The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Category: 1994

  • Mr Major’s Comments on the European Union – 10 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the European Union, made during an interview given in Essen on Saturday 10th December 1994.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if the decisions on the substantive issues of the European Union had been delayed].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, I don’t think so at all. What is the biggest European issue of all? The biggest European issue is whether we can continue to sustain the recovery and get people back to work and that increasingly has happened.

    What is very noticeable in the debate that takes place on European matters now as far as economic matters are concerned is that it is a debate increasingly discussed on British terms. The sort of agenda we have set out over recent years is becoming an agenda accepted widely across Europe. That most certainly was not the case when I first started coming here four years ago – it is the case now.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if other EU countries were prepared to move sedately towards joining the single currency].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think they expect to move sedately towards it and if it isn’t discussed because it is generally accepted I am bound to say that hasn’t been the case in previous years as you know; it has been the substance of speech after speech, comment after comment. It frankly isn’t now; it has hardly been mentioned on this occasion; it has not been on the agenda and I think most people now accept – all of them will accept in private – that the time-scale they set out in Maastricht is a time-scale that is not going to be met. That is no surprise to me, it is no surprise to Britain; we have said that continually from the outset.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if there should be a working assumption that there would be a single currency by the end of the century as Leon Brittan had suggested].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think most people who have any administrative responsibility like to have a working assumption. I think there is a distinction between a working assumption and whether that assumption becomes reality.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if should offer a referendum on the single currency, as the Euro-sceptics would want].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It isn’t a question of what the Euro-sceptics want, it is really a question of what is the right decision to take about how to deal with a decision of that magnitude. It is some way away. I have made it expressly clear that I have not ruled out the prospect of a referendum but there are many constitutional implications for that, one needs to think about it; it is a long way away. We don’t know what the circumstances will be.

    There is a whole range of things to be considered before one decided whether or not it was appropriate to have a referendum. There is no need to rush that fence; it isn’t imminent. We have both agreed that this has gone back in time, hasn’t come forward in time, so of course that option is there and of course that option must be considered, I haven’t ruled it out.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary – 10 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kenneth Clarke, and the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, held in Essen on Saturday 10th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I do not think there is very much doubt that this has been an especially productive and rather good humoured Council, it has addressed a number of substantive issues that are of real concern to people right the way across the European Union. I daresay one or two souls might be a little disappointed that we were not able to provide a row on this occasion of any sort, but it has been extremely good humoured and I think we have made a lot of progress on a number of issues. I hope the lack of a row is not too great a disappointment for anyone.

    We have just come from a working lunch with the six leaders of the Central and East European countries. We started getting to grips at Essen over this weekend with some of the practicalities of the next enlargement, we have agreed effectively on a route map towards full accession for the East Europeans. From now on the European Council will meet the Eastern associates once a year and so will ten of the other Councils dealing with a whole range of issues, some of those will meet more than once a year, most probably twice.

    The enlargement process, a process that we have argued for in the United Kingdom for a very long time has now started, and I think that is very good news, not just for the countries that will be joining the European Union but for people right across Europe. The benefits of extension – peace, stability and prosperity – the benefits of spreading those right across the continent, is a prize very well worth having.

    We spent a while discussing Bosnia and so did the Foreign Ministers, and we agreed that our current efforts to secure a negotiated settlement need to be reinforced. We proposed, and our partners agreed with us, that we should beef up the teams monitoring the border between Serbia and Bosnia, we would like to have 200 monitors there and we are now up to round about three-quarters of that total. What we have to be sure of is that the sanctions are biting hard on the Bosnian Serbs.

    Secondly on Bosnia, let me say a word about the humanitarian and peace-keeping effort. Ground troops from a number of countries, including many European countries, not just those in the Contact Group, are continuing to risk their lives in Bosnia in order to save the lives of the people who live in Bosnia. That effort should continue for as long as possible, for as long as practical, for as long as they can actually safely undertake the job for which they were sent. And in return we expect the aid convoys to be readily let through to the people who are in need of medicines and food and whatever else may be on those convoys.

    Thirdly, we discussed the negotiating process itself. The United Nations is working, has been working for a long time, to try and secure a durable ceasefire and the Contact Group is striving to bring about a political settlement. None of us was under any illusion whatsoever about the difficulties that still lie ahead, but it would not be right to give up hope while there is a credible hope of success. If, of course, the parties make it impossible for the protection forces to do their job, or if the risks to the protection forces become intolerable, then a different circumstance would arise and we must plan together against that possibility whilst hoping it will not occur.

    We agreed on full consultation between all the countries contributing ground troops and we agreed that none of those countries would withdraw unilaterally from former Yugoslavia. If withdrawal at some stage should prove unavoidable, and of course it could, we hope not, but it could, the promise from President Clinton of United States troops to cover that withdrawal is very welcome indeed. But I should emphasise again that our view is that UNPROFOR should continue its humanitarian role for as long as it seems safe and secure for it to do so.

    Let me say a word about Northern Ireland and the events relating to it that we discussed here at this summit. We are just emerging in Northern Ireland from 25 years of terrorism, we are now entering a crucial period in the peace process, we are seeking to turn an encouraging ceasefire into a lasting peace. One of the things that can help us succeed is the support that we have had from our colleagues in the European Union. The active support has been tangible and I would like particularly to thank the President of the Commission for his personal commitment to the peace process.

    From the start, Jacques Delors recognised the significance of the Downing Street Declaration and all that has subsequently flowed from it. I believe that peace will bring a far better life to all the people in Northern Ireland, so I particularly welcome the very substantial programme agreed by our partners to provide a boost to improving living standards in Northern Ireland, 300 million Ecu, 250 million sterling over a three year period, part of it in the south but over 80 percent of it in the North of Ireland is an excellently timed signal ahead of the investment conference that we will hold in Belfast next week.

    We devoted quite a lot of time yesterday to Europe’s economy and to a particular aspect of that, and that is job creation. The Council endorsed the plan drawn up by the ECOFIN Ministers for member states. I supported the suggestion for an advisory body in European competitiveness and suggested that for it to be most effective it should include major Europe businessmen with practical experience in running multinational companies across Europe.

    What is most striking, was very striking indeed, in the discussion we had yesterday about the economic discussion, is that virtually all of the themes that we discussed, which only three or four years ago were regarded as eccentric British preoccupations – liberalisation, freeing up markets, reforming welfare systems, reducing the cost of jobs – all of those are now in the mainstream of European thinking and were central to the debate that we had. The Community now agrees, I think without any contradiction, that the problem of unemployment is not best tackled simply by protecting those at work, the aim must be to help those out of work by creating new growth and new jobs. We agreed a programme for trans-European networks and a list of projects. These big, frankly rather imaginative, infrastructure projects are natural territory for private sector initiatives and I am very pleased that out of the top 14 priority projects four of them will be in the United Kingdom, including the Channel Tunnel rail link and the West Coast mainline,

    I made clear that there were two things, above all, which I believed, which Britain believed, had undermined public support for the European Community over recent years and obscured much of the good work that it has done. Firstly, with those areas where the European Community has unnecessarily intruded into the daily lives of its citizens, that causes frustration not just in the United Kingdom, you can trace that frustration right across Europe if you go and see for yourself what is happening there and speak to the politicians and other people there. We are seeking to deal with that through subsidiarity, it was something much mocked when we first introduced the concept, it is now widely accepted and it has been given another substantive push by the German Presidency.

    The new provisions we secured in the Maastricht Treaty and the new rules we got agreed at the Edinburgh European Council, are now being put to good effect. We are at last beginning to see even more tangible results from that, that is certainly evident as far as legislation is concerned. In 1990 the Community passed 185 new laws, there were 75 last year, it is down to only 39 so far this year. Next year the European Council will review the existing Community statute book as well.

