The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Category: 1996

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Seoul – 5 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Seoul on Tuesday 5th March 1996.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, a third and very serious bomb, you of course condemn it?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it is an evil act. What has been happening in Israel has been a determination to try and find a settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. A huge amount of work has gone into that, a huge amount of goodwill. And now some evil acts are seeking to drive that whole process off course. This is the third such atrocity in the last few days and there is no conceivable way in which it can be explained, it is quite literally evil. We have had some experience of acts of sheer terror like this, acts simply to murder, to destroy and to make a political point. I think they are absolutely unforgivable and my heart goes out to the Israeli people.

    QUESTION:

    The real worry must be that such serious acts – suicide bombings like this – will cut off the peace process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well I think that is what they are intended to do. I think they are intended to break up any chance of a rapprochement between the Palestinians and the Israelis and it will be very difficult to keep the process in being. I very much hope, though clearly it will make life very difficult, I very much hope after a while it will be possible to continue.

  • Mr Major’s Address to the Federation of Korean Industry – 5 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Executive Board of the Federation of Korean Industry in Seoul on Tuesday 5th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me first thank Chairman Chey for his very warm welcome and I am delighted to be here with you on this occasion. I would also like, at the outset, to pay my tribute to the Federation of Korean Industry for their work in promoting closer business ties with the United Kingdom.

    We have only a short time together today, so I want to concentrate on some of the things that I think are important to both of us and leave plenty of time for a more relaxed exchange around the table.

    We have seen a truly enormous increase in economic ties since the President’s visit to the United Kingdom last year. Exports to Korea are up by very nearly 50 percent; Korean exports to the United Kingdom are up by over 60 percent; and two-way trade has exceeded 5 billion US dollars for the first time.

    We have seen similarly exciting events on the investment front. In October last year Her Majesty The Queen opened the new Samsung electronics complex in North-East England; LG have opened a major new electronics plant; Daewoo have doubled the capacity of their video recorder plant in Northern Ireland; Halla will perform ground-breaking ceremony for a new factory in Wales just next week.

    Britain is one of the great overseas investors of history, and so we understand the logic of overseas investors, our investments abroad, and investments from abroad into the United Kingdom. Our industry is very ready to globalise its efforts and establish bases abroad. We are the world’s largest overseas investor after the United States, and of course the largest European investor in Asia, Just within the last few minutes I have witnessed the signature of a GKN/Hanwha agreement for a 30 million dollars joint venture here in Korea.

    Let me say also how much we welcome the Korean investment we have had in the UK. We are always a welcome home for inward investment. We have received by far the largest share of world investment into the European Union and I very warmly welcome this. We had three further announcements today: Fine Electromechanics, Sung Kwang Electromechanics and Poong Geon – all setting up to supply existing Korean investment in the UK. In this particular occasion the existing Korean investment is that made by Samsung.

    These investments are going to take the number of Korean companies who have chosen the UK as a manufacturing base to 19.

    But that is what has happened already. What I would like to dwell upon for a few moments is what awaits Korean companies in the United Kingdom. Well firstly a very warm welcome from the government. We treat Korean companies which have set up in the United Kingdom as though they were British companies formed with indigenous British capital. The United Kingdom economy is now entering its fifth year of sound and stable economic growth. The economic fundamentals are in place to ensure an environment in which companies can flourish.

    Let me try and illustrate that for you. Manufacturing labour costs – critical to any investor – are much lower in the United Kingdom than in the United States, in Japan or in any of the other major European countries. And so are our non-labour costs far lower than those of our European competitors. Inflation is under firmer lock and key than we have known in the United Kingdom for getting on for half a century. It has been below 4 percent for over 3 years, it is now below 3 percent and continues to fall. Productivity in manufacturing industry since 1980 has increased more rapidly than in any other member of the OECD, and to take a European example, twice as rapidly as in Germany. And unemployment, too high at just under 8 percent, is still at its lowest rate since 1991 and very far below the average of other European nations. Our economic growth in the current year will be higher, for example, than Germany’s for the fourth successive year.

    I emphasise these points to try and indicate to you some of the fundamental changes that have taken place in the British economy. It has not happened suddenly, it has not happened overnight. Economic success takes time and commitment. And the core of what we believe in is our belief in free markets in the United Kingdom.

    Competition both at home and abroad sharpens incentives, it focuses business on what business does best, and that is creating wealth.

    We believe that deregulation, removing unnecessary government controls is central to competitiveness. We have sought out some of the unnecessary regulations which raise prices, destroy jobs, stifle innovation and end choice. We have identified over 1,000 of those regulations and half of them have already either been repealed or amended, and we are on our way to dealing with the other half.

    The key target of deregulation has been the labour market. The reforms we have undertaken in the last 16 years have created a flexible, an efficient and competitive labour force, as those of you in the United Kingdom will already know. Industrial disputes are very much a thing of the past. The number of days lost last year in the United Kingdom in industrial disputes fell to the lowest level we have known for over 100 years.

    One policy perhaps, above all, encapsulates our belief in free markets, and that is the policy of privatisation, pioneered in the United Kingdom and a policy upon which we now have more experience I think than any nation in the world. We have privatised, put back into private ownership, 48 major industries, transferring nearly a million people from the public to the private sector, increasing efficiency and improving services to the customer. And where we have led on privatisation, many people have followed right around the world.

    Loss-making monopolies have been transformed these days into world-class companies. Let me give you an illustration or two. British Airways is now the most profitable international airline in the world and I am delighted that from next month it will fly three times a week directly from Seoul to London. Following privatisation British Telecom has also been transformed. The number of lines has increased by 30 percent. Competition in the UK has led to the development of a domestic mobile telephone market that is now twice that of any other European country. And the UK is the only European Union country with a competitive telecoms network and with costs the lowest in Europe.

