t bother to repeat it on this occasion, though I am happy to take your questions on it in a few moments.

    Last evening over dinner we had a discussion that divided into three parts: firstly, a discussion on Russia, the internal position, relationship with the European Union, prospects for its future; secondly, a discussion on the Middle East, again its relationship with the European Union, prospects for the peace process in the Middle East, relationship with particularly the Palestinian authority, I think a number of people are very concerned about the difficulties that they face; and the third part of the discussion last evening was on Bosnia and the prospects for moving from the present position to a ceasefire right across Bosnia and then after a ceasefire a settlement, and then what would happen after the settlement.

    No-one should assume that if we get a ceasefire and then a settlement that that is going to be the end of Western Europe or United States involvement in the former Yugoslavia, self-evidently it will not and we spent some time discussing those matters last evening. Again, rather than elaborate on a very complex discussion I will answer any questions you may have.

    This morning I was asked to open a discussion on defence and security architecture in Europe, clearly an important part of the Intergovernmental Conference. Things have changed more dramatically, I think, than most people realise until they sit back and think about it over the last few years. Ten years ago, if we had met here, we would not have been discussing the future architecture of European defence, we would have been discussing the difficulties there were between East and West, SS20s pointing in one direction, Cruise missiles pointing in the other. So we have come a very great distance in the last 10 years or so, but we need to look at the problems that lie immediately ahead of us.

    The fall of the Iron Curtain creates the prospect of re-uniting Europe and of enlarging our institutions, but it has also created quite a substantial arch of instability, from the north-east down to the south-east, from the Baltics to the Balkans. And those were the areas that we were actually discussing this morning and how we adapt to that new environment, how we extend and develop both the security and the prosperity that we have, NATO enlargement being a key part of that discussion this morning.

    The over-arching objective, self-evidently, a Europe whole and free. Beneath that general aspiration a great many difficult and tricky decisions to be taken, some of them to be taken perhaps at the Intergovernmental Conference, others to be taken over the years ahead, bearing in mind always the sensitivities and the importance of Russia and also of course of the Ukraine. So those really are the areas of discussion we have been involved in over the past couple of days.

    I should say also, in the high-ways and by-ways of those discussions I have had three separate discussions with the Irish Prime Minister, John Bruton, on circumstances and prospects in Ireland. It was not an occasion for us to come here and make clear cut decisions about what was going to happen in the immediate future. We have been looking at the present situation, trying to discuss the best way in which we might proceed. We have determined some ways that we may examine a little more carefully in the future. We have decided to look more carefully at what we have called Strand Three of the process, that is the relationship between east and west, between Dublin and London. And by and large we had a pretty satisfactory series of exchanges. I should just say, because people tend to think that whenever the Taoiseach and I get together we do nothing but discuss the peace process in Northern Ireland. Of course that is of great importance to us and we spent a great deal of time discussing it, but we also discussed other European Union and bilateral matters as well.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley):

    President Chirac has indicated he wants to see the IGC concluded quickly, Chancellor Kohl has suggested it could well be delayed until the second half of 1997, taking it well beyond the next British general election. Which camp do you belong and do you fear that your veto has been weakened by the election timetable?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, I don’t think the British capacity to veto if we think it is necessary has been weakened, whatever the timetable may be. I am personally relaxed about the timetable. What concerns me is the substance of the discussions. We will have a clear cut British position on a range of matters and it matters not to me whether those matters are determined before the election or after the election, I am relaxed about that. But we have many complex matters to do. I don’t think this is going to be a very short and speedy affair, this Intergovernmental Conference, it has got a great deal to look at. It is not going to be earth shattering in its implications, I don’t believe. Many of the matters to be discussed are quite detailed, quite difficult, and they will probably take quite a while. But I don’t wish to put an artificial constraint, either a short term constraint or a constraint of delaying decisions to put it out a long way. I am relaxed. We will take the decisions when we are in a position to take them and the British position will not change, whether we are this side of the election or the other side of the election.

    QUESTION (Judith Dawson, Sky News):

    Going back to your meeting with the Taoiseach, are you confident that you will be able in the near future to announce the date of another summit?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We did not discuss the date of another summit. I should say that the Taoiseach and I speak a good deal more regularly than most people realise and I would think our offices are probably in touch almost on a daily basis. I do not know when we will reassemble for a formal summit. But the lack of a formal summit will not stop the discussion and the developments going on, that will continue. As soon as we are in a position to have a summit, we will have one, but I do not wish to set a date for it today, and neither did we discuss a date at all over the weekend,

    QUESTION (George Brock, Times):

    You talked about the enlargement of both the European Union and NATO. From your discussions which of these two organisations would you prefer to see enlarged first and did you get any impression about which way it would happen?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think anyone knows yet is the strictly accurate answer to that. I think both of those enlargements are going to proceed by stages. Anyone who thinks there is suddenly going to be a date upon which the European Union is going to dramatically expand, I think misjudges the complexities of expanding the European Union. The present intention is that discussions with the Visegrad countries, and possibly with one or two others, will begin 6 months after the conclusion of the intergovernmental Conference. So there is broadly a date, I guess, sometime by 1993 at the latest they will begin the enlargement discussions with them at that stage.

    As far as NATO is concerned, that is not of course just a matter for the European Union and we did not discuss the specific timetable for the enlargement of NATO in detail over the weekend. But again, NATO I think will enlarge incrementally. There is not suddenly going to be a date upon which there is a huge and dramatic enlargement of NATO, that is not how I believe it will work. I think it will enlarge at a relatively relaxed speed and it will begin to enlarge from the centre of Europe, moving eastwards.

    QUESTION:

    You said just now that the negotiations with the Visegrad countries would begin 6 months after, is that an agreement that was reached here?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, that has been the understanding from a couple of summits ago, it is not a novel piece of agreement, that has been the working assumption for some time.

    QUESTION (John Palmer, Guardian):

    I was interested to hear that because certainly the other governments say the only formal agreement on 6 months is Cyprus and Malta, with the timetable for the others left open, but you say there is a political consensus that that will be the case?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is certainly my understanding, yes. My understanding is that we are going to start looking at this 6 months after. How soon they get in, of course, there is no agreement upon how soon they get in. But there has been very considerable pressure from the Visegrads to continue discussing and I hope we will be able to do it six months afterwards, and I have not heard anyone veto that, my understanding is they will be able to do that.

    QUESTION:

    Could you elaborate on how far you pushed forward the thinking on European security architecture and do you now envisage the very real likelihood that at least some East Europeans may find themselves in the EU and in the WEU before they are in NATO, is that now because of Russian attitudes more likely to happen.

    And also, you are quite relaxed about the timetable for finishing the IGC and you say it will not make any difference to British policy, do you have the assurances of Mr Blair about that as well?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t need them, he won’t be here to discuss it. So I was referring to British Conservative government policy before the election and British Conservative government policy after the election, and I shall look forward to discussing it you on both occasions, both before and after the next general election. It is something we will both look forward to.