    And secondly, I raised the question of fraud across the European Union. People, in my view quite rightly, get extremely angry when they see their money, their taxes, being mis-managed, being wasted, or perhaps worst of all, being drained away in criminal fraud. Again, the Maastricht Treaty contains, and again at our insistence, new provisions empowering the Commission, the Council and the auditors to tackle this more vigorously, and also requiring member states to do so. I proposed a series of specific actions at this European Council, got support for them from colleagues, and you will see them reflected in the conclusions that no doubt you all have in front of you.

    Let me finally say a word about the atmosphere here at Essen. It was, as one would have expected, a well prepared, well run Council and our informal sessions have been perhaps among the most thoughtful and forward-looking that I could remember in the four years or so that I have been attending them. We were looking ahead last evening to the possible union of 15 years, 20 years from now, when we might have perhaps as many as 27 members of the European Union. We began to consider, not reaching conclusions, but consider in a brainstorming session what our goals for the Union might be over the next 40 years, not the inward looking centralising approach of yore, but an open, peaceful, prosperous, united Europe of nation states. It was a very productive discussion indeed. I believe that is the direction that most people in Europe would wish to go and I think it is the direction in which we are most likely to go. So I found that a very rewarding session last evening and there was a general wish that we should return to that conversation again in the future, and I very much look forward to that.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (John Palmer, The Guardian):

    Prime Minister, you have referred in the Bosnian conclusions to the urgent reinforcement of the ICFY mission, I asked this question of Kinkel earlier on and I am still not clear from what he said or what you have said, what has made the reinforcement so urgent, is President Milosevic not to your satisfaction, yet sealing this frontier, I don’t know whether you or the Foreign Secretary can throw light on the use of this word urgent.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Foreign Secretary spent some time discussing it, so I will ask him to say a word in a moment. What we are anxious to do is to avoid any leakage at all. I do not think it is a question of President Milosevic’s good intentions being in question, but we do wish to ensure that there is no leakage across the border and for that reason we would rather like to see more monitors there. But the Foreign Secretary discussed this at length, not just with Klaus Kinkel but with his other colleagues, so he might wish to add something to that.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    President Milosevic told us on Sunday that the border was in effect closed. There are some people, particularly in the United States, who question that, so there is a matter of fact which has to be established, it is very important to establish it because the present relief of sanctions for President Milosevic, the opening of the airport and the allowing of certain events, is for 100 days and its renewal depends on everybody being satisfied that he is doing his best. So it is a matter of fact which needs to be established. It is best established by having an adequate number of qualified people on the ground. We have got people, we, the Americans, the Nordics, are doing our bit there, there are other countries who have not contributed or only contributed one or two.

    What I was pressing, and what is now in the conclusions, is let us get on with this, let us establish as a matter of fact whether or not the border between Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs is adequately controlled and the movement of [indistinct] goods properly enforced.

    QUESTION (Peter McMahon, Sunday Mirror):

    Chancellor, when you were asked about Europe less than two weeks ago you dismissed talk of a referendum as not an issue. Today in his interview the Prime Minister says he is not ruling one out, so clearly it is an issue, why is there such a difference between the two of you?

    CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

    I think the Prime Minister has made our position perfectly clear, I do not think there is a difference between the two of us. These are important issues and no doubt the question will keep coming up from time to time. But the main thing is to prepare a clear position for the inter-governmental conference in 1996, although we do not yet know whether we will have a serious agenda and to have a serious debate about the merits and demerits of economic and monetary union if that should ever come about, and I think that is where we are and that is what we keep saying.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley, BBC TV):

    Could I ask the Prime Minister and perhaps the Foreign Secretary to take just a moment out from questions on the summit to comment on the death of Sir Keith Joseph?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me perhaps comment first. I was extremely sad to hear the news about Keith Joseph. I think he was probably one of the foremost Conservative thinkers since the Second World War and his contribution to Conservative thought and Conservative philosophy is perhaps unequalled in that period. He was also from my knowledge of him, though I confess I didn’t know him as well as I would have wished to have done, an extremely nice man, a very gentle man in every sense of the word. He was a very senior figure in the party when I first went into the House of Commons and I can only say that on every occasion I spoke to him as a wholly new, untried, unknown Member of Parliament I received nothing from him but courtesy and help and I found that was the way he treated everyone whomsoever they might have been. He is a very great loss.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    I would add a word to that. He was, as the Prime Minister said, a very kind man and he was totally without self-importance. He didn’t mind at all what kind of headlines he got. He was passionately anxious to worry away at a subject until he got to the truth of it. He was very interested in first principles, very interested in the thinking behind a decision and you need people like that in politics and he will be badly missed.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Can I just say Robin, the Chancellor probably knew Keith better either than Douglas or I so he may wish to comment.

    CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

    I did, Prime Minister, work with him from time to time over the years and got to know him quite well. All I would add to you very justified tributes is firstly that Keith was, as you know, really concerned about political issues. He thought about them a lot, he worried about them in fact, he was anxious to get things right and the driving motive behind his approach to politics was his concern to actually address social issues as well as economic issues which he thought were being neglected, but he personally was quite consumed in politics because of his concern for its effects to a degree unusual even in any dedicated politician.

    Secondly, I confirm entirely what the Prime Minister said about his personal behaviour outside politics. Because he was on the right, there was a slight tendency to think he might be something of a hard man; he could not have been further removed from that; he was one of the nicest men in politics of any political complexion that we had.

    I can remember many examples where he actually went out of his way to help colleagues who had fallen out of favour in one way or another; I remember one time in particular many years ago when there was a Conservative Member of Parliament who actually got sent to prison and that really put him out of baulk altogether, and the only man who approached that former Member of Parliament to make sure that something was being done for him when he was eventually released was Sir Keith Joseph who hadn’t known him very well, and he was the only Member of the House of Commons who took any interest in that man’s fate and his family. There were many other instances of that kind of personal action that he took so I regarded him as a very intelligent man, a very concerned man and personally a very nice man indeed.

    QUESTION (German Handelsblatt Newspaper):

    As far as Europol is concerned, the conclusions are setting a new deadline for ratifying the Convention until the next summit in Cannes. Are you willing to raise the latest objections and are you willing to include the combating of terrorism in the agenda of Europol?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The principal difficulty in reaching an agreement on Europol hasn’t lain with the United Kingdom of course; there has been a very substantial difference of opinion in what in the jargon has become known as the “architecture” between France and Germany; that was the principal impediment at the recent Home Affairs meetings and indeed at this summit and there was agreement that we would try and reach a conclusion upon that by the time of the Cannes summit.

    There are a number of areas below that where we still have some concerns but I have no doubt that we will be able to resolve those over the period of the next few months and it was for that reason that I fully supported the fact that we would agree now that we would reach a conclusion by the Cannes summit and I am sure we will be able to do that. I am sure we will be able to get our way through that.

    QUESTION (Christopher Lockwood):

    We have heard calls for a serious debate on the substantive issues behind economic and monetary union and I wonder whether we might have a little of that now. Prime Minister, in a situation where the convergence criteria are met and where the pound in particular meets them not according to the Commission’s own forecast and the Treasury’s – that is not something that is completely out of the question by 1997, certainly not by 1999 – do you think that in that situation it would be of benefit for sterling to be part of the EMU?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think you have to look at what the position is going to be right the way across the European Union and I have no intention of making that judgement at this stage now. I can certainly agree with you that in terms of the Maastricht criteria it is possible, perhaps probable, that the United Kingdom will be one of the first countries actually to put themselves in an economic position where if they wish they would be economically able to move to a single currency. I think that is becoming increasingly apparent and the Chancellor may wish to add to that but how widespread that would be across the European Union I think is a matter for conjecture at this stage. We can only see, I think, three nations at the moment who look remotely likely to achieve that. Some of the strongest advocates of a single currency don’t look remotely as though they are going to be in a position economically to enter into one for a very long period indeed, but I don’t wish to judge what the debate will be at a late stage.