    They are two examples. I could certainly have given you more. But the competitive cost base and open and deregulated business environment has meant that companies manufacturing in the UK – whether Korean owned or British owned – have been remarkably successful in winning export orders in Europe. And since one of the main objectives of most Korean companies investing in the UK is to be closer to their European customers as well as their British customers, it seems to me the case for coming to the UK is compelling.

    Let me touch on some of the other things that we have sought to provide because we believe that they are important for the future: an educated and highly motivated workforce; the City of London, perhaps, not perhaps, certainly, the world’s most flexible and sophisticated financial services market; competitive utilities with substantial cost benefits for industry; an increasingly highly developed science and technology base; a transport infrastructure that has global links; and of course English which, to our great good fortune, is becoming the language of international business.

    We British are irrevocably part of Europe. We have a very strong self-interest in seeing the European Union develop as a prosperous entity. The single market, crucial to companies dealing with Europe, was a UK priority, was a UK invention, was pushed through with UK political muscle.

    The benefits I think to business of that are increasingly clear – harmonised standards, quicker movement of goods with less frontier bureaucracy, the opening up of the financial services market and freeing public procurement from national restrictions so that governments could and should pick the most efficient company offering them services rather than simply pick a national leader in that particular area.

    These gains, which are in my judgement an essential element of enhanced competitiveness, are equally open to Korean companies investing in the UK.

    There is one area of very sharp difference between the United Kingdom and its other European partners. We have not accepted what is known as the European Union Social Chapter. And we have not accepted it because it would introduce new regulations and new restrictions into labour relations. It would make companies less efficient and that is not the right way to proceed. In the UK we are determined to maintain labour force flexibility, and our refusal to join the Social Chapter – a refusal which we shall maintain in the years ahead – provides significant competitive advantage over those countries that are burdening themselves with unnecessary costs that make them anti-competitive.

    The end result, what we are aiming for in the United Kingdom, is a full-scale, properly functioning, enterprise economy. I have made it clear that I want Britain to be the enterprise centre of Europe. Combined with the evident strengths of Korea’s economy and industry, I think that together we are able to increase the prosperity of both our peoples. I think there is much fertile ground for further trade and investment expansion and I look forward to continuing to work, whenever it is practicable and whenever it is possible, with Korean companies with European interests, and in particular with British interests. You would be very welcome, you would be very welcome in Europe, and I am delighted to have had this opportunity of speaking to you this afternoon.

    What I would like to do for the rest of the time is try and respond to any questions and thoughts that you may have, so that we might understand one another even better about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Thank you for being here this afternoon.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Korean President – 5 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Korean President, Mr Kim Young-Sam, in Seoul on Tuesday 5th March 1996.

    MR KIM YOUNG-SAM:

    Along with all the people of the Republic of Korea, I whole-heartedly welcome Prime Minister John Major, who is honouring us with his first visit to our country. Prime Minister Major and I have sought to develop relations between Korea and the United Kingdom into a practical partnership by holding official talks no less than 3 times in the past year. I believe that Prime Minister Major’s current visit to our country will provide the catalyst for raising the level of our friendly cooperative relationship still higher.

    At today’s meeting we have exchanged constructive opinions on the situation on the Korean Peninsular, including developments in Northern Korea, and discussed ways to-strengthen practical bilateral cooperation. We have agreed that peace and stability on the Korean Peninsular are very important for the peace, not only for the Asia Pacific Region, but also of the world. We have also agreed that inter-Korean issues should be resolved through dialogue between South and North Korea themselves with the understanding and cooperation of the nations surrounding the Peninsular.

    Prime Minister Major has also assured us that the United Kingdom will consult closely with us, including the matter of British direct participation in the KEDO process and for the settlement of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsular. We have noted with satisfaction that the plans for industrial and technological cooperation, that we agreed upon when I visited Britain in March last year, are being carried out smoothly. We have agreed to further develop our bilateral relations through practical cooperation in the economic and trade sectors and active exchanges of personnel. In particular we have decided to further strengthen our friendly ties by holding those cultural events in each other’s country and expanding cultural exchanges in 1997, next year, which happens to be the 200th anniversary of the first contact between our two countries. We have also agreed to closely consult with each other in international arenas, including the United Nations where we are both members of the Security Council.

    In addition, we have decided that the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea would also help each other in our common efforts to lead partnership between Asia and Europe as the host of the second and third Asia-Europe meeting respectively. We have agreed to establish a joint working committee between Korea and the UK to successfully prepare for this ASEM meeting.

    The Prime Minister and I agreed that cooperation between the UK and the Republic of Korea could become the driving force, not only for the development of both our countries, but also for the prosperity of the rest of the world in the 21st century.

    I am firmly convinced that Prime Minister Major’s visit has provided an important opportunity to strengthen our mutually complementary partnership and create a more mature relationship.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr President, thank you. Let me just say a few further words about our discussions this morning. This may be my first visit to the Republic of Korea, but I seem to be meeting a good friend, for we have met on a number of occasions in the last 12 months or so. This morning I have met the leaders of government, later on today I shall meet the leaders of industry.

    I will not reiterate all the points made by the President except to agree with what he had to say. But there are one or two things I think it would be useful to add. In recent years the cooperation in trade, in commerce and in politics between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea has grown dramatically. This is reflected most evidently in the eyes of most people by the degree of trade between Korea and the United Kingdom, and the degree of investment by the United Kingdom in Korea, and by Korea in the United Kingdom. The growth is impressive. Nearly a 60 percent increase in bilateral trade to over 5 billion dollars in the past year. There have been 8 announcements of new Korean investments in the United Kingdom, including 3 more to be announced later today. There has been a 27 percent increase in visitors between the two countries. The number of Korean students attending British universities has risen by over 20 percent in each of the last 2 years. And there has been tremendous progress under the industrial cooperation arrangement and in collaboration on science and technology matters.

    This is by no means an exhaustive list, This cooperation has extended to political and diplomatic matters as well. The President mentioned the ASEM summit, cooperation over KEDO and the United Nations, other examples could be given. I was very pleased to welcome the President to the United Kingdom last year and I am delighted to be able to visit Korea on this occasion.