    On the earlier point. It is not possible to say whether they would join WEU or the European Union before NATO, it simply is not possible to say. I certainly would not rule out that in some circumstances there would be an enhanced relationship with NATO before the European Union, but that is not a view we have agreed and discussed. But it is certainly possible that it will fall out that way. It is at the moment too early frankly to say.

    QUESTION (BBC Wales):

    In your bilateral discussions with Mr Bruton did you talk about the public concerns in Ireland and in Britain about the dangers from nuclear power stations?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The question of WILFA [phon] was briefly mentioned but it was not a substantive discussion. Beyond that we didn’t, no.

    QUESTION (Tony Bevins – The Observer):

    Could you give us your assessment of the risk of allowing the deadlock in Ireland to continue for much longer please and can you also tell us what areas you are looking at with Mr. Bruton for breaking this deadlock?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    On the latter point, I don’t think it would be wise to go into that in detail at the moment.

    On the earlier point of how risky is the deadlock, I think that too many people read too much into each setback and there is a great danger that whenever there is a setback like the postponement of the summit, up pops someone to say as surely as Christmas comes around every year that the process is in crisis and all sorts of dreadful things are about to happen. I have heard that before on a number of occasions and the reality that there is an undertow that all the politicians have to take account of whether they are British, Irish, Northern Irish, Sinn Fein, whoever it may be, and that is the huge undertow of public opinion in Ireland that wants this process to continue. No-one is readily going to be able to say they are going to stop this process without having to answer not just to history’s judgement which I think would be severe but also to the judgement of people today in Northern Ireland so when people jump up and say: “This is in crisis, the peace process is doomed!” and other nonsense of that sort, I think they are entering into their own negotiating position rather than stepping back and understanding the realities of what actually is going on at the present time.

    I remain optimistic about the process. It isn’t going to suddenly produce a conclusion. Anyone who thinks that we are suddenly going to wake up one morning, rub our eyes and have a final agreement to the problems of Northern Ireland misunderstands both the nature of our discussions and the nature of the problem. The solution will evolve. You may notice movements as you go along, others you won’t but the changing perception of what people demand to which the politicians have to respond is continuing all the time and anyone who goes to Northern Ireland today and compares the atmosphere in Northern Ireland, the way of life in Northern Ireland, the economic activity in Northern Ireland, the aspirations in Northern Ireland to twelve or eighteen months ago will find a wholly different situation and frankly, this old-style oratory doesn’t help and we really ought to be looking together to find a way through the present setback and I will continue to do that. I know John Bruton will, I think many of the Irish politicians will as well in the north and I hope and believe we will find a way through.

    QUESTION (Paul Meray – Reuters):

    Are you concerned about comments from Gerry Adams that he feels the process could slip back into violence if there is not progress fairly soon?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Who is going to be violent? Mr. Adams says it can slip back into violence; whose violence will it be? It doesn’t have to slip back into violence if Mr Adams doesn’t want it to slip back into violence, that is a matter that is in Mr. Adams’ hands and I hope he will tell us that it isn’t going to slip back into violence. It isn’t all that long ago that Mr. Adams was saying to us: “Violence is ending! We are on our way to a settlement!”

    I don’t think this suggestion that you slip back to violence every time something doesn’t proceed at a rapid pace is remotely helpful. When Mr. Adams next says that, I suggest the people to whom he says it ask him: “Who is going to return to violence? Are you, Mr. Adams, going to return to violence? Are the IRA going to return to violence?” That is the question Mr. Adams needs to answer and on the basis of what Mr. Adams has been saying in the last year his answer to that question should be no and if it isn’t no, how does he explain all the things that he has been saying over the last twelve months?

    QUESTION (James Mates – ITN):

    Prime Minister, on a different subject can I ask you about Chris Patten’s remarks that Hong Kong British passport holders should be given the right to live in the UK. Do you agree with these remarks? Did he discuss them with you before he made them? Is it going to be Government policy?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I haven’t seen the remarks and I will comment on the remarks when I have seen them and when I have discussed them with Chris. I have not seen them, I have been here, I don’t know when or how they were made or in what context so I am not in a position to discuss them at the moment.

    QUESTION (Sarah Holmes – The Independent):

    Prime Minister, has there been any progress at all in deciding what the name of the single currency should be?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    None whatever. It wasn’t mentioned.

    QUESTION (Sarah Holmes – The Independent):

    Can you tell us what your favoured thought is at the moment?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, I can’t. I haven’t given it any thought at all. The name of a single currency that may be some time ahead doesn’t frankly seem to be the most important issue. The most important issue is what are the implications of a single currency and I spend a lot of time thinking about that but I confess to you in the privacy of this meeting I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about the name of the single currency yet and as I said, it simply wasn’t mentioned.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley – BBC):

    Prime Minister, you have said that the European Union has got to accommodate itself to a world in which some members will be in a single currency and some will be out. What precise accommodations do you think are necessary?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am pointing out that the position of the European Union has changed and what I have said I have not said for the first time this weekend though it seems to have struck more of a chord this weekend. It is a message I have delivered elsewhere and to my colleagues in Europe on a number of occasions in the past.

    Let us look at what most people think is a possible future. Many people will say to you that a small core of the European Union may be able to go ahead with a single currency in 1999 or perhaps a little later. Let us take as a base for discussion the belief that that might happen, that half a dozen might go ahead.

    There are fifteen members now, half a dozen go ahead, nine don’t. Within ten years, there could be as many as twenty-seven members of the European Union. If six have gone ahead, what about the other twenty-one, what is the relationship between them going to be? What happens if one or other currency that is not part of the inner core devalues against the inner core? What do the inner core feel about that? They are very worried about that. Do they have a mechanism for dealing with that? They do not.

    What happens about the fact that the inner core, might integrate more speedily than elsewhere? Have they considered either the political or the economic implications of that? The answer is they haven’t considered that.

    What are going to be the circumstances in which countries not in the inner core might subsequently join the inner core? That, too, is undetermined.

    What happens to the direction of structural funds and the determination of structural funds? If the idea of a single currency is that it would help improve integration and growth, are those countries going to make a greater contribution to the structural funds of the less well-off nations in the European Union that wouldn’t be sharing in that extra spurt of growth?

    There are a whole range of other questions like that. I could spend twenty minutes listing for you the questions that have not yet been examined.