    I think it is right for us to examine what the implications would be, it would be folly not to be prepared for that. I don’t know at some stage in the future whether a number of nations will decide to go ahead with a single currency. There are those who say rule it out definitely for all time now. I understand their philosophical opposition but nobody at this moment can be certain what the position will be if a number of states decide to go ahead at some stage in the future and what its economic impact might be on the United Kingdom if they did. We have to consider that and study that and that is what we will need to do.

    QUESTION (Christopher Lockwood):

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It isn’t remotely likely to be half in 1997, Christopher, there are not likely to be any in 1997. There might conceivably be a few countries ready to go in 1999, it is a moot question whether there will be enough, but certainly I know of no single judge who believes there is remotely likely to be any form of economic and monetary union in 1997 and if there is anyone who thinks that, I promise you I don’t agree with them.

    CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

    Jacques Delors produced for us in our discussions a table showing the likely progress of members towards the Maastricht convergence criteria in 1996. At the moment, Luxembourg is the only one that complies. The only two that the Commission forecast to be within the criteria by 1996 are Germany and the United Kingdom, in fact the United Kingdom rather more so than Germany and that is because we are the two strongest recovering economies in Europe, in fact we are recovering at the moment rather better than the Germans and we are therefore returning to a healthier position very quickly and we are performing in accordance with those convergence criteria because the criteria in themselves, which the Prime Minister of course helped negotiate at Maastricht, comply perfectly with sound Conservative Party economics and they are based on the general direction in which our economic policy is already going in the United Kingdom.

    I agree with the Prime Minister; whatever the Maastricht time-table may say, I don’t believe a majority of the member states is likely to be able to get that time-table in the way they have set that. What we have negotiated is a position whereby whenever the others might contemplate, any number of them, economic and monetary union, we the British have a choice, our own choice, a choice for our own Parliament. We will decide yes or no according to our judgement of whether it is in the British interest to be involved in any development of economic and monetary union or not.

    The things you have to ask if and when that ever arises are is the way it is being planned and worked out likely to be good enough? Is it going to work? We have the experience of the snake, we have the experience of the ERM. I wouldn’t want us to go into any form of economic and monetary union that was not going to work and was going to come to an unfortunate end again. Then you have to ask would it or would it not improve the operating of the market and the trade between those countries that went into economic and monetary union by removing barriers and obstacles to trade between them? Would it or would it not reduce the risks of competitive devaluation ever breaking out amongst the countries involved? But I don’t think the whole thing is feasible until we have got convergence on the grounds outlined in the Maastricht Treaty and I think it would be folly for any members of the European Union to go in for economic and monetary union until they have converged on low inflation, low public deficits, low debt-to-GDP ratios and a good competitive situation in their industrial markets. As it happens Britain is the one that is best advanced towards getting back to that position and Britain is the one that has most completely reserved its own position to say yes or no to economic and monetary union if anybody raises it.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have 15 members of the European Union now, we are likely to have 20 or so some time after the turn of the century in the early years of the next century. Another decade after that we may have 27 members of the European Union. Plainly it is a fatuous proposition to assume that in any time-scale like that you are going to have a single currency across 27. I think it is improbable to the point of being dismissed that you could have a European Union across 15. The serious point at issue I believe it whether a smaller number of nations would be prepared to move forward and then they would have to consider – if they found they were economically able to do meeting the criteria the Chancellor set out – what the impact on the rest of the European Union would be if they did so and what is apparent is that although there has been a lot of consideration and a lot of discussion about the politics of that over the past five or six years, there hasn’t been in my view remotely enough consideration of the economics of that and that is the first primary issue that needs to be considered.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Essen – 10 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Essen, held on Saturday 10th December 1994.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, how has the summit gone for Britain and has there been any progress on Bosnia?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the summit is proving extremely successful and I think that will be apparent in the conclusions on fraud, the conclusions on Northern Ireland and the whole tenor of the debate that we have had about economic matters. The whole agenda is much more attractive to the British point of view that it has been in previous years, so I am very pleased about that.

    QUESTION:

    Was any progress made on Bosnia last night?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Bosnia situation is as it was. We have made the position clear for some time and there is no dispute about that amongst colleagues here. We very much wish the United Nations protection forces to stay there and to continue their humanitarian work, but there is a general recognition that it might become impossible for them to do so, if it does become impossible they will have to leave. I hope very much that that will not be the case, we would like them to stay, we would like to see progress on the diplomatic front, we would like to see an end to the fighting, an end to the killing and a proper settlement and I think that is a view universally held at this summit.

    QUESTION:

    Has the success of the fraud initiative allowed you to put troubles at home behind you now?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I hope so. The fraud initiative certainly has been successful, as I think you will see when you read the conclusions later.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Essen – 9 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Essen, held on Friday 9th December 1994.

    QUESTION (Judith Dawson):

    Prime Minister, what are your feelings about the talks today in Northern Ireland?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I very much hope they will be successful, but this is the first day only, they will be discussing the agenda today, then we will arrange a date for the next meeting. I think it is very important but I think one ought not to pin too much on today.

    This will be the first of a whole series of talks, today with Sinn Fein and of course in a week or so with the Loyalist Paramilitaries as well.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    As far as you are concerned, these are talks about talks and they do not have any further significance, Sinn Fein say they are to do with getting themselves into the political process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The two things are the same thing. They are talks about getting Sinn Fein into talks with the other constitutional parties, so both those remarks are right, they are talks about talks but they do lead to getting Sin Fein into a proper constitutional process, that is correct.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    Do you think it is possible that Bosnia might overtake events here in Essen and that you might be distracted from other matters?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it is possible that we will discuss it, I think it is almost certain that we will discuss it. I do not think it is going to overtake events here but I would be very surprised if it was not discussed. But we have a pretty heavy agenda on this occasion, we want to look very carefully at the White Paper on employment. When you strip away the masking tape of other things, what is still bothering people right the way across Europe is the creation of more jobs, so we will clearly discuss that. We will spend some time looking at fraud, that is very important, I have some proposals to put to colleagues about fraud.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    Are they new proposals?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Some suggestions as to how we might deal with the problem of fraud and mis-management across the Community. It is a matter of great importance to us, but not only us, other nation states feel just as strongly about it as well and of course there are a range of other issues we will discuss.

    QUESTION (Judith Dawson):

    Are you feeling happier about events back home?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am certainly pleased the way the economy is recovering, there is no doubt about that. We are now beginning to see not just the occasional good figure but a whole run of figures that are consistently good. The economy is growing, it is growing quite securely, the figures we have seen again this week on exports, on trade, on industrial production, all exceeding the expectations of most market commentators, and unemployment thankfully is continuing to come down.