    I would just end with one final thought. It is true that the relationship in all aspects has grown tremendously in the past few years, but it is the President’s belief, and it is my belief, that it will grow even more in the years that lie ahead. And our meeting today is a further staging post upon that improvement. And the President and I look forward to continuing our discussion over luncheon shortly.

    QUESTION:

    I would like to ask a question to Prime Minister John Major with regard to British policy towards North Korea. We understand that right now several British companies are making joint investment into North Korea, including in the banking sector, and that the North Korean side it seems is interested in entering into some economic relationship with Britain. I would like to know what is the current British government’s policy and prospects with regard towards North Korea? And the other question is on British support of Korea bidding for the 2000 World Cup. We all know that Britain is a strong country with a strong tradition in the football game and it would be very nice if Britain could lend support to our bidding effort and what is your own opinion?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me take the two points separately. On North Korea, I think the importance that we give to ensuring that the present government in North Korea behaves properly, was indicated very clearly by our support for KEDO. We were the first of the Europeans to provide positive cash support with KEDO to deal with the problems of the nuclear industry in the north. That was a matter of critical support to the Republic of Korea, we were the first of the Europeans to provide that support and have been encouraging our European partners to provide further support, and that has now been done at the communal expense of all the European countries. So we are very keen to ensure that North Korea is brought, as far as is practicable, into understanding that it must have a civilised relationship with the rest of the world, and in particular a civilised relationship with the Republic of Korea.

    On the second point, in lighter moments of my discussion with the President, and also with the Prime Minister earlier this morning, we speculated upon the possibility of a Korea/England World Cup Final. The only point of disagreement between us was who might win the World Cup Final. This is a further matter that may continue over luncheon. As to the site for the finals, as you will know, that decision has to be made by FIFA and the representatives of FIFA are independent in their decision. But we do understand very carefully how important this is for Korea and we wish you well, and we will continue to wish you well until the World Cup Final, if indeed the United Kingdom or any of its teams – England perhaps – were to be there against Korea. And I look forward to watching it.

     

    QUESTION AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Mike Brunson, ITN):

    Mr President, can you say why you think it is that your businessmen apparently prefer to invest in Britain rather than in say France or Germany or any other country in the rest of the European Union?

    MR KIM YOUNG-SAM:

    Well Korea has had this long relationship with Britain. As I mentioned, it has been about 200 years already since the first contact between the two countries. We Koreans do have a very favourable image of Britain, we have a very positive view of the country, so it is not a sudden relationship. The English-speaking environment is also a very favourable condition for Koreans to operate. And most importantly we do trust what the British side says through contracts and agreements and we have maintained an excellent partnership in all areas of our cooperation. On the government level there have been many Ministerial, Ambassadorial contacts and cooperation and the development of dialogue between our two countries has been excellent. From the business view-point, the domestic environment for investment in Britain is of course very favourable to Korean investors. So there is no question that the speed of the developing partnership between the two Koreas will increase in the future. We have already seen more than a 60 percent increase in the two-way trade between our two countries and the amount last year of the trade was more than 5 billion US dollars, more exactly 5.2 billion US dollars, last year. So we are very satisfied with the overall development between Korea and Britain.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 5 March 1996

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 5th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    Sir Peter Tapsell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is carrying out official engagements in the far east.

     

    Sir Gerrard Neale

    Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister when Sir Gerrard Neale last visited 10 Downing Street; and if on that occasion he telephoned UCB from there.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I have nothing further to add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on 29 February, Official Report, column 672.

    Ms Eagle: To ask the Prime Minister what facilities have been extended to Sir Gerrard Neale to have access to 12 Downing Street in the last 12 months; and what access he has had to office and telephones there.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    It is not the practice of my right hon. Friend to indicate what meetings he has with Members of Parliament or former Members of Parliament. No office or telephone facilities have been made available to Sir Gerrard Neale at 12 Downing street.

     

    Iraq (Exports)

    Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister when he was first informed of the 1988 amendments to the 1985 Howe guidelines for defence-related exports to Iraq.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    The first time that my right hon. Friend learnt that a change in the guidelines had been considered in 1988 was in a minute from his private secretary dated 13 November 1992.

    Mr. Smith: To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 21 February, Official Report, column 169, if he will approach the companies and individuals to which he refers to ascertain whether they are prepared for their names to be disclosed.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    No.

     

    Scott Inquiry

    Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to implement the recommendation made at page 1797 of the Scott report on the use of intelligence by Government Departments.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the speech made by my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade on 26 February, Official Report, column 589.

    Mr. Smith: To ask the Prime Minister which officials from which Departments contributed to the preparation of the press briefing issued by the Cabinet Office on 15 February; what guidance they were given in regard to the matters within the Scott report on which to produce a digest and commentary; which recommendations by Sir Richard Scott according to the digest have already been accepted; and when these recommendations will be implemented.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    Successive Governments have not disclosed the nature or the specific sources of the advice that they receive from the civil service on their discussions with them. The Government’s proposals in response to the recommendations of the Scott report were set out in the speech made by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, on 26 February, Official Report, columns 589-604.

     

    Export Control Licences

    Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if he will set out Her Majesty’s Government’s definition of lethal and non-lethal military equipment as used in the consideration of export control licences.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    Any defence equipment which was designed to kill would clearly fall within the category of lethal equipment. Other equipment has to be considered individually according to its nature and specifications.

  • PMQT – 5 March 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 5th March 1996. Michael Heseltine responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Ministerial Visits

    Q1. Mr. Wilkinson: To ask the Prime Minister when he next intends to visit the Ruislip-Northwood parliamentary constituency.

    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend has no plans to do so.