    We know the aspirations for a single currency, people have set out what they seem to think are the advantages of a single currency but the realities of what it means, how it would be bought out, what its market impact would be, what it would do both to the political and the economic structure of the European Union have not been fully examined and the whole basis of it thus far is that the European Union has tended to move forward broadly together – easy when you have six members, less easy frankly with fifteen, almost impossible when you get to nineteen and then twenty-seven – and this is why for some time we have been talking – it is a dreadful jargon phrase and I apologise for it – about “variable geometry”. The concept that fifteen or nineteen or twenty-seven countries would move together on a broad front at a united pace in the same way, at the same time, with the same objectives simply isn’t economically or politically credible.

    The European Union has to address all these questions and decide how it is going to deal with them and it was those questions and others that I put to my European partners in the discussion yesterday. It was not an attempt to cause a row, not an attempt to create a blockage in discussions; it was laying before them practical questions that will need to be examined in the near future and I am delighted to say that there was very general agreement that those matters did need to be examined before irrevocable decisions were taken.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley):

    Could you ever envisage as Prime Minister leading Britain into a single currency in the period you would expect to be in that office?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That begs several unknowns, Robin. Firstly, I think it is too early to say. I will look at the circumstances. As I have always said, I do not think a single currency is imminent. Some people believe it may happen for some in 1999 – well perhaps. I am not certain about that, I think there are very real difficulties that we British have been talking about for some time that have not yet been properly examined and I think the Monetary Committee discussions that have been taking place will begin to sharpen some of those difficulties so although there is an aspiration for 1999, I think at the moment that is what it is, an aspiration.

    QUESTION (John Palmer):

    Just a clarification on your last answer to Robin, Prime Minister. The Commission, as you know, are already looking at just the questions that you have raised with your colleagues today and their preliminary conclusions seem to embrace the strong view that non-participating countries, basically a minority of the fifteen, should remain committed to convergence irrespective of whether they are in and secondly, that exchange rate stability should be helped to be assured by a re-entry into a strengthened EMS for countries who choose not to participate in EMU.

    Do both of those strike you as practical answers to the questions you raised?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me take the three points:

    Firstly, the convergence criteria. We invented the convergence criteria, it was British determination that got the convergence criteria into the Maastricht Treaty. The convergence criteria are first and foremost sensible and practical economic aims so of course people should continue to aim for the convergence criteria of low inflation and the other things that go with it. The answer to that is self-evidently yes.

    On the second point, frankly, I would be very surprised if it was a majority of the fifteen that were able to move ahead in the first tranche going to a single currency. I wouldn’t be surprised, I would be absolutely dumbfounded if that turned out to be the case.

    Thirdly, the monetary relationship between the inner core and the outer ring. One of the ideas that has been floated is that the inner core of course will be a single currency so within the inner core there is no exchange rate fluctuation, there is only the one currency. Outside, the proposition is that there should be a strengthened EMS in order to maintain the value of the external outer-ring currencies against the inner core. Well, a strengthened EMS didn’t turn out to be all that successful in the early 1990s! One of the problems that caused so-much currency turmoil then – and not only for the United Kingdom – was that the flexible Exchange Rate Mechanism that Britain entered became a more rigid Exchange Rate Mechanism as people moved towards the aim of a single currency – that was one of the problems.

    Is it going to be attractive to the countries in the outer ring to find that they don’t have what many of them would perceive to be the advantages of being in the inner core but they would have the discipline and responsibility of having to maintain the same exchange rate against the inner core without the advantages of being a member? I wonder how politically saleable that is going to be in all of the countries outside the inner core. It is, again, a worthy aspiration but when you get down to the reality of whether it is politically deliverable in all the countries of the outer core, then I begin to wonder about its practicality and these are the matters that needed to be examined.

    On the substantive point, the convergence criteria are self-evidently right, we invented them, we adhere to them. I have no doubt, if we choose to, we will be in an economic position to enter. I don’t have any doubt about that. I think we are entering into a future in which the inflationary psychology has changed and when we can look forward in the United Kingdom to a low-inflation future and a future of sustained growth and of course that will apply providing we follow sensible economic policies and the convergence criteria are precisely that.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think that might be practical [inaudible]?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, it will not.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Majorca – 22 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Majorca, held on Friday 22nd September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, you like fireside chat summits, what do you want the chat to be about?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I certainly think it is a very good idea to have this discussion. There are several things I think we need to address. Many people have great aspirations for one or other aspect of European policy. I think we have to look at some of those aspirations with a very cool and very clear eye, to consider what they are, where they are leading, what they mean and how they might be brought about. None of these aspirations is easy, we need to examine the difficulties as well as the aspirations.

    QUESTION:

    Officials say you are in a mood to confront your fellow European leaders with some realities, Are we expecting blunt words and what would those realities be?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am neither looking, nor expecting, that there is going to be a great argument or row on this particular occasion. But certainly I propose to set out, as I see it, some of the difficulties ahead in the policies that are being pursued. I think the European Union has lost much of the affection of the people right across Europe that once it had. Well that is in no-one’s interest and I think people think that it often concentrates on the wrong things. Well we have to confront that problem, we have to talk about the things that are really relevant to the everyday lives of the people in Europe. I will most certainly say that. I will talk about the difficulties of competitiveness and what it means for job creation across Europe. I will certainly talk about some of the inherent difficulties of moving on the mainstream policies that Europe has been concerned around for some time. But it is not a question of looking for an argument, it is a question of saying there are realities not yet confronted that must be confronted before policy can be determined.

    QUESTION:

    Do you want them to get away from constitution-mongering?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think many people would think, so soon after Maastricht, that we spend far too much time on institutional matters and far too little time on the things that would really matter to the people across Europe, that is certainly my view.

    QUESTION:

    The new Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, has made a controversial speech suggesting that British interests will always come first in European matters, is this a signal that you and the Cabinet are all Euro-sceptics now?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think I am very happy about labels being tied to speeches. I find nothing controversial in the British Foreign Secretary saying the purpose of British foreign policy is to advance British interests and to protect British interests. That is the government’s position, the Foreign Secretary set it out very clearly yesterday and with the full support of the Cabinet.

    QUESTION:

    How do you think your fellow leaders here should interpret Mr Rifkind’s speech in terms of Britain’s attitude to Europe?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think my fellow leaders in Europe will be remotely surprised by what the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, they have heard that message from me on innumerable occasions, in private and in public in the past, so I don’t think they will be surprised about it. Moreover, I think if you were to ask the Germans, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Italians, they would say that they are concerned about their own individual national interests. That is the way the world is. The Foreign Secretary spelt that out very clearly.

    QUESTION:

    You are hoping to see Mr Bruton, at least in the sidelines here, do you think that you are going to be able to do anything after your recent difficulties to take on the Irish peace process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is more of a brainstorming discussion. John Bruton and I have very regular contact, so do our officials. I think after the postponement of the summit we will need to look at a whole series of options. I don’t expect great announcements and great decisions to come out of my discussions with John Bruton, that is not the nature of this process. We will be looking at the present situation, looking at the opportunities, looking at the choices and deciding the best way to carry matters forward. So I think that will be the nature of the discussion, and there may well be more than one of them over the weekend.