    QUESTION (Judith Dawson):

    Do you think the problems in your government and party are behind you now?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I very much hope so. But you see, what the public do not like is disunity. There has been a great deal of difficulty that people have had to face as we have had to get out of this recession, as has everyone else. That has involved very painful decisions that were necessary in the national interest, decisions that were unpopular in the short term and will be unpopular until people can see for themselves that they were right, it is beginning to become apparent that they were right but it is not yet apparent to everybody up and down the land. I think they want people in Parliament to stop squabbling and get on with the things that concern them, and they are right.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    Could this be a turning point this week, could it be the end of the troubles, the start of a slightly brighter era for you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Anyone in politics who ever predicts turning points should have learnt from experience. I very much hope so. I am in no doubt about the turning point as far as the economy is concerned, that is certainly so. Despite all the shot and shell, the European Community’s Finance Bill went through the House of Commons in a single day and I think that exposes how much of the argument about it was really heavily over-cooked, in a single day the whole of the bill has gone through, that is now behind us and I am delighted it is behind us. In front of us is to ensure that the economic recovery remains on track, that people continue to see growing prosperity in the country. Those are the things we should concentrate on.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    And fewer causes for rebellion perhaps in the future?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Politics is about expressing ideas I but think those ideas have to be expressed within certain parameters. The points about disunity are points the public do not like. I do not think the public like artificial squabbles in Parliament, either within parties or between parties, they seem irrelevant to most people in their everyday lives, and they certainly do not expect the governing party to squabble within themselves in the way they have seen in the last year and they have expressed that view quite clearly in by-elections, and I understand that view, I think it is time it is stopped.

    QUESTION (Nick Clark):

    And those things are damaging to you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Of course they are damaging, I have never made any secret about the fact that they are damaging. We are there to carry out a particular job in the interests of this country, that is what the government are doing, that is what Conservative MPs were elected to support, I look to them to support it.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 8 December 1994

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 8th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Honours System

    Mr. MacShane: To ask the Prime Minister how many (a) peerages and (b) knighthoods have been awarded since May 1979 to (i) local authority members, (ii) civil servants, (iii) business men, (iv) business women, (v) Conservative hon. Members, (vi) ex-Conservative hon. Members, (vii) Liberal hon. Members, (viii) ex-Liberal hon. Members, (ix) Social Democrat party hon. Members, (x) ex-Social Democrat party Members, (xi) Labour hon. Members and (xii) ex-Labour hon. Members.

    The Prime Minister: The information requested can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

     

    Department of Trade and Industry

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister what considerations led to the current ministerial staffing of the Department of Trade and Industry.

    The Prime Minister: Ministerial staffing levels are determined according to the responsibilities of each Department.

     

    Engagements

    Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the purposes of his engagements today.

    The Prime Minister: To carry out my duties and responsibilities as Prime Minister.

     

    Lockheed

    Dr. David Clark: To ask the Prime Minister how many letters he has received from the general public in connection with the Hercules C-130 replacement; how many of these supported Lockheed; and how many have asked for the decision to be delayed until the future large aircraft feasibility study has been completed.

    The Prime Minister: I have received numerous representations on this subject.

  • PMQT – 8 December 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 8th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Wilshire: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

    Mr. Wilshire: Will my right hon. Friend convey my best wishes to the officials who will be leading the negotiations tomorrow with Sinn Fein-IRA? Will he also accept my congratulations on the way in which he has handled the peace process? Could he ensure that, on day one it is made crystal clear that there can be no real progress unless all paramilitaries give up weapons and intimidation? Will he also make it crystal clear that there can never be any question of an amnesty for murderers or bombers?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to feel strongly about these matters. Our position is clear: those people convicted of criminal offences will serve their sentences and an amnesty for murderers simply does not arise.

    Sinn Fein must accept unequivocally the rules of democratic politics. Guns and bombs need to be taken out of commission and intimidation must end– that is, of course, equally true for the loyalist paramilitaries. We have invited the loyalist political representatives to begin a separate exploratory dialogue with the Government on 15 December. I hope that both they and Sinn Fein will show a serious commitment to exclusively peaceful methods so that we can ensure that a peace remains and becomes stable in Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Blair: May I say how much I support what the Prime Minister has just said on Northern Ireland?

    Does the Prime Minister recall that last year he said that he was unequivocally against a referendum on Europe–a view that he has repeated this year–yet last night he said that he did not rule one out? What has changed?

    The Prime Minister: I continue to welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support on Northern Ireland. It is a strength to the peace process that it carries the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House. On the subject of a referendum, let me make clear the point that I made yesterday- -there are many people who see the referendum simply as a tactical device. I strongly suspect that that is true of many Opposition Members. But I do not see it in that fashion; we have to consider the constitutional implications for British democracy of referendums generally–there are advantages and there are disadvantages. What I have said and what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said is that we are not prepared to rule one out.

    Mr. Blair: Is not it clear that what has changed is not the Prime Minister’s belief about a referendum, but his ability to unite his party without one? Is that not his problem and that of the country– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order.

    [Interruption.]

    Mr. Blair: I see that the yobbos are out in force today. Is not this the right hon. Gentleman’s problem? Whether it is the referendum, or VAT, or Post Office privatisation, or the Tory rebels, is not his problem the fact that the Government’s decisions are now being taken by a Cabinet of crisis managers, driven by each day’s headlines, making or unmaking policy according to the tyranny of the factions–when what this country is crying out for is a Government who will serve the national interest?

    The Prime Minister: Perhaps if the right hon. Gentleman feels that way about referendums, he will explain why he is committed to referendums for Scotland and for Wales. Perhaps it is to heal divisions among his right hon. and hon. Friends.

    As to the question of country and party, that is a sound bite which the right hon. Gentleman has been trailing around from studio to studio over the past day or so. Let me make it entirely clear to him: we shall put the country first, as we always do. It is precisely because we have put the country first that we have not shrunk from difficult decisions. This country is now in position for the longest, most sustained recovery for all its people that has been seen for many years.

     

    Q2. Mr. Spring: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Spring: Is my right hon. Friend aware of a number of important initiatives to combat crime in rural areas such as Suffolk, including the introduction of a rural inspectorate in addition to cluster neighbourhood watch schemes and parish constables? Will he join me in welcoming the fact that crime in the Bury St. Edmunds sub-division has fallen by 15.2 per cent. so far this year, and, in the Newmarket sub-division, by a full 22.2 per cent?

    The Prime Minister: I am delighted to hear those statistics on falling crime; they are mirrored in some other parts of the country. I understand that my hon. Friend was instrumental in setting up a drugs prevention initiative in Newmarket, and I hope that many other people will follow the same sort of idea in other parts of the country. The reduction in crime to which my hon. Friend refers demonstrates the effectiveness of a community-based approach.

    Mr. Ashdown: Let me remind the Prime Minister of his actual words, used in answer to me in June 1992. He said:

    “I am not in favour of a referendum in a parliamentary democracy”.–[ Official Report , 3 June 1992; Vol. 208, c. 830.] Are we to take it that that was not a statement of principle but yet another flexible policy from our eternally flexible Prime Minister?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman accuses me one day of being inflexible and criticises me on the next for being flexible. I suppose that that shows that he himself is unsure whether flexibility is good or bad–just as he is unsure about every single policy that he advocates in one House one day or his hon. Friends advocate in another House another day. They change from hour to hour, from day to day, from House to House and from Question Time to Question Time.

    Sir Fergus Montgomery: Did my right hon. Friend have the chance to read yesterday’s Daily Mail , about what £60 would buy today? Does he agree that £60 for a haircut is a bit much, even for the Leader of the Opposition?

    The Prime Minister: As it happens, I did not read the Daily Mail yesterday, so I was certainly not aware of the right hon. Gentleman’s haircutting exploits. Indeed, it would be indelicate of me to refer to them.

     

    Q3. Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Prentice: Has the Prime Minister visited Dudley, West yet? If not, does he intend to do so? Is he aware that his candidate there said on television last night that he wanted to fight the by-election exclusively on local issues? Today of all days, are there no national issues on which to engage the electors of Dudley, West?

    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman had cared to look even at today’s news he would have seen that there is another record set of export figures, that industrial production is rising yet again, that over recent months unemployment has been falling consistently, that there is a growth rate of over 4 per cent. and that there is an inflation rate of 2 per cent. He would see prospects for this country that his party in office has never managed to produce. I suggest that that is a good prospectus for people at any by-election at any time and certainly for the one at Dudley, West.