    Mr. Wilkinson: Before my right hon. Friend fixes a date, can he reassure my constituents in Ruislip-Northwood about the grave consequences of the European Court of Justice’s retroactive decision today to demand compensation of the British taxpayer for the loss of Spanish fishermen’s rights? Will my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister endorse the comments of the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), that the quota hoppers must go? Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will raise the common fisheries policy at the forthcoming intergovernmental conference?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris), who have taken the matter extremely seriously. We obviously regret the European Court’s decision and we shall certainly take it up in the context of the intergovernmental conference. We believe that there have to be changes.

     

    Engagements

    Q2. Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is carrying out official engagements in the far east.

    Mr. Kirkwood: Let me return to the question of the European Court’s decision; does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that the concept of the common fisheries policy is based on relative stability, with the allocation of quotas within member states according to historic fishing rights? Does the right hon. Gentleman further agree that the European Court’s decision is most unhelpful– the most recent in a series of unhelpful decisions concerning the common fisheries policy? What concrete proposals will Ministers take to the upcoming intergovernmental conference, to stop continuing back-door access to fishing stocks that are so vital to our coastal communities?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: That comes rich from the hon. Gentleman, whose party is committed to giving up the British veto in all circumstances. That is a classic example of the Liberals trying to have it all ways in all circumstances.

     

    Q3. Dr. Michael Clark: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

    Dr. Clark: Has my right hon. Friend noticed, when assessing Government policy, that when it is eventually time to put votes in ballot boxes, electorates reject Labour policies and choose Conservative ones, as they have in Australia and Spain? Is this not a sign of what will happen here? After all, these are recent results, and the parties which were beaten were not socialist but new Labour.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I could not help remembering that, not long ago, the Leader of the Opposition said that he was a fully paid-up member of the Paul Keating fan club. Unfortunately, there are not many others left in that club. The fact of the matter is that, when people have to choose between no Labour and new Labour, they choose no Labour. No leading western European country is left with a Labour Government. I cannot believe for one minute that the United Kingdom will embrace what everybody else has rejected.

    Mr. Prescott: Why is it that in Tory Britain in 1996, 1,000 families every week have their homes repossessed, 120,000 families are homeless, and 1,700,000 families are trapped in negative equity? On that miserable record, is not my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition correct in identifying the Conservatives as the party of home wreckers?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: Nobody would ever accuse the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) of being new Labour. He is one of the old lags of the business, and therefore, of course, it is not surprising that his statistics are so carefully selected. The fact is that the number of households that face negative equity is down by 26 per cent. since 1992, and the number of people with mortgage arrears has fallen by 16 per cent. in the past year alone.

    I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition made a speech today about the need for special help for those with negative equity–that may seem to Opposition Members a very interesting and ingenious scheme. I sent out to inquire whether mortgages are available from the building society movement at more than 100 per cent. of the purchase value of homes on the market. The Abbey National, Cheltenham and Gloucester, Alliance and Leicester and the Halifax all have in existence schemes similar to that which the Leader of the Labour party says that his Government would introduce if his party were ever elected. They are already there. Building societies are doing it. The market has spoken. Tory Government works.

    Mr. Prescott rose–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Prescott: How can the right hon. Gentleman be so complacent in the face of the sheer misery created by the Government’s policies? If the Government are so proud of their housing record, why not put it to the test by setting the date for the by-election in South-East Staffordshire, and let the people decide?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: This is the Labour party which fought to stop council tenants getting anywhere near owning their own homes. This is the Labour party which has not realised that banks and building societies have approved 13 per cent. more loans in January than they did last June. The Labour party is out of date. The housing market is showing signs of recovery.

    Mr. John Marshall rose–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. I call Mr. Marshall.

    Mr. Marshall: I ask my right hon. Friend to condemn the Hamas guerillas, who have killed 68 Israelis in recent days. Will he offer our sympathy to the relatives of the victims and to the Israeli people as they battle with this attack upon them and their democracy? Will he convey our understanding to the Israeli Government as they react to this attack upon themselves and upon the peace process itself?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sure that the House will be grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the appalling situation in Israel. I am sure also that the House shares my feelings of horror and anger at the renewed terrorist outrages, which have killed more than 30 people over the past two days in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

    I shall make two points. First, it is the duty of the international community to support Israel and the Palestinian Authority in their efforts to keep the peace process on track and to encourage them in their efforts to curb terrorism. We particularly urge President Arafat to do his upmost to step up those efforts. That is a message that we have repeated to him unequivocally since the beginning of this tragic train of events nine days ago.

    Secondly, I make it clear that it is illegal for anyone in this country to support terrorist attacks abroad. We are carefully monitoring the situation of Hamas activists in the United Kingdom. We shall investigate vigorously any evidence of such criminal acts, which will not be tolerated.

     

    Q4. Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Sheerman: Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm reports that he has changed his mind and that he now supports a referendum on the single European currency? If he has, is he aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer believes that anyone of that view is slightly up the creek?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be fully aware of the Government’s position, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has spelt out extremely clearly. It is a position to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully subscribes.

    Mr. Budgen: If the Government’s proposals to the intergovernmental conference were accepted by the other members of the European Union, would we have any protection against judgements, such as the recent one in respect of Spanish fishermen?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard the reply that I gave some moments ago. I made it clear that we would raise today’s judgement in the intergovernmental conference. We believe that there is need for change, and we intend to press that. As my hon. Friend, and the House generally, will be aware, the Government intend shortly to publish a White Paper on the Government’s policy towards the IGC, which the House will be able to consider carefully.

     

    Q5. Mr. Battle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Battle: As a thousand families suffer repossession of their homes every week, by deliberately reducing the income support system for home owners, are not the Government’s policies shamelessly ensuring that in our society, after 17 years of Tory rule, if someone loses his job, he will lose his home?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman cannot square that with the facts that I gave the House recently, which show that the number of mortgage arrears has fallen by 16 per cent. and that the housing market is beginning to recover. He will know, of course, that unemployment has been falling for the past 29 months.