    QUESTION:

    Can there be any concession from your side on the question of arms decommissioning by the IRA?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think one needs to bear in mind what Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness and Sinn Fein have been saying for some time. They have been saying we are concerned about peace, the peace is going to be permanent. Well if the peace is going to be permanent, then they have no need of an armed force at their back when they begin to discuss matters with the other constitutional political parties. I think that is an uncontroversial statement that everyone will accept.

    The reality is not British intransigence or anyone’s intransigence. The reality is that the other mainstream political parties in Northern Ireland will not sit down with Sinn Fein until they are satisfied that Sinn Fein and the IRA are going to begin to disarm. Now that is the reality of life and there is no point in ducking that reality, it is there. I see no purpose in all-party talks if no-one is going to come to the table to talk. If there is intransigence everywhere, the intransigence must be removed. And the principal stumbling block at the moment is that despite all they have said thus far, we have no concrete evidence that Sinn Fein are going to begin to decommission their weapons.

    That is the blockage at the moment. Once that is removed we can move forward speedily I hope to all-party talks and then onward to an agreement that would be put in a referendum to the people of Northern Ireland, and then to Parliament. But the blockage that needs to be overcome is to give confidence and belief to the people in Northern Ireland that violence really is over, that the weapons really are no longer needed, and the only way in which that can credibly be done is for Sinn Fein to make it clear that they would begin to decommission their weapons.

    INTERVIEWER:

    Finally, do you think that some of your fellow leaders will be urging you here to press on with economic and monetary union and if they are urging on the prospects of a single currency, what will be your message to them on that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think one has to look firstly at the economic realities of economic and monetary union, and then of course one has to look at the constitutional and political realities of it. I will be saying to my fellow Heads of Government over the next day or so that it is perfectly clear that a large number of countries are simply not going to be economically ready to move forward. If that is the case, they are going to have to confront a different situation. What actually happens if a small core decide to go ahead and the larger core remain outside? That raises a whole series of questions not yet addressed by the European Union, and it needs to be addressed. They need to know, and we need to know, how those matters are going to be dealt with.

  • Mr Major’s Briefing to Journalists on Northern Ireland – 21 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s on the record briefing on Northern Ireland to journalists, held on Thursday 21st September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me firstly welcome you here this afternoon and I hope we can have a useful exchange.

    Let me just say a few words at the outset about where we are in the process, how we led up to where we are, and I suppose most importantly, where we go from the present situation. And I have no doubt that you will have questions certainly about the third of those points and maybe the others as well.

    Let me give you some personal thoughts about the pursuit of what we have come to know as peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We are pretty close now to the second anniversary of the Joint Declaration. I don’t think many people would dissent from the view that we have travelled a good deal further on the road towards peace since that Joint Declaration than most people imagined at the time.

    A lot of people didn’t believe that Albert Reynolds and I would reach agreement on it. When we did reach agreement on it they didn’t think it would move forward any further and thanks to the cooperation between the governments and others we have, and I think that is a considerable advance.

    When I first came into Downing Street in 1990, I remember very vividly sitting here and listing in front of me a small number of priorities for the future. One of those priorities on the first occasion I came in here was Northern Ireland. At the time I think it is probably fair to say that wasn’t universally welcomed as a wise move. The history, as told by the cynical, was that the burden of history was too great, that age-old animosities were too deeply ingrained for there to be any practical and worthwhile move forward. Too many people had come to grief on the Irish question, was the familiar refrain from very many quarters.

    I didn’t agree with that. I didn’t agree with that then, I haven’t agreed with that on the good days we have had since then and I certainly haven’t agreed with it on the days when things have been difficult either. It was repugnant to me then that people were killing one another in Northern Ireland and beating one another up in Northern Ireland, and it was as repugnant to me in Northern Ireland as it would have been if it was happening locally in Westminster, in Surrey or in Durham or anywhere else. So I felt that it was worthwhile making a fresh and original effort to see how far we could get with a peace process.

    If I ever needed any reinforcing in the belief that that was the right thing to do, I have to say that every single visit that I have made to Ulster over the last five years, and there have now been rather a lot of visits to Ulster, has reinforced me in the view that it was beyond any doubt the right thing to do.

    It is quite striking if you go into Northern Ireland, and one has seen before the external image of the disputes in Northern Ireland, to actually then go into Northern Ireland in the streets and feel the atmosphere and meet the people, whether Catholic or Protestant. And what struck me very forcibly in those early visits was the clear willingness of the ordinary decent people of Northern Ireland, whatever their religion might be, to give their support to a peace effort that they believed was based on fairness, transparency and democracy. I have found that to be a consistent theme whenever I have gone there, whether I have spoken to special interest groups or people with no particular special interest other than being a citizen of Northern Ireland.

    And when things have run into difficulties from time to time, you might perhaps be surprised by the weight of letters and messages that have come here from Northern Ireland from people who by and large in their own different ways have had the same simple straightforward message – stick with the process and don’t be put off by the setbacks.

    If anybody believed that we could move from where we were to a final agreement in Northern Ireland without setbacks, then they are an incurable romantic and a dreamer. It was never going to be that way, it hasn’t been that way and there may yet be setbacks as well as advances in the future.

    One of those setbacks was just a few days ago when we postponed the summit that John Bruton and I were to have had at Chequers. But I think we need to put this in context. It was a setback, it was not a crisis. And those people, whenever there is a setback, who talk as though it were a crisis and the peace process itself were doomed are doing no good to the process and simply talking up their own negotiating position. Setback is one thing, crisis is another. What we have had is a setback and it is a setback I hope and believe that we will overcome.

    Progress is going to be uneven. We are not suddenly going to wake up one morning, rub our eyes and find the whole thing is finally sealed and settled. That is not I believe the way it is remotely likely to be. It will evolve, this settlement, just as it has been evolving since the Downing Street declaration.

    In the year after the Downing Street declaration we made pretty dramatic strides in a whole series of fronts. That will not always be the case, though I think that we will be able to carry this process a good deal forward.

    At the moment, for the last few weeks, we have been in a bit of a pause period. But with patience, a degree of imagination and I think perhaps from time to time steady nerves as well, I think we will be able to move this process forward. If we are going to do that, as I believe we can, one absolutely indispensable element will be the continued close cooperation between London and Dublin. I have found it a very good working relationship, first with Albert Reynolds and subsequently with John Bruton. We haven’t always agreed on everything, we haven’t always approached things entirely from the same angle, but it has been a good working relationship and it remains so with John Bruton as the present Taoiseach.