    Mr. John Marshall: As chairman of the all-party Friends of the Northern Line group, may I welcome today’s announcement of 100 new trains for the Northern line? That is good news for London and will be warmly welcomed. [Interruption.]

    The Prime Minister: There seems to be a voice of dissent–the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)–but I think that most people who use the Northern line will be pleased to see this substantial investment and the improved rolling stock that will be available for many millions of Londoners and others.

     

    Q4. Mr. Gunnell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Gunnell: Given the Prime Minister’s claim to support small business, and recognising that over the past 10 years British Coal Enterprise has created or expanded 5,000 companies in coalfield areas, would the Prime Minister now guarantee the future of British Coal Enterprise?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, in the way that he posed his question, shows what an excellent record we have on small businesses, because he quoted the number of extra small companies that there are. That is true of other parts of industry and in other parts of the country, and I am sure that they will continue to grow.

     

    Q5. Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Hawkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is always welcome when parents exercise the right of choice in education for their children, a choice which only the Conservative party has introduced? Does he further agree that it is contemptible for most Opposition Members to seek to deny that choice from which so many of them and their children have benefited? Does he agree that this is a case of, “You’re all right, Tony, pull up the ladder”?

    The Prime Minister: I am always delighted to see people exercising choice in all areas, and it is certainly right to exercise choice in favour of one’s children to ensure that they get the best possible education. The point about education generally is that there is no choice where only bad schools exist. That is why we have introduced a range of measures, including regular inspection, and a range of education policies, to raise standards. I am delighted that, despite its past hostility to those policies, the Labour party is increasingly recognising that our education policies are right and is now following them. I recommend to the Opposition that they begin to follow some of our other policies on a whole range of issues.

     

    Q6. Mrs. Helen Jackson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mrs. Jackson: Does the Prime Minister accept that last Thursday he misled the House in claiming that the disposable income of all people at every level had risen, and that the facts are that the bottom tenth of the population’s real disposable income has fallen by 17 per cent. since 1979 while the incomes of the top tenth have gone up by 62 per cent? Does not that demonstrate the unfair society that we shall be left with following this Tory Government? Will he now put the record straight?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady is playing with statistics and she knows it. [Interruption.] The statistics that she quotes incorporate all sorts of people who run businesses and declare no income but whose spending pattern is way above the average. That is how she produces those statistics. The people at the bottom end of the scale are those who exist completely on social security payments. The hon. Lady knows that they have risen in value and she should not try and pretend otherwise.

     

    Q7. Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 December.

    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Thompson: Returning to the subject of education, will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to commend the good work that is being done in independent schools throughout the country? Will he also confirm again the Government’s commitment to the assisted places scheme which has done so much for children from less well-off families? Is not it surprising that the new modern Labour party should once again attack freedom of choice in education and, indeed, make it more difficult for its leader to exercise choice for his own family?

    The Prime Minister: It is entirely apt that my hon. Friend should ask that question when the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) has just been talking about people at the bottom of the income scale. The assisted places scheme is a way to help people at the bottom of the income scale and the hon. Lady opposes it, as do her right hon. and hon. Friends. Parental choice is a fundamental principle of our policy. We choose to exercise it for everyone, not just for some, and I fail to understand how members of the Labour party, which claims to pride itself on equality of opportunity, would deny the opportunities under the assisted places scheme to some of the poorest children in Britain. What it shows yet again is the gap between what they say and what they practise.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to Business People at the Ritz Hotel – 7 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to business people at the Ritz Hotel in London, given on Wednesday 7th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me turn straight to contemporary events. I don’t propose to mince my words this morning. You wouldn’t expect it and frankly I’m not in the mood to do so. Last night we lost a vote on a tax measure. I don’t take that remotely lightly. Taxes tend to be unpopular. They usually are. The first popular tax has yet to be invented and I don’t think Norman Lamont or Ken Clarke have yet found it. But I know of no tax that has been so misrepresented in such lurid and emotional terms as the tax upon which we lost the vote last evening.

    What has been said about it, frankly, is a travesty of reality and I will tell you who the great gainers are from last night’s vote, it’s you. It isn’t the pensioners, it isn’t the people in particular difficulties, it’s people who will now not be paying the increased tax on energy. I think it was a mistaken vote last night. You’ll be unsurprised to hear me say that. I hope you will be unsurprised to hear me say also, that the Chancellor will come back to the House on Thursday and he will repair the fiscal position that was damaged by last night’s vote. There should not be a shred of doubt in anyone’s mind about that. We set out the fiscal position, we’re determined to bring down borrowing, we’re determined to sustain recovery, we are going to take no risks with the recovery whatsoever and so on Thursday the Chancellor will set out an alternative measure of ensuring that the fiscal position is unaltered as a result of last night’s vote.

    So let me tell you why I feel very strongly about that. If I may take you back a few years. On the first day I became Chancellor, I said at the time – looking at positions where we were clearly heading into recession, where inflation was still going up quite rapidly, where unemployment was clearly on a very rapid rise and we were clearly on the top of a hill that was undoubtedly going to head down – that if it isn’t hurting it isn’t working. What I had in mind was the problem that we had repeatedly faced since the early 1950s. Time and time and time again, we see the economy looking set fair for some time and inflation has just driven us off course. The consistent low inflation economy that we’ve seen in Germany for so many years with the industrial and other benefits that have necessarily followed it.

    I am sick and tired of time and time again seeing us driven off course by inflation. Not just the social consequences. It’s all very well for economists and statisticians to regard inflation as a phenomenon. An economically interesting phenomenon. For ordinary people, if you have to pay bills at the end of the week and you can’t pay them, that is what inflation means and that is the misery that lots of individuals face when inflation remotely begins to get out of hand. From your point of view it means you aren’t going to be able to compete with the French, the Germans, the Japanese, Pacific Basin countries and the United States unless our inflation record as a nation is at least as good as those of our competitors abroad. We are determined that that is the bedrock upon which economic policy is to be built. A bedrock of low inflation. And once people understand that that is the basis of what we are about, they may understand a great deal else that’s happened in the last four years or so.

    I remember very well the period running up to the last General Election. All those seductive voices saying to me, well the economy’s clearly in a downturn. Bring interest rates down speedily. A little extra help here, a little extra help there. Well maybe. I can see the short term attraction for that. But would it have delivered a position where conceivably we might break the inflationary psychology that has damaged this country for so long? That was the prize that we have been pursuing and that was right up to and during the General Election. We ignored the voices encouraging us to buy a little popularity by reducing interest rates and loosening economic policy.

    So I hope no one doubts the determination of the Government to obtain an anti-inflationary strategy and to ensure that the opportunity that I now believe lies out there in the economy, is not an opportunity that is thrown away. Let me just say a word or two about the recovery. Where I think we are. What I think is happening. Some of the down sides of what’s happening and where I think we’re going. I don’t have a shred of doubt that, providing we continue to pursue the right policies we have a series of unprecedented opportunities in front of us.

    Growth over the last twelve months is higher than we expected. Higher, I think, than is sustainable. 4 per cent is not sustainable and our forecasts are for lower growth in the years immediately ahead. But it isn’t only the 4 per cent growth. We have 4 per cent growth with 2 per cent underlying inflation. Some would argue even less in reality. Now, not for decades have we seen a position where growth is double the rate of inflation. Now that is extremely attractive in many ways. Certainly extremely attractive for Great Britain plc. I think there’s not a shred of doubt about that. Greatly attractive for industry.

    Less attractive I think for the retail sector. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the retail sector often is more buoyant when it has an inflationary position. When people are getting large wage increases. When they can see prices rising, then there’s a propensity to spend and spend quickly before prices go up. That is undoubtedly the case. How long that tradition, that transitional instinct, will occur amongst the British purchaser I can’t say. But I am clear that for the country as a whole, a low inflation and high growth strategy is the right strategy for this country.