     

    Q6. Sir John Hannam: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Sir John Hannam: Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent Lloyds bank business survey report, which shows that businesses in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset have achieved the highest increase in export orders of all regions in the country, and increased investment and profitability? Will he accept the congratulations of all those from the south-west on those results? Would he like to conjecture on what would happen to such achievements if we ever had a Labour Government?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who has commented on what is extremely good news for the west country. As for conjecture about what would happen in the unfortunate event of this country electing a Labour Government, we can see, from the facts of what has happened in Europe, what would be likely to happen here. In Spain, nearly one in four people are unemployed. In France, under socialism, nearly one in eight were unemployed, whereas, in this country, the figure is one in 12 and has been falling for 29 months.

    Perhaps the other judgement is that of the international investors. Spain achieved 7 per cent. of inward investment into the European Union and France 18 per cent. whereas the UK attracted 30 per cent., proving beyond peradventure that, under this Government, the UK is the enterprise centre of Europe.

     

    Q7. Mr. Mullin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Mullin: On reflection, does the Deputy Prime Minister regret his refusal to sign a public interest immunity certificate, given that we now know that the Attorney-General was right all along?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has conveniently forgotten that the Attorney-General advised me about the form of the PII certificate that I signed.

    Mr. Garnier: Does my right hon. Friend agree, and will he confirm what he said a moment ago, that the UK is the enterprise centre of Europe? Is it not right that the Prime Minister should be in the far east encouraging business men there to invest in this country, and is it not surprising that they invest in this country, given the burdens of the non-labour wage costs that the Europeans must deal with?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: It is one of the most satisfactory aspects of the many satisfactory aspects of our economic performance that we are attracting inward investment, which has created the jobs leading to enhanced exports–already at record levels. It has come to this country because the Government’s policies have made it the most attractive place to invest. One of the reasons for that is that we have avoided the social chapter, which all the Opposition parties are committed to introducing.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 4 March 1996

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 4th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Scott Inquiry

    Mr. Kaufman: To ask the Prime Minister what steps he will take as a result of the finding of the Scott inquiry that the letter written to the hon. Member referred to in paragraph D.4.43 concerning changes in the Government’s policy on the supply of arms to Iraq was misleading.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    The Government continue to take the view that the Howe guidelines were not changed. My right hon. Friend does not consider that further action is necessary.

    Mrs. Clwyd: To ask the Prime Minister what action he proposes in respect of Scott’s recommendation, K8.8, that the refusal to answer parliamentary questions on sales of arms or defence-related equipment to other countries should be re-examined.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    As my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade made clear in his speech in the House on 26 February, the Government will be considering the extent to which information about overseas defence sales can be publicly disclosed. A background note on “Ministerial Accountability and the Release of Information on Defence Related Exports” has been placed in the Library of the House.

    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister if he accepts the observation contained in the Scott report, section K3.3, that the DTI should not continue to be the export licensing authority in respect of goods whose export is primarily the policy concern of some other Department; and if he will make a statement.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    Sir Richard Scott recommends that consideration should be given as to whether the DTI should continue to be the export licence authority for the good concerned. The Government accept this and propose to publish a consultation paper on export control legislation and procedures. We will reach decisions on particular issues in the light of comments received, in response to the consultation paper.

    Mr. Hall: To ask the Prime Minister how many civil servants had direct sight of the Scott report as of 13 February.

    The Deputy Prime Minister [holding answer 16 February 1996]: I have been asked to reply.

    As of 13 February, only those required to assist the Government in preparing their response to the report, as agreed between the Government and the Scott inquiry.

    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister what action he will take in response to the conclusion in section K4.1 of the Scott report that the role of Customs and Excise in policing and prosecuting export control offences is anomalous; and if he will make a statement.

    The Deputy Prime Minister [holding answer 27 February 1996]: I have been asked to reply.

    As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade told the House in his speech during the debate on a motion for the adjournment of 26 February 1996, Official Report, column 597, the Government accept that there are benefits in Sir Richard Scott’s recommendation that in future the role of the Attorney-General should include the exercise of increased supervision of Customs and Excise prosecutions in relation to export control matters. The Government are urgently developing proposals on the precise nature and scope of the increased supervision, and the Attorney-General will be reporting to the House as soon as possible.

    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will enumerate and detail the shortcomings of Government in relation to the Scott report to which he referred during Prime Minister’s Question Time on 22 February.

    The Deputy Prime Minister [holding answer 27 February 1996]: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the speech made by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on Monday 26 February, Official Report, column 589.

     

    Scottish Grand Committee

    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the Prime Minister when he plans to attend a meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee; how many officials will attend with him; how many of these will be press officers; and what estimate he has made of the total cost involved.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend expects to attend shortly. Details of officials and costs are not yet known.

     

    Women’s Issues

    Ms Jowell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will name the members of the Cabinet committee dealing with women’s issues.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the reply that my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Edmonton (Dr. Twinn) on 18 July 1995, Official Report, columns 1005-12.

     

    Iraq (Exports)

    Mrs. Clwyd: To ask the Prime Minister if Her Majesty’s Government will now make public details of the involvement of British companies in Iraq’s (a) chemical, (b) nuclear and (c) biological and chemical warfare programmes as communicated to Her Majesty’s Government by UNSCOM–the UN special commission on Iraq.

    The Deputy Prime Minister [holding answer 26 February 1996]: I have been asked to reply. UNSCOM has communicated to us in confidence the names of a number of British companies which may have been involved in supplying items found at sites associated with Iraqi programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction. UNSCOM does not make this information public, and it is important that we respect its confidence. UNSCOM considers that a high degree of confidentiality is essential to the successful performance of its work.

    Moreover, release of the names included in UNSCOM reports could unreasonably damage the reputation of British companies. It would be wrong to conclude without further analysis that companies whose names might appear in reports from UNSCOM have behaved wrongfully. Should any evidence of wrongdoing emerge, it will be investigated and, if appropriate, will be a matter for the courts.