    Let me add just a couple of points about the future. Firstly, all-party round table talks – the sooner that I can convene all-party round table talks on a constitutional settlement the better, the happier I will be when we can get there. I would be perfectly happy to do so this afternoon if that were feasible. But in the reality of politics, there is no purpose whatsoever in calling all-party talks unless there is a pretty good chance that all the parties are going to be there if we were to do so, and if parties began to absent themselves, perhaps permanently, perhaps in large numbers, then we would have made a mistake in our move forward.

    I can’t force people to the conference table, I can’t coerce them to the conference table, I can encourage them to go to the conference table. The principle of consent, which I think we one stage was not universally accepted, is and must remain at the heart of the efforts of London and Dublin combined. And it applies to all-party talks, just as much as it applies to anything else in the peace process.

    Let me just say a word about decommissioning. Decommissioning is raised from time to time because it is an extremely important issue. What it is not is a British obsession, it is emphatically not a new condition cooked up by Perfidious Albion after the IRA ceasefire, and I think a cursory glance at your cuttings will confirm that that is so. If anybody doesn’t have the cuttings to hand I think it is quite probable that I might be able to find them for you. So it is not something that we have suddenly cooked up and I very much welcome the editorials in some of your newspapers recently which have emphatically made that point.

    As far as decommissioning is concerned, well frankly I don’t care how it is done so long as it is credible and verifiable. I am not looking for surrenders, I am not looking for people coming out, throwing their weapons down at the feet of the British. That is not remotely what I have in mind. All I am concerned about is getting those arms out of commission because that is the key point in getting people to the all-party round table talks that are so essential, and ultimately getting people to accept an agreement that will be willingly accepted by all the people concerned.

    The principle of decommissioning comes smack out of the core of the Joint Declaration. And the plain truth is just simply this. The majority parties in Northern Ireland, representing the majority of the people in Northern Ireland, just will not come to the conference table until Sinn Fein / IRA have begun the process of actual decommissioning.

    Now I can see no other way of generating the confidence necessary to draw the relevant parties into substantive talks. And neither is it just stubbornness by the UIster Unionists and the Democratic Unionists political parties, that is not the situation in the North. I daresay everyone present will have seen the poll in the Irish News recently, I think it was late August, which showed that 90% of Protestants, 33% of Catholics, believe that the decommissioning of IRA arms should be a precondition for the inclusion of Sinn Fein in all-party talks. And when you broke that down into party allegiance, not only did you find perhaps unsurprisingly that that was over 90% of the DUP and Ulster Unionist support, but it was I think 73% of Alliance Party support and a substantial figure, I think 33%, of SDLP and Nationalist support. So it runs right across the North, it isn’t simply a fresh condition generated and invented by Unionist leaders in the North.

    The Irish Times I think made that point very forcibly and I don’t generally quote newspapers editorials so perhaps it is a bad principle to start, it wouldn’t always work in my favour. But on this occasion the Irish Times set it out very clearly in April earlier this year.

    So what next from the present situation? I continue to believe that the twin track approach – preparatory talks involving all the parties on one hand, and an international commission on decommissioning on the other hand – offers the best way forward from where we are at present. Now I don’t know, I can’t know whether this approach will get off the ground because the answer to that depends on other people. What I can say is that I will continue to work patiently to try and ensure that it does get off the ground, off the ground with the constitutional parties. I saw David Trimble and John Taylor earlier this week, I will be seeing John Hume and Ian Paisley – separately, not together – some time next week, and I hope to see John Alderice as soon as we can agree a mutually convenient date.

    We will continue to work also with the paramilitaries on both sides in exploratory dialogue, and with our colleagues in America with whom we have remained in the closest touch for a very long time. And of course with John Bruton whom I will be seeing tomorrow and on Saturday in Majorca. We mustn’t expect great announcements at the end of these discussions. John and I talk a great deal on the telephone, privately, in the sidelines of international meetings that we attend. Our points of contact are not just on the great setpiece summits, it is a regular and continuing dialogue, and frankly it is a dialogue on a scale that I don’t believe has existed between London and Dublin at any stage before, I don’t believe that has ever been anything like that. And my office and his office are in direct contact, I think it is fair to say if you add in the contacts between offices, on a daily basis and have been for a long time. So the contact is very close. There will be differences of approach but we try and work them out when we can and the working relationship with John Bruton is one of the reasons for encouragement that we will be able to carry this process forward.

    I am sorry to burden you with that lengthy introduction but I thought it might put one of two things in content before we turn to your questions. I am happy to take your questions, we will see what you have to ask and where I think it is prudent for the process to answer the question, I will answer the question, if I don’t think it is prudent I will tell you it is not prudent and not answer the question.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Irish Independent):

    Prime Minister, you referred to your hope that the international commission might get of the ground. Earlier today Mr Ancram remarked that it was not envisaged that the commission would actually oversee the decommissioning of arms. To whom do you envisage that arms would actually be handed up to?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    One of the things that the decommissioning commission will look at will be questions like that. The commission will look at the modalities, the mechanism for actually determining how arms are decommissioned. We can consider late further matters on the basis of their recommendation. We need to take this one step at a time. What I am conscious of, I do understand, perhaps better than people will sometimes give the British government credit for, some of the inhibitions and difficulties that face Sinn Fein as well. I do sit here and try and put myself forward into Mr Adams’s head to see the difficulties that he faces in order to determine what he is going to do. So I understand those difficulties. We are not seeking to pile embarrassment and difficulty upon Sinn Fein. What we are seeking to do is to find a way in which they are able to come forward and accept the decommissioning of arms. I think if we proposed how that was going to be done, that would be less likely to be accepted than if it were done by an independent commission. It was out of that thought that the concept of an independent commission, very probably chaired by a distinguished American, I think that is overwhelmingly likely and a name has been in circulation, I think that is the best way to proceed and I think that we will continue to go down that route.

    QUESTION (Sunday Independent):

    You said in your remarks that progress is going to be uneven, and I think we would all accept that. But winding up the debate in the British/Irish Interparliamentary Union yesterday afternoon, Michael Mates said, “We might even have to contemplate a short term return to violence to break the impasse, otherwise appeasement goes on”. Is that British government policy?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me say, I haven’t seen the transcript of what Michael said and long experience has taught me to be very careful about responding to things that I have not myself seen in black and white or heard. Subject to that, let me set out what the British government’s position is.

    Of course no-one wants a return to violence, no-one wants a return to violence in any circumstances or for any reason. What we do want is a lasting peace. That can’t be a peace at any price because that is the sort of peace that isn’t going to last. And from the moment Albert Reynolds and I first decided that we would go down this route, we were looking not for a ceasefire, welcome though a ceasefire is, but a peace that was going to be enduring. And the reason we need that is self-evident. Look at what has happened in Northern Ireland in the last year. You have seen huge economic changes in Northern Ireland. What we have not yet seen in Northern Ireland is a degree of international investment that can come from abroad, into the north and into the south in my judgement, once it is clear we have got over the arms problem and we are moving towards a proper settlement. That is why a short term peace settlement is no good, the prize is much bigger than that. But we don’t want to return to violence under any circumstances and I don’t really think I need say very much more than that, that is the British Government’s position.