    We’ve seen unemployment fall quite dramatically over the past twenty months or so. If I can draw a parallel, I suppose the European economy closest to ours is the French economy. They have unemployment at around 12.8 per cent. We have unemployment at just under 9 per cent and falling. Unemployment has fallen, is falling and I believe will continue to fall.

    But not only is it coming down, but the proportion of our adult population in work is second I think only to Denmark, maybe third behind Portugal. Right the way across Europe and certainly far better than our natural comparators in Europe, Germany and France. We have a remarkably changed circumstance. Particularly in manufacturing industry. Exports are hitting record levels. If not quite every month, certainly on a regular basis. If one looks back over a few years. British Steel, a basket case ten years ago. I recommend anyone who hasn’t been to the Port Talbot works to go there and have a look for themselves at the remarkable change there has been there. Anyone attending the Motor Show would see again, an industry if one goes back a few years to Red Robbo, Long Bridge.

    Go and look at what is actually happening to the British motor industry and if you had meetings with a large number of Heads of Government in Budapest, what they had to say about the British economy, British exports and the British capacity to perform, then you would wonder what sort of world many of the critics of British industry and of this Government are actually living in.

    You see the determination they have to attract British investment into their countries, to attract British skills. The belief that they want British products because they are delivered on time. They are as good as anybody else and at the moment we are probably the most competitive industrial nation in Western Europe. They understand that out there and I think it is about time some of those people who seem to pervade a pall of gloom over everything that happens in the British economy began to recognise it in the United Kingdom as well. Is this just a normal recovery? I don’t believe that it is because there are elements of this recovery that are sharply different from those we’ve seen on previous occasions.

    Now it isn’t all that long ago since those wise and gloomy people were telling me, that when you come out of recovery, you’re going to have to balance the payments crisis. If I heard that once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. We are patently out of the recession, have been for two years. We have not got a balance of payments crisis. The balance of payments is actually narrower. You’re going to go straight into an inflationary spiral they said. Well of course we must keep our thumb on inflation and we will. Of course, the natural laws of economics aren’t suspended as you recover. You’re going to have keep a firm hand on inflation.

    But there’s no risk of spiralling inflation wrecking this recovery and they were wrong again about that. And then there were the people who said after the ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism that all this devaluation is going to work through the competitiveness advantage. It’ll go straight into wages and as ever the British economy will see it all slip away after devaluation. I do actually see that devaluation having worked its way through into profits, not necessarily all distributed in dividends. The profits going back into reinvestment and it certainly has not gone straight into wages and out to the people. If it had the Government might be a bit more popular.

    I can tell you one thing, anybody who thinks that low inflation is politically popular, wants their political bumps felt. It may be right for this country and I passionately believe that it is. But it certainly doesn’t make the Government popular. People like large wage rises. They like large rises in social security benefits. They don’t like it when they get 2 per cent or 3 per cent or less. They don’t like it because there’s an instinct after years and years of high inflation and having large money increases in their pockets, and the fact that prices aren’t going up is little political consolation to them. How many people out there in the country actually realise that energy prices have been falling and falling consistently? Go out there and ask them. They will look at you if you say that as though you are stark staring bonkers. So low inflation is right, but it isn’t popular politically and you can very clearly see that.

    Now let me turn to another matter that I think is fundamental. Fundamental because to the difficulties the Government has been facing and fundamental to the prospects of this country. There are three views about our membership of the European Union. There is the view that it is the best thing that ever happened and nothing that can happen in Europe can be wrong. There is the view that it is the worst thing that ever happened and nothing that happens in Europe can ever be right and then there is a sane and logical view, which is where in reality 90 per cent of the British nationals truly lie. And that is the belief that our economic and other interests mean we must be in Europe. We must play a central part in Europe. We can only build the sort of Europe that we feel comfortable with if we are in the middle of it pitching for the sort of Europe we want. It is about time we stopped having the argument conducted at extremes with the viewpoint of the vast majority of the people apparently being swept aside as though it was of no consequence.

    I find it immensely frustrating that the argument on Europe only seems to be carried out by the people on either extreme of the argument. You don’t have to be an extremist to have conviction and passion about what is right for this country is Europe. And I don’t have a shred of doubt that our interests are for us to be in the European Union, building the sort of European Union we want. Where would so much of your trade be if we were not? What would be the position if we found ourselves outside real influence? What would happen in terms of the regulations and directives is that they will have taken place and affected us whether we liked it or not. If we were not in there pitching.

    Would you have had a single market across Europe? But for the British you would not. Would you have had a reform, of the common agricultural policy? But for the British you would not. Would you have had the beginning of large scale deregulation across Europe? Emphatically you would have not. Would you have had subsidiarity and a repeal of one quarter of unnecessary European legislation if we hadn’t fought for it at Maastricht and afterwards? You would not. Would you have known about fraud in Europe if we hadn’t demanded extra powers from the Court of Auditors in Europe and got them and published their report so people could see what was happening? You would not. But why do we not get these things presented in a practical and honest way?

    I saw these reports about 6 billion pounds worth of fraud in Europe and the Court of Auditors. But I’ll tell you this, that 6 billion pounds figure wasn’t in the Court of Auditors. I think it was some professor in France who dreamed that up some time ago. How it crept into the Court of Auditors report I don’t know. Of course there’s fraud there. We’ve known there’s fraud there. No Government has done more than this Government to attack that fraud problem in the European Union. I reached an agreement with Mitterrand and Balladur at Chartres, three days after all those headlines about fraud. How much publicity was there for the agreement we reached to take further action on fraud starting with discussions at Essen this weekend? Well, you needed a very long telescope to find it in newspapers of any colour.

    But let us look at the argument as it really is. Should we be in Europe? Yes. Should we fight against some of the things that happened in the European Union? Emphatically we should. Every other nation does and so should we. It’s only because of the absurdities of the way the argument is carried out in this country, that we are deemed to be anti European when we express our view in Europe – though I’m bound to say Mr Balladur’s grand new gesture sounds remarkably like my Leiden speech of some months ago and I’m delighted to see that that is the case.

    Look at what is at stake. I have to say to you here, Peter was talking about the sheer size and scale of the industrial and commercial enterprises that you know. Well, I doubt there’s more than a handful, if even a handful of people in this room, who don’t believe that our interests lie in Europe, and emphatically lie in Europe. If I may say so at the risk of infringing your hospitality Peter, it is about time some of you got up and said that. It is about time you started saying that loud and clear. It is about time you stopped having this debate run by a handful of people who are fundamentally opposed to Europe and who will seem to turn every part of the debate against what is happening in Europe. Of course, we argued about the things that are wrong and we must, but it is about time we looked at their real interest. Why do we get so much investment in this country from abroad? Is it the Government’s popularity do you think? Is it our climate? Is it the excellence of the management of British industry or perhaps men of charm, skill, discretion? Wonderful businessmen no doubt.

    But it just might possibly have something to do with the fact that we are the most deregulated on trade to the richest market the world has ever seen. Ask Robin Cook what he would have done without NEC in his constituency. Prescott said the other day, holding up his telescope to his Nelsonian eye “I see no companies rushing to invest in this country”. He should have had a word with Tony Blair sitting next to him and ask him where Black and Decker had gone, and why they’d gone there. If he sees no investment running into this country, I just wonder precisely what he can see. Because there’s a vast weight of investment coming into this country. We’re getting more United States and Japanese investment than France and Germany added together. NEC, Samsung, Black and Decker. The list rolls on. Not just the list of some years ago, but the list of actual contemporary inward investment as a result of our domestic policies here and the fact that we are the most attractive market in Europe for those international companies who want to be part of the European market.