     

    Western European Union

    Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the policies he presented to the Western European Union assembly in London on 23 February; and if he will place a copy of his speech in the Library.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    This Government’s approach is set out in detail in a memorandum of 1 March 1995. Copies of this and of my right hon. Friend’s speech to the WEU assembly have been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.

     

    Export Credits Guarantee Department

    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister on what dates between 1987 and 1990 he met officials from the Export Credits Guarantee Department; and if he will make a statement.

    The Deputy Prime Minister [holding answer 27 February 1996]: I have been asked to reply.

    Advice about policy on export credit cover would normally be given to my right hon. Friends, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer by Treasury officials. It is not possible, without disproportionate cost, to ascertain if, and on what dates, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister may have met ECGD officials between 1987 and 1990. It would, however, have been unusual for Ministers to receive advice on export credit policy from officials other than those in their own Departments.

  • Mr Major’s Hong Kong Press Conference – 4 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference, held in Hong Kong, on Monday 4th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t propose to say a great deal at the outset of this press conference. I have had opportunities elsewhere on this visit to say what I have to say, most noticeably at lunchtime, and I daresay most of you have had the opportunity of seeing that before deciding what questions to ask this afternoon.

    Let me just simply say how much I have enjoyed this particular visit to Hong Kong, it is over four years since last I was here. The speed of change here never ceases to amaze me. But I am delighted to have been here again and on this occasion have enjoyed the visit as much as I always do.

    We have had a very lively debate on one or two issues over the last couple of days. I enjoyed my meetings with EXCO and LEGCO this morning. And I just want to say one or two general things about the present circumstance and the future.

    The first thing I would like to say is just to add to a point I know that the Governor has made on many occasions in the past, and that is just to express my admiration for the way in which the civil service has coped with matters here in Hong Kong over the last few years. I think Hong Kong are extremely lucky in the quality of their civil service, in the apolitical nature of their civil service, and I think that is something that is well understood here and well appreciated also in London.

    Let me say a word or two about the natural fears that I think many people may have about the transition. There are some very important issues that I know are of concern to people still in Hong Kong: the question of the future of LEGCO – whether the through-train arrives at its destination or whether there is a stop in 1997, the question of the Bill of Rights. Both of those I touched upon earlier and on earlier occasions, but they may well come up again this afternoon.

    When people worry perhaps about those problems, I wonder if I might just remind everybody of the problems in the past that seemed insoluble and yet now are behind us, they have been solved – the Court of Final Appeal, airport contracts – a range of other things in the past that were a matter of huge concern at the time but where satisfactory solutions were in the end actually found.

    We are going to have to be both persistent and persuasive in our negotiations with China on the problems that remain. We will be so in private and we will express, wherever it seems to be of advantage to Hong Kong for us to do so, our views on those matters in public as well. What I do want to reiterate as an assurance to Hong Kong is that Britain’s commitment to Hong Kong, and its future, is not something that is dribbling away with the 450 or so days that remain. There is a commitment that is very deep, very long-standing, and although the legal position may change in June 1997, the practical commitment will not change, the moral imperative will not change, and Britain’s interest in Hong Kong, affection for Hong Kong and trade and commercial relationships with Hong Kong will continue in the future, as they have done in the past.

    On the occasions I have been able to speak publicly on this trip I have tried to set out, most obviously in the speech at lunchtime today, some reassurance on five points. I will just remind you of them without going through them at any length I think again:

    – firstly, our long-term commitment to Hong Kong, both moral and economic;

    – secondly, our pledge to pursue every avenue that is open to us if there is to be a breach of the Joint Declaration, including using Britain’s influence with the international community to ensure that the agreements that were signed are the agreements that are met;

    – thirdly, the announcement I made earlier today about visa-free access;

    – fourthly, the extra guarantee to the ethnic minorities – the relatively small number of people of Indian and Pakistani ethnic extraction who fear particular difficulties after 1997;

    – and fifthly, the commitment I was able to make today to effectively ensure British citizenship for war widows and wives.

    Those were the five principal points I have made during this trip.

    The next 400 – 500 days are self-evidently going to be a testing time for Hong Kong. Hong Kong has shown its courage and its persistence on many occasions in the past. It will need to do so again over the next 500 days or so. I have no doubt that it will do so. And neither do I have any doubt, if he will permit me to say so, that in the Governor Hong Kong could not have a better representative of Hong Kong’ s views, both with London and with China and with other countries. So I think you will remain in very good hands and the Governor will continue to have the direct and immediate access to London that he has always enjoyed.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:

    QUESTION (South China Morning Post):

    You just spoke firmly and clearly of the British commitment to Hong Kong. But can you also be equally firm and clear that it is the UK government’ s view that the Chinese plan to set up a provisional Legislature and dilute the Bill of Rights is a breach of the Joint Declaration?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I touched upon those points earlier, and I reiterate them again today. I don’t have any doubt at all in my mind that it would be a very grave mistake were LEGCO not to proceed right to the end of their natural elected life. I don’t think we could, or would, understand if LEGCO’s life were cut in half in 1997, and neither do I believe the world at large would understand that. There is now an elective democracy in Hong Kong. The present LEGCO were elected with a very substantial popular vote, they were elected to do a particular job and I believe they should be permitted to see that job through to its conclusion. Those points have long been put privately to the Chinese leaders, I have made the point entirely publicly, we will do all we can to persuade China that that is the right way to proceed, both in China’s interest, for the world would not understand anything else were it to happen in 1997, and also in the interest of people in Hong Kong.

    There are of course allied matters on human rights and on the Bill of Rights, and I won’t reiterate what I said at lunchtime, I think it is probably quite clear.