    QUESTION:

    Do you then believe that Sinn Fein and the IRA are bluffing when they say that they cannot contemplate handing over arms?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well I find their position, I have my own judgement of what is bluff and what is negotiating tactics and what isn’t, but I don’t think it would be helpful to anyone if I was to unburden that thought to you. What I do say is that we do get conflicting noises from Sinn Fein publicly. It is very difficult on one hand to accept that their comments about them being dedicated to look for peace, this is a permanent peace, there is absolutely no doubt that they are determined to have peace, and all the other statements that have been made by Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness, and their view that that represents the view of their movement, and then to find them so resistant to beginning the decommissioning of arms. If they are permanently committed to a democratic future then they do not need an armed army at their back. I can understand that they do not want embarrassment or humiliation, as they would see it, of handing over their arms to the British. I do understand that, and that is why we moved down the route of an independent commission.

    But if what they say about entering the democratic process fully and being permanently committed to peace is truly their position, then I think it is hard for any dispassionate observer to understand why they wouldn’t begin the surrender of their arms to an independent body. I won’t repeat the point about understanding the pride of their movement, I think I do, but that doesn’t stand up when they are not being asked to hand their arms over to the British but they are being asked to hand them over to an independent commission.

    QUESTION:

    Michael Ancram, speaking to journalists this morning, seemed to be suggesting that both governments are now looking at the issue of decommissioning [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think almost however you answer that question you would be apt to give someone a misleading impression. There is no hidden depth in our examination of decommissioning, it is actually a very straightforward concept. We are interested in decommissioning because without decommissioning we cannot convene successfully the all-party talks that will enable us to reach a proper settlement and put that settlement, agreed by the constitutional parties, including Sinn Fein and including the Loyalist paramilitaries, to the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum and then legislate for it. I daresay one can keep approaching this from a different angle but it is really rather straightforward, it is as simple as that.

    QUESTION:

    One supplementary. Kevin McNamara yesterday said that he felt it would eventually come to a form of words.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Kevin McNamara has always taken that view. I don’t think that is the view of his party any more and I don’t think that is the view of any – or hardly any – of the mainstream democratic parties in Northern Ireland either. It is, I fear, an uncomfortable reality for some people that the people of Northern Ireland – and I quote again the figures I used in the poll a moment or so ago, it is not just the politicians – do appear to feel very strongly that there is a need for decommissioning of arms if they are going to feel secure in agreements that have been reached and if I may personalise the matter a little, if you were entering into constitutional negotiations with someone would you not wish to know in those constitutional negotiations that they were not going to stamp out of the negotiations themselves and then return to an armed struggle having kept arms for the purpose? I think you would have a certain reserve about that. I think you would want to see some evidence that they were in the business of staying in constitutional politics for good, which is what we wish.

    I have said to Sinn Fein: “the door is open to you as constitutional politicians; you can march through that door as a constitutional party properly recognised and treated in the same way as the Ulster Unionists, the Democratic Unionists, the Alliance Party and the SDLP but if that is to be the case, then you must operate on the same basis as those other parties and you must not have an armed force at your back in the case of dispute!” and I do not think that that is anything other than a statement of plain common sense that most people in the north – almost everybody in the north and outside the north – will accept.

    QUESTION (OTE News, Belfast):

    On the one hand we have your Ministers in Northern Ireland saying that nobody wants a surrender and indeed if I am not mistaken consciously avoiding the use of the word “surrender” in any interviews or speeches and yet you say that you can’t understand why the IRA won’t begin the surrender of their arms to an independent body.

    I live in Northern Ireland, for my part I think it highly unlikely that there will be any surrender. I think there could be some movement on the general principle of decommissioning but why has your Government stopped on the concept of arms actually being handed over, being surrendered?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me correct it. If I used “surrender”, let me make it clear what I mean.

    I don’t care if they are not handed over providing they are destroyed, they are decommissioned. As I tried to indicate vividly, I don’t expect them to come out and throw their arms down at the feet of other people. That has never been my position. All I am concerned about is that the arms are removed from possible use, from circulation. I don’t mind, frankly, whether they decide that they would wish to hand their arms over to an independent body; I don’t mind whether their arms are destroyed in their presence by an independent body or by themselves in the presence of an independent body.

    All that matters to me is that the arms are taken out of use. It isn’t a question of surrendering. If I used that it was an inadequate term and a slip of the tongue. What I am concerned about is to make sure that the arms are not available for use. I am not seeking to embarrass or humiliate Sinn Fein in that fashion, that wouldn’t be a productive or sensible thing to do. I just want the arms taken out of use.

    QUESTION:

    And what the about the argument that you are not prepared to talk to Sinn Fein if they have 100% of their munitions? 95%?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We need to show that they are prepared for the principle of decommissioning. If they are prepared for the principle of decommissioning, then they will begin to decommission. Once they have done that, then I think it is reasonable to ask the other political parties to sit down with them and I think some of the other political parties have said that once they begin to do that there is no reason not to sit down with all the political parties in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Fein and the Loyalist paramilitaries, to begin to discuss how we move forward. That is what we are working for but I repeat pedantically the substantive point, there is no point in my pretending that they don’t need to move down that route of taking arms out because even if I were to take that position, which I am not, the other parties would not and there would be nobody sitting at the table at all and that is useless for the process.

    QUESTION:

    Are you persuaded from your recent conversations with David Trimble that if Sinn Fein began the process of decommissioning as outlined by the British Government and particularly by Sir Patrick Mayhew in Washington, that if they did that and if they began the process of decommissioning their arms and explosives, that the Ulster Unionist Party would sit down to all-party talks with Sinn Fein?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think, Emily, that is a question you must ask David Trimble. I can’t definitely answer for David Trimble or John Hume or any of the others.

    SAME QUESTIONER:

    That was central to your discussion with him presumably?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There are a whole range of things. I wouldn’t say that any individual thing was central to the discussion. We ran across the whole field in the hour and a half we had and we will have a good deal more meetings in the future to run across more so I don’t think I am prepared to put my words into Mr Trimble’s mouth or anybody else’s mouth. What I can say is once there is clear evidence that Sinn Fein are beginning to decommission, then the probability of all-party talks will be accelerated beyond belief and I think myself that we would get all-party talks.

    QUESTION:

    You don’t think that the official Unionists or indeed the DUP would put further road blocks in the way of all-party talks?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I hope nobody is going to put further road blocks. I understand the suspicions that have existed on both sides. There has been a long legacy of one political party having a mistrust of another political party, it operates on both sides of the divide.