    Now let’s be in no doubt about the importance of that. And let us be in no doubt about the fact that the Government’s policy is to remain a full and complete part of Europe, but that we will be determined to fight against the things in Europe that we believe are premature or wrong. It’s because I believe the Social Chapter was wrong that I refused to accept it at Maastricht. It’s because I believe a single currency is premature – I believe will remain premature for many, many years to come – that I am also determined that we should not be committed to that in the Maastricht Treaty and I believe that that is right. Were we right on the Social Chapter? Self-evidently right. When Jacques Delors said it would make this country a paradise for inward investment, I could have hugged him. I didn’t. But he was absolutely right.

    Let me just touch on the Budget. Just elaborate on some of the things I’ve been saying. We need to safeguard the recovery we’ve got. That’s why we need to keep public finances under very tight control. That’s why the public spending plans were cut by, more I think on this occasion than any time since the Conservative Government has been in office since 1979. That’s why there were a whole series of supply side measures to help people out of dependency and back in work. Particularly those who’d been unemployed for a long time. And that’s why within the resources available, there was more help for business and industry. But frankly I don’t think you need a lot more help. I think we just need us to produce the right macro economic framework and the minimum amount of regulation so you can get on with your own work. We’ve at last got through the House of Lords the Deregulation Act. The Act gives the capacity to deregulate in many areas by secondary legislation rather than by primary legislation. Now, don’t let me fool you. Deregulation isn’t easy to achieve. For every piece of deregulation we want, there is a lobby determined to oppose it. That has been the position and will remain the position in the future, but I think it is absolutely vital that we deregulate and we intend to.

    I said some time ago, that I regarded education as being right at the top of the priorities. I don’t just see it as a social matter. It’s a supply side measure for industry as well. That is the raw material upon which you would build your enterprises in the next 20 or 30 years. And I’m not satisfied with what is emerging from British schools. It is getting better. But while we find ourselves still behind in qualifications, still behind much of what is happening in South East Asia, we can’t possibly be satisfied. That is why we put the reforms in place, long term reforms, not short term reforms, not day to day management, but long term reforms on testing, on performance tables, on a slimmed down national curriculum, on inspection. To make sure we really know what is going on in the education system, because without that how can we put right the things that don’t seem to be going right.

    We wanted one in three in further education. We had one in eight in further education in 1979, we anticipated one in three by the turn of the century. We will reach that this year, nearly one in three of our young people going into higher education. Now these are remarkable changes. Bit by bit our political opponents, who opposed us bitterly, have clambered on board the sledge and acknowledged that those education reforms are right and those education reforms will continue and entrench, because we need to ensure the best possible education in future.

    Let me just summarise briefly. We will take no risks, whatever the political unpopularity may be, with the recovery that I believe is now firmly established. We want a consistent, sustained, low inflationary recovery with growth at trend or above trend level. We wish to see unemployment continue to fall and I believe it will. We wish to continue to deregulate, to clear the ground for business and industry to maximise their penetration of world markets. There’s no doubt out there across the world there is a great demand, great opportunities for British goods. We may never be certain, we may be on the way to cracking the inflationary psychology that has done us so much harm in the past. Look at the opportunity that is beginning to become apparent in this country. It can be thrown away if we’re forced off course. It can be thrown away if you have policies of minimum wages. As John Prescott engagingly said “any silly fool knows that it will cost jobs”. The Social Chapter, with all the dangers, would do. If you look at costs in this country and compared them to costs in the rest of Europe, you see a significant competitive advantage because we are not piling extra costs on employers and as a result of that we have had more people in employment.

    I see no morality in providing extra benefits to people in work and condemning those out of work to stay out of work. If there’s a moral argument about unemployment between ourselves and our political opponents and ourselves in Europe, I believe we have the moral high ground in terms of trying to price people back into jobs, rather than electorally by favours from those in jobs and to hell with those who are out of jobs who would then never get back in. You of course want the lowest possible tax structure and I have to say to our opponents that a training tax, a windfall tax, a carbon tax – it sounds astonishingly to me like that VAT I have to say – those taxes will do precious little good to British industry. Nor would levelling out corporation and other taxes across Europe which our political opponents regard as their policy.

    Development tax, extra regional assemblies. I cannot think of a policy more irrelevant and more stupid and more damaging and more dangerous than to say you’re going into large scale constitutional change just at the moment when we ought to be concentrating on entrenching for good the economic and other changes that have taken place in this country. And as for closing massive tax loopholes, Howard Davies said they’re not closing loopholes, they disguise fresh taxation on business and nobody should be in any doubt about that.

    So the choice is clear. For those people who think there is no difference. There may even be some journalists here who think there’s no difference between the Parties. I suggest they lift their eyes and actually look at the clear distinct differences in economic and industrial policy between the two major Parties. I’m happy to fight on that. It isn’t always a popular message to preach prosperity in the long term, but I’ll tell you this. It is the right message. It is the message that is actually going to improve our living standards, not just tomorrow, but for a long period ahead. I believe it is the right policy. I think industry knows it’s the right policy and if industry wants to protect that policy, I hope industry will take the opportunity and speak out and say that it’s the right policy.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on European Policy – 7 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on European policy, made during an interview given in London on Wednesday 7th December 1994.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked why the whip was withdrawn from some Conservative MPs].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think you have to realise precisely why that happened. I reached an agreement – not me as an individual but as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – in 1992 on future finances of the Community. That agreement was endorsed by Cabinet, it got very wide support in the House of Commons, almost nobody criticised it across the floor or behind me. In 1994, we have to keep our word, we have to match the agreement with the legislation that enables that agreement to carry forward. Now suppose we have welched on that, suppose I had reached an agreement in 1992 and welched on it in 1994. How could I possibly have gone back to Europe and negotiated for 1996 in the intergovernmental conference? I simply couldn’t have done it.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if the decision had caused a split in the Conservative Party and if the MPs would have been more loyal if they still had the Conservative whip].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I hear what you say about what they say. If the British Government gives its word, a British Government must keep its word and if a British Government is unable to keep its word then it cannot continue in office. That is not a very hard principle to grasp but it must be apparent to everybody that that was the position. We made it perfectly clear to our colleagues that that was the position and some of them chose not to support us. Clearly, that couldn’t be left where it was.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if this would be damaging to him].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I acted in the only way one could. If Members of Parliament vote against the Government on an issue that they know to be an issue of confidence, an issue that if we had lost it could have created a General Election, then you have to indicate that that isn’t satisfactory behaviour. If I had taken no action, you would have been asking me a quite different question; you would have been saying: “Why are you so weak as to let people vote against the Government on a three-line whip and perhaps wreck an agreement you had reached internationally?”.

    You know very well that if governments reach an agreement internationally, British Governments must keep their word. There can be no doubt about that, not now, nor at any stage in the future.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if he was in a no-win situation].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We had a second reading of the Bill in front of us. Let us suppose we had lost that second reading because people were not aware that this was an issue of confidence. We would now be facing a General Election. That would be the position we were in. I think my colleagues would have said to me: “Why didn’t you tell us that was the position?”, we did tell them that was the position. Most of them accepted that that was the position, they supported the Government and as a result the British Government has kept its word and in future when we negotiate people know that our word will be honoured. There is no doubt that that was the right thing to do.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if he agreed with some back-benchers that he had created this problem].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is patently absurd, isn’t it? I didn’t decide to vote against the Government. People knew precisely what this deal was, when I came back from Edinburgh they endorsed this deal, nobody complained about it then. The people who voted against us the other night, they haven’t complained in the interim. They knew very well what this deal was in 1992, they supported it in 1992. You cannot conduct government if you come back with an international agreement and your own party do not support that agreement. It was necessary to make that clear and when some chose not to support the Government it was inevitable that action was taken.