    QUESTION (Sally Blythe, Eastern Express):

    The guarantees which you gave today to the ethnic minorities, do they actually differ from earlier guarantees which were given by Sir Geoffrey Howe during parliamentary debates about 10 years ago I think when he said that the British government would look favourably upon any application by any of the ethnic minorities here so that they could enter Britain and the British government would look favourably upon that. How does your guarantee today differ from that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The guarantee today is more specific and a good deal harder. What was said in the past that we would look favourably upon those applications, that doesn’t necessarily mean in given circumstances that that would be granted in any sense. What I am saying today is that where those people have a well-founded fear that it is necessary for them to leave Hong Kong, we won’t just look favourably upon their application, what I have offered them in those circumstances is a cast-iron guarantee that they will be able to come to the United Kingdom.

    QUESTION:

    Why not give them British passports then?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    So it is a good deal firmer than anything we have seen in the past. I am not in a position to go further than that.

    QUESTION:

    We just heard that we will have visa-free for the SAR passport holders. At present officially the British passport holder, the Hong Kong ones, will not need to have a visa to land in Britain. But your government and the authorities in Hong Kong advise the people of Hong Kong to take a visa first. So will you apply the same sort of policy towards the SAR passport?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    In future people with an SAR passport certainly will not need a visa when they are coming to the United Kingdom, that is not a short term position, that is the position that I announced today. That was not the position before today, it is the position after today. I think it will make a material difference, a beneficial difference, to many people who visit the United Kingdom from Hong Kong. Nobody should sniff around and try and find something in the undergrowth that is not as it appears on the surface. What I said this morning should be taken at its face value – visas will not be required by holders of an SAR passport visiting the United Kingdom.

    QUESTION:

    There are many persons and organisations in Hong Kong who have been promoting the democratic movement of China, but you have not promised to give minorities to enter the UK after 1997, what about that group after 1997 because they have every opportunity to be oppressed by the Chinese government?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think if you look at the commitments we have got in the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration, I know people are concerned and I understand the concern that people will have over the changes that are to come. If I may say so, although we have had differences with China from time to time over the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, they have in essence been differences of interpretation over what was meant by the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. And I think it is wise to understand that it has been differences of interpretation, not what both sides could clearly see was a breach of the Joint Declaration, that have been the points at issue. I understand the concerns that people fear about persecution, I have to say I think those fears are greatly overdone. Where we have seen a potential risk, we have acted.

    What I would say more generally on the subject is simply this. Those sort of fears sometimes arise because people have the impression that after 1997 in some curious way Hong Kong is going to be entirely on its own. But if there is an open city anywhere in the world upon whom the eyes of the world are constantly fixed, if there is a more open city than Hong Kong, I cannot myself imagine where that city might be. This is the gateway for the whole of Asia, the trade, commercial gateway for the whole of Asia, it is very much in the interests of Hong Kong that it remains that way, but more relevantly from the point of view of your question, it is very much in the interests of China that it remains that way. And I think people often imagine that the sheer impact of the world looking at Hong Kong, and the sheer impact of the nature of Hong Kong, is not going to have any effect upon the future after the end of June 1997. I do not myself believe that and I think the fears that you raise are unfounded.

    QUESTION (Francis Moriatty, Radio and TV Hong Kong):

    Prime Minister, a subject not on your list of five. You say Hong Kong is not alone but when Mr. Rifkind was here he suggested that when it came to solving the boat people question it was a Hong Kong question.

    If I can just for a moment go back to your last press conference in Hong Kong in 1991 in which you said: “We are discussing regularly – by “we” I mean the British Government and the UK Government.” You go on several times to talk about “we” and “us’ so the question is where, when it comes to the Vietnamese boat people, does the British responsibility end and the Hong Kong responsibility begin?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me tell you exactly what is happening. When I was in Bangkok last week, I saw the Vietnamese prime minister to discuss the specific problem of the Vietnamese boat people. If I can take a little bit of history to that, it was very soon after my visit in 1991 that activity on the boat people began to accelerate; there was clearly a need for decisions to be taken, I agreed with that, the Governor agreed with that, progress began to be made. Progress was proceeding very satisfactorily with volunteers, non-refugees, returning back to Vietnam until there was what I think I might Delphically call “an external intercession from across the water” and I do not mean by that the United Kingdom.

    I spoke to the Vietnamese prime minister to see how we can accelerate this process. The objective would be to deal with the problem entirely before the end of June 1997, that is the objective. Satisfying that objective is not wholly in British hands but that is the objective that I seek. With that in mind, I agreed with the Vietnamese prime minister that I would send British officials immediately from London to Vietnam to discuss how we might re-accelerate this programme.

    The reason I am sending officials first is that I shall be sending a Foreign Office minister to Vietnam in April and I want the preliminary ground-clearing work done in advance of that so that we may deal compassionately, sensitively but speedily and comprehensively with the problem of the non-refugees who are still here in Hong Kong in camps.

    I do see a role for the British Government, we played a role before. I see a role for the British Government, the Hong Kong Government and the Vietnamese Government; I do not see quite such a role for individuals elsewhere but for those three groups I do see a role and we are acting to see if we can get this programme moving again satisfactorily.

    QUESTION (Michael Brunson, ITV):

    Prime Minister, in your speech, you mentioned in passing that if necessary you would be prepared to take legal action if China is in breach of the Joint Declaration. Will you underline that again but on, the other hand, do you not think that that is likely to anger Beijing as much as it might reassure those people here?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We are not in the business of angering anyone. We have had significant discussions and negotiations with the Chinese and that will continue to be the position. We are not in the business of angering anyone but neither are we in the business of not making clear what the options are in certain circumstances and I think it is right that everybody should know what the options are that might conceivably be pursued by the British Government were it necessary to do so and I stress that last point, were it necessary to do so.

    What we have said is that if there were breaches of the Joint Declaration we, the British Government, would have a duty to pursue every legal and other avenue available to us and what I reaffirmed at lunchtime today is that that is precisely what we would do; we would pursue every legal and other avenue open to us and I hope that will be a clear reassurance to people who fear that there can with impunity be a breach of the Joint Declaration with no response.