    In local government a few years ago we would have found it incredible that they would have worked together; they are working together in local government. What has been done as local government can be done at leader level in the parties in Northern Ireland as well and the sooner we are able to get in that position, the better it will be for Northern Ireland and by the “better it will be for Northern Ireland”, I don’t only mean that they will have a more secure reason for believing there will be no more violence though that certainly would be true but that I believe once you have got to that position it is actually going to unlock that avalanche of investment that I think is waiting abroad to come into the whole of Ireland once they are certain this process is going to be irreversible and the difference that is going to make to the living standards of people north and south is going to very remarkable, and one great gain we have had in the last year is that people have seen in the last year the speed with which ordinary circumstances can change as a result of the ceasefire. It is as nothing in my judgement to what will happen when there is a universal conviction that that ceasefire is going to become a permanent end to violence.

    QUESTION (John Cooney, Dublin Correspondent of the Glasgow Herald):

    In your ongoing talks with Mr Bruton, do you believe that both of you can convince Sinn Fein, the IRA, of the principle of decommissioning or do you think you will need the pressure from Washington and the Clinton Administration to effect that end?

    Secondly, just to clarify a point earlier, when you said you are having greater cooperation and contact with Dublin, is your relationship with John Bruton now more intimate than it was with Albert Reynolds?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not quite sure of the way you expressed the question! We had a very close political relationship and that was true with Albert and it was true with John Bruton as well. To give you a very practical illustration, I was in very regular contact with Albert Reynolds as well. To be brutally honest, you cannot conduct this sort of exercise at arms length. You can’t do it through interlocutors; there is a certain amount that can be done but at the end of the day you are going to have to do a certain amount of it yourself so I had very regular contact with Albert Reynolds on the telephone and directly. When Albert first came here, we agreed that we would institute the proposition of six-monthly summits alternating not rigidly but broadly alternating between London and Dublin but with Albert it still wasn’t just every six months.

    We meet regularly in any event at what seems to be an interminable number of European Union meetings and beyond that we have very close telephone contact so it has been very close in both instances, it really has. With Albert we had to sit down and negotiate bits of the Joint Declaration together, to call it a haggle I think would not be an unfair description and similarly with John Bruton with parts of the framework document. I don’t want to give you the impression we wrote all of it ourselves sitting in conclave just the two of us waiting for white smoke to come out. A huge amount of work of course was done by many other people.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think it will require American intervention to get Sinn Fein to accept the principle of decommissioning?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know the answer to that. There is no doubt that President Clinton is clear about the need for decommissioning, he has said so repeatedly. I think the Americans have made that point directly to Sinn Fein, they have said so publicly on a number of occasions as has John Bruton, as have an awful lot of other people, as has Dick Spring and many others.

    QUESTION (Irish Times):

    On the three-stranded relationship, the position of your Government was that nothing should be agreed until everything was agreed under that formula. Is that still the position?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes, that is still the position.

    QUESTION:

    Can I take you one step back to Emily O’Reilly’s question, if Sinn Fein accept the commission…

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Back to or back from?

    QUESTION:

    Back one step beyond where she… If Sinn Fein accept the commission and the terms are agreed, are you in a position to guarantee that the Unionists would at least participate in the exploratory bilateral and trilateral talks?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    One of the misconceptions there has always been in Sinn Fein’s mind and in many other people’s minds is that the British Government can guarantee the particular position of the Ulster Unionist and the Democratic Unionists parties and the Alliance parties and others; that has never been the position.

    I cannot guarantee that they are going to respond. I can encourage them to enter into the talks, I can point out the advantage of entering into the talks and all these things but it just is not the case, as Sinn Fein so often think, that all I have to do is to say to the Unionists in Northern Ireland: “I would like you to do this!” they would do it. That isn’t the case so I am not in the position of being able to offer guarantees any more than John Bruton can offer me guarantees about the way Sinn Fein or the IRA behave. That isn’t the case.

    What I am seeking is to bring both sides together, to have the talks bilateral, trilateral, more if they wish it on the one hand and to have the decommissioning commission operate. We just talked about Sinn Fein but of course they would be looking at the surrender of arms from the Protestant paramilitaries as well so I am not in a position to give guarantees, I am not the leader of the Unionist parties in Northern Ireland. I will use my best auspices to persuade them to do so.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, what do you make of the change in the Unionist leadership, the Unionists have a new leader? Do you think that is a good sign for the future, do you think that Mr Trimble is somebody who can come and sit round the table and do a deal eventually?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Any Unionist leader is going to have to carry the Unionist parties with him. Mr Trimble has been duly elected by the Unionist parties; he is therefore in a good position if he reaches an agreement, to carry his party with him in that agreement. I have to persuade him if I can that there is an agreement that it is possible to do and I will endeavour to do that. If I am able to persuade him, then I think that he will be able to bring his parties with him. He is an intelligent and an able man. Much of what I read about David Trimble in the last few weeks in the paper I don’t entirely recognise from the David Trimble I know in the House of Commons. He is a very shrewd and forthright politician. I don’t mind dealing with shrewd and forthright politicians, it is part of the way of life in Downing Street!

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, if it is so difficult to form the conditions to allow people to get around the table, is it not going to be impossible to form the conditions for any agreement?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If I may say so without wishing to produce a smart-alec answer, that is what people said to me when we tried to get the Joint Declaration and it is what people said to me when we tried to form the framework documents. None of this is easy. If it had been easy, it would have been done a very long time ago. That is why I said to you it isn’t going to suddenly come together as a single solution signed, sealed and delivered overnight in a series of dramatic meetings. It is going to be a continuing process of confidence-building and edging forward so that people being to trust those with whom they are dealing more and more.

    The answer to your question is yes, I believe we can. If I did not believe that we could carry this process from beginning to end, then I would not have embarked upon this process in the beginning. It has not always been easy, it has not always been friction-free, but I think it can be carried from beginning to end and I think although people tend to look at the impasse when it suddenly seems to be created between one political bloc and another, there is an undercurrent which people would be very ill-advised to ignore and the undercurrent is the pressure of opinion in the north and in the south that compels the politicians, all of them, me included, to move on towards a settlement. Whomsoever stops this progress in its tracks now will have a lot to answer for to history and will have a lot to answer for to their contemporaries, so the answer is yes, yes, yes, I believe we can carry it forward.

    QUESTION:

    Given that the answer is yes, have you any vision of what that settlement could be or is that a mystery?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, it isn’t a mystery, but if this settlement is going to stick it is not a settlement that is going to come out of the mouth of the British Prime Minister. It has got to be a settlement that is going to come out after discussion with the political parties. Of course I can see where I think they will end, but I think we must have their discussions, we have their inputs, we must consider that, we must see what they have to produce. At the end of the day it is going to be their settlement approved by the people in Northern Ireland.