  • Mr Major’s Commons Statement on the CSCE Summit – 7 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Commons statement on the CSCE Summit from 7th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major) I represented the United Kingdom at the summit meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Budapest on 5 to 6 December, accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

    The meeting adopted the Budapest summit declaration; and separate declarations on the 50th Anniversary of the termination of world war II, and on Baltic issues. It also adopted 10 decisions on different aspects of the CSCE’s work.

    These decisions embraced strengthening the CSCE; regional issues; further development of the capabilities of the CSCE in conflict prevention and crisis management; code of conduct on politico-military aspects of security; further tasks of the CSCE forum for security co-operation; principles governing non-proliferation; a common and comprehensive security model for Europe for the 21st century; the human dimension; the economic dimension; and the Mediterranean.

    Copies of all of these documents will be placed in the Library of the House.

    The CSCE is no longer just a conference. Its role has widened since the end of the Cold War. Under the Budapest decision on “Strengthening the CSCE”, its title will change from 1 January 1995 to “The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, CSCE”. This change of title has been accompanied by some structural changes which are set out in the relevant decision.

    Among its other decisions, the summit:

    –initiated planning for a CSCE-led peace-keeping operation in Nagorno- Karabakh. Deployment of a multi-national CSCE peace-keeping force will depend on progress towards a political settlement, on United Nations Security Council backing, and on the requisite military preparation;

    –adopted measures to strengthen the CSCE in its central role of conflict prevention;

    –reinforced, as a result of a British initiative, the CSCE’s arrangements for dealing with the problem of minorities and other human rights questions;

    –set out standards for the democratic control of armed forces, in a new code of conduct;

    –added to military confidence building measures, including provisions for the exchange of information on all conventional forces.

    At a separate ceremony in Budapest on 5 December, Ukraine acceded to the non-proliferation treaty. On behalf of the United Kingdom, I extended to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine the nuclear security assurances which we have given in the past to other non-nuclear weapon states. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin extended the same assurances on behalf of the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

    In the margins of the conference, I had discussions with many of the CSCE heads of Government, including the Presidents of the Czech Republic, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and the United States; the German Federal Chancellor; and the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Norway and Turkey.

    The future development of the North Atlantic Alliance was one of the subjects mentioned in many speeches to the conference, and also during my bilateral meetings. It was a point of particular concern to the Russian delegation. I explained to President Yeltsin that our aim, which was widely supported by our partners in NATO and the European Union, was to extend to the east the prosperity and stability which members of the European Union and NATO now enjoy. That was why both organisations were developing their links with the countries of central and eastern Europe. NATO had commissioned a study of the principles of enlargement, but had taken no decisions yet on which countries might join the organisation or when. It was very important for NATO to build up its relationship with Russia, and we therefore hoped that the Russian Government would soon sign their agreement with NATO on the “Partnership for Peace” programme. It was common ground that there should be no new dividing line across Europe. The dominant political issue at the summit was the conflict in Bosnia. CSCE decisions are adopted by consensus, and because of differences of view between certain participants, a draft declaration on Bosnia was not adopted. However, the chairman of the conference spoke for many delegations in issuing, in his personal capacity, a call on all warring parties in Bosnia, and particularly in Bihac, to end the fighting, declare a ceasefire and allow free access of humanitarian assistance throughout Bosnia. My right hon. Friend, the Foreign Secretary, will be making a statement separately to the House on Bosnia, taking account of discussions during the Budapest summit.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 7 December 1994

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 7th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    EU Anti-fraud Budget

    Sir Teddy Taylor: To ask the Prime Minister if he will raise at the next meeting of the European Council the size of the European Union’s anti- fraud budget.

    The Prime Minister: As I made clear following my meeting with the French Prime Minister at Chartres, I will insist that discussion of all aspects of fraud and irregularity against the Community budget is given a high priority at the Essen European Council.

     

    Security and Intelligence Services

    Sir Anthony Durant: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about the staff counsellor for the Security and Intelligence Services.

    The Prime Minister: Sir Philip Woodfield KCB CBE has served as staff counsellor for the Security and Intelligence Services since November 1987. He will retire from the post on 31 March 1995, and I express the Government’s gratitude to him for the way in which he has established this very sensitive post and fulfilled the duties of it. Sir Christopher France GCB, currently permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, will succeed him as staff counsellor from 1 April 1995.

     

    Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe

    Sir Michael Neubert: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe summit in Budapest.

    The Prime Minister: I represented the United Kingdom at the summit meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Budapest on 5 to 6 December, accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

    The meeting adopted the Budapest summit declaration; and separate declarations on the 50th Anniversary of the termination of world war II, and on Baltic issues. It also adopted 10 decisions on different aspects of the CSCE’s work.

    These decisions embraced strengthening the CSCE; regional issues; further development of the capabilities of the CSCE in conflict prevention and crisis management; code of conduct on politico-military aspects of security; further tasks of the CSCE forum for security co-operation; principles governing non-proliferation; a common and comprehensive security model for Europe for the 21st century; the human dimension; the economic dimension; and the Mediterranean.

    Copies of all of these documents will be placed in the Library of the House.

    The CSCE is no longer just a conference. Its role has widened since the end of the Cold War. Under the Budapest decision on “Strengthening the CSCE”, its title will change from 1 January 1995 to “The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, CSCE”. This change of title has been accompanied by some structural changes which are set out in the relevant decision.

    Among its other decisions, the summit:

    –initiated planning for a CSCE-led peace-keeping operation in Nagorno- Karabakh. Deployment of a multi-national CSCE peace-keeping force will depend on progress towards a political settlement, on United Nations Security Council backing, and on the requisite military preparation;

    –adopted measures to strengthen the CSCE in its central role of conflict prevention;

    –reinforced, as a result of a British initiative, the CSCE’s arrangements for dealing with the problem of minorities and other human rights questions;

    –set out standards for the democratic control of armed forces, in a new code of conduct;

    –added to military confidence building measures, including provisions for the exchange of information on all conventional forces.

    At a separate ceremony in Budapest on 5 December, Ukraine acceded to the non-proliferation treaty. On behalf of the United Kingdom, I extended to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine the nuclear security assurances which we have given in the past to other non-nuclear weapon states. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin extended the same assurances on behalf of the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

    In the margins of the conference, I had discussions with many of the CSCE heads of Government, including the Presidents of the Czech Republic, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and the United States; the German Federal Chancellor; and the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Norway and Turkey.

    The future development of the North Atlantic Alliance was one of the subjects mentioned in many speeches to the conference, and also during my bilateral meetings. It was a point of particular concern to the Russian delegation. I explained to President Yeltsin that our aim, which was widely supported by our partners in NATO and the European Union, was to extend to the east the prosperity and stability which members of the European Union and NATO now enjoy. That was why both organisations were developing their links with the countries of central and eastern Europe. NATO had commissioned a study of the principles of enlargement, but had taken no decisions yet on which countries might join the organisation or when. It was very important for NATO to build up its relationship with Russia, and we therefore hoped that the Russian Government would soon sign their agreement with NATO on the “Partnership for Peace” programme. It was common ground that there should be no new dividing line across Europe. The dominant political issue at the summit was the conflict in Bosnia. CSCE decisions are adopted by consensus, and because of differences of view between certain participants, a draft declaration on Bosnia was not adopted. However, the chairman of the conference spoke for many delegations in issuing, in his personal capacity, a call on all warring parties in Bosnia, and particularly in Bihac, to end the fighting, declare a ceasefire and allow free access of humanitarian assistance throughout Bosnia. My right hon. Friend, the Foreign Secretary, will be making a statement separately to the House on Bosnia, taking account of discussions during the Budapest summit.