    QUESTION:

    Does that mean that you are going to sue China in the International Court if China is going to dismantle LEGCO?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I set out precisely what I meant, I am not going to put further flesh on it. What I said was perfectly clear. We will pursue every legal and other avenue available to us but I am not going to sit down and set out in each individual circumstance precisely how we would deal with it. I don’t think that would be productive and what I wish to do is to try and ensure that the circumstance doesn’t arise in the first place. By “circumstance” I mean a breach of the Joint Declaration but those options are open to us should we need them.

    QUESTION (Don MacIntyre):

    Prime Minister, can I return to the ethnic minority question for a moment? Who will decide whether these people are under pressure to leave Hong Kong? Will the burden of the proof be as it were on the individual as in asylum cases?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I considered whether we should actually set down a specific series of circumstances that would be met. We could do that and we will consider in the period between now and June 1997 whether that might be an appropriate way to deal with the problem. At this moment I am not convinced that it is, there are many alternative scenarios that may arise.

    One thing is certain: these people that we are talking about will not wish to leave Hong Kong of their own volition unless it is absolutely necessary for them to do so; they have their lives here, their businesses here, their interests here, their families here. Every indication we have is that they will wish to stay in Hong Kong if they possibly can but if circumstances arise where it is inappropriate for them to remain in Hong Kong, I think that will be apparent. It is a little like designing an elephant, you are not quite sure where to start the design but by golly you know when you see it and I think it is probably wise to leave it upon that basis because that gives the greatest degree of flexibility which I would anticipate we would exercise benevolently, if there were a risk, to deal with the relatively small number of people who may face this problem. We could, as I say, identify specific sets of circumstances where we would act but without further discussion and consideration, I am not convinced that would particularly be in the interests of the people concerned.

    QUESTION (Washington Post):

    Do you think there is something that China could be doing right now to help calm some of the anxieties, for example talking to the elected Democratic Party officials and talking to the Government here?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think that would be very helpful, yes, I think they could and I very much hope that they will.

    If I may return to the point I made earlier, over the last two or three years many issues that looked as though they were going to provoke huge dissent and may be unbrokerable, between Britain, Hong Kong and China have now been solved so I think we may well be able to solve some of those matters that so much concern people at present but yes, self-evidently it would help if there were a dialogue with LEGCO and a further and more comprehensive dialogue with the Governor and I would hope there will be such a dialogue.

    QUESTION:

    How much have you raised in the past few days for your party in Hong Kong?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is not what I came here for, not what I have done. I didn’t come here for that purpose, I haven’t discussed that purpose, it has not been on my agenda neither crossed my mind nor has it crossed my lips. The answer is that is not why I was here. Was that clear enough?

    GOVERNOR PATTEN:

    But the bet that Martin Lee in the Legislative Council had with Malcolm Rifkind that Britain wouldn’t do anything about visa-free access has been handed over.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Governor is holding that and I will take it back to the Foreign Secretary who is a Scot, has won his bet and will receive his winnings.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley, BBC):

    Prime Minister, how would you respond to critics at home in Britain and in your own party, some perhaps in your own Cabinet, who are suggesting that the visa-free access for SAR passport holders could be abused by potential political asylum-seekers?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t believe it would have been honourable for us not to act as we have and I know no-one in my Cabinet who is going to dissent from that view because my Cabinet has approved that view.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, you have just announced a good deal for the Hong Kong people and I think most of them welcome that but unfortunately there were Hong Kong people who happen to be journalists who were not welcomed by mainland China, they just took away their re-entry permits so can you guarantee to us, Mr. Prime Minister, after 1997 that those with permanent residence in Hong Kong can come back to Hong Kong? Did you get any guarantee from China that they can come back to Hong Kong after 1997?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not quite sure of the facts of this particular case, I don’t know where these journalists might be at the moment. I am always very protective of the interests of journalists as the travelling party with me from the United Kingdom will confirm but I don’t know the background to this. If it seems as though there is some malpractice of some sort, clearly we would examine it and do what we could to help but without having the details of the particular case I would like to restrict my comment to that. I will make enquiries about it; if you will give the details to the Governor, I will look into it.

    QUESTION (Paul Harrington, Agence France Press):

    We are all aware, Prime Minister, of the political obstructions to granting more British passports to Hong Kong people but you mentioned the moral imperative that. Britain also had. Do you think that Hong Kong has got everything it deserves from Britain in this regard?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have tried to deal fairly with Hong Kong over the years but the underlying premise of your question seemed to me to be that one is coming to the end of a period in which Britain will have any interest in Hong Kong. That emphatically is not the case. The Governor has been here representing as well as I think anyone could have done the interests of Hong Kong over recent years. Going back even earlier, the negotiation of the Joint Declaration was essential and the determination of Basic Law was essential in the interests of Hong Kong; it was essential that a rule of law continues and I have been here to try and assist with some of the problems that Hong Kong has so I believe yes, we have dealt fairly, honestly and openly with Hong Kong and we will continue to do so both in the short term and the long term.

    QUESTION:

    You announced with a great flourish the visa-free access decision and yet we all know that that could be revoked within a matter of days if for example the question raised by a British colleague about abuses comes up so shouldn’t you have offered some greater guarantee that that visa-free travel requirement can somehow be maintained? What is to stop the British Government from revoking it the moment some abuse is discovered?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t see why we would be likely to do that. I didn’t have to offer visa-free access now. I did so because I think it is in the interests of Hong Kong that we do so and I think it is in the interests of the United Kingdom that we do so for a raft of reasons as well so I don’t anticipate a short-term reversal of this.

    We have visa-free access for other countries. It would be equally true of you to say to me that we could reverse visa-free access for all those other countries but we have had visa-free access for them for years, it hasn’t been reversed.

    This is not an offer made in bad faith, this is an offer made in good faith and it is an offer that is going to be maintained. All visa-free access around the world is upon that basis and that is the basis upon which I have announced it today. There is no need and no justification for people to poke around in the undergrowth