    QUESTION:

    What time-scale do you envisage or when do you think the parties will get down to [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know. I don’t wish to put a time-scale on it. The sooner the better. I do not wish to see any undue delay but I do not think it prudent at the moment to put a short-term time-frame to something. I don’t think that would be productive at the moment. That is not to suggest that I am expecting a long delay, simply that I think it would be counter-productive for me to suggest short-term time-frames by which certain things needed to be done. What we need now is coaxing and persuasion and encouragement, not the constraint of a short time-frame.

    QUESTION:

    You have been talking a lot about how good the relationship is between the two governments. At a certain point in the week when the summit was cancelled it seemed anything but that; there was a lot of misunderstanding and certainly the spin that came from the British officials and the British media was that John Bruton is running scared of Sinn Fein and that it was the IRA who had effectively vetoed the summit. Would that have been your view of what happened given the British Government seemed determined [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I read a lot of that in the press, certainly in the Irish press as well if I may say so. I am not even sure, Emily, that you didn’t write it! [Laughter]. There you are, you see the interest I take in your writing!

    I think John Bruton is a brave and forthright politician. I like doing business with him and I am not going to say anything that going to lead you to believe anything to the contrary.

    QUESTION (Bernard Persil, Irish Independent):

    Are you confident that you can deliver all of your party with this settlement because as you are aware a lot of people haven’t really come this far before, they are quite nervous about that it may entail, there is an awful lot of misrepresentation of positions not least within your own party, not least amongst some of your own backbenchers. Will that be a particular obstacle?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If I may fall back on parliamentary tradition, I refer you to the answer I gave to the gentleman here just a moment or so ago! [Laughter]. If I can move it forward satisfactorily, I think I will be able to carry on.

    QUESTION:

    Sir Patrick, in his speech last night, said that if the international commission brought forward proposals for an alternative approach on decommissioning the Government would look at those proposals and judge them by their merits. Could that be taken to mean that if the commission proposed that you scrap Part 3 of the Washington test that you would do so?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think Sir Patrick said “on their merits” and we will look at things on their merits.

    I emphasise again that this “Washington 3” condition is not a condition invented by the Government after the ceasefire. I just emphasise that point again. It is a statement of the political reality and one thing we cannot do in these negotiations is avoid political reality and I think Patrick was emphasising that point again yesterday.

    I think unless there is anything terribly fresh and original or anyone is burning with something…..

    QUESTION:

    Can I ask you….

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Twenty-five years in politics suggests to me it is always a mistake to take the last question! [Laughter].

    QUESTION:

    Sir Patrick has also said that he is very worried and very conscious of the fact that the IRA allegedly are recruiting and restructuring all the time. Presumably, that would give you pause for thought and would not be too hopeful?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Of course we are concerned about the IRA’s activities. We are concerned about the punishment beatings that go on. One thing that the ceasefire has done is draw the veil up so that people have actually looked at the punishment beatings that have gone on as well and they have continued during this period and of course we are concerned about activities like that, of course we are.

    I think we had better call a halt. Thank you very much for coming. I hope as events proceed that we have the opportunity of another meeting discuss further progress. I will look forward to that.

  • Mr Major’s Speech Launching UK Conference on Small Firms – 18 September 1995

    Below is the text of the 10 Downing Street press release covering Mr Major’s speech launching UK Conference on Small Firms, held on 18th September 1995.

    10 DOWNING STREET:

    The Prime Minister held a three hour seminar at No 10 Downing Street today to launch “Your Business Matters”, the UK conference programme on small firms.

    With him was a group of 40 people, including senior members of his cabinet, representatives of the leading business organisations and of the clearing banks. The meeting discussed the issues facing small firms and the plans for the conference programme.

    At the seminar the Prime Minister said:

    “When you see a meeting involving the IoD, the CBI, the Chambers and TECs and the leading small business bodies, then you know the matter is important. And so it is. Small business growth is vital – for jobs, for exports and for prosperity. And when the initiative is sponsored by the banks, you also know it is viable – I am grateful to them for that.

    This morning we are talking about the spirit of enterprise that is vital for our prosperity. Our objective is to renew the impetus for enterprise in Britain today.

    These conferences will play a part in that. I see them as a catalyst, bringing the small business sector together in a constructive dialogue and prompting action from the government. It is the biggest, most concerted consultation exercise with small businesses that I can remember. And the point of it is to help small firms in the long term. We are not looking for snippets of policy over the next eighteen months, but policies for small firms going into the next century.

    Small firms now employ over half the private sector labour force. They have created 2 million new jobs in the last 15 years. They will be the job creators in the future and their share of the economy will continue to grow. But they also have a broader value. Small firms embody the society of opportunity I want to see in Britain, where people can make better lives for themselves by their own efforts; where people take responsibility for themselves, for their families and for their employees.

    So, I want to use this opportunity to set out the four basic elements of the government’s approach to fostering enterprise.

    The greatest gift that government can give business is a stable economic environment. This is vital if businesses are to plan and invest for the future with confidence. I know that many firms suffered severely in the last recession. But now we are faced with the best economic prospects for a generation: low inflation and steady export-led growth. I want to be sure that we make the most of it.

    The second component is to free-up markets. We have opened swathes of the economy by privatisation and sub-contracting. We have fought to bring down trade barriers for British exports. And we have secured the most flexible labour markets in Europe.

    Deregulation is a central part of this. Trying to cut red tape is like wrestling with a greasy pig. The Deregulation Act has given us the tools for dealing with red tape more quickly than ever before. I hope these conferences will tell us where the regulations are really pinching.

    The third part of the strategy is to lift the burden of government. The greatest barrier to enterprise is the weight of government itself. We have to rein in spending, cut the tax rates that kill incentives and simplify administration wherever possible: particularly PAYE/NICs and VAT. We have made some progress, taking nearly 100,000 firms out of VAT by raising the threshold. But there is more to do.

    The last component is for the government to give practical assistance to small firms where it can, to help businesses help themselves. This is the thinking behind the network of TECs and Business Links. Our approach is to work with the private sector, in partnership, to deliver schemes in local areas. In total, the government must spend over £250m a year on schemes specifically for small firms. And that does not count programmes to assist businesses in general or revenue foregone by the lower rate of corporation tax for small firms. I hope these conferences will help us use this money to best effect.

    These four elements of our strategy – a stable economy, free markets, reigning in the public sector and practical government assistance – are the essence of our approach to fostering the enterprise culture.

    I would like to close by wishing all those involved in “Your Business Matters” every possible success in this initiative. You have the full backing of the government. We want to listen to the ideas of small business people and to see what can be done to give the spirit of enterprise a new momentum in the United Kingdom today. The government will consider the outcome of the conferences in drafting the next competitiveness white paper next year. We will not necessarily agree with all your ideas. But we will take action where we can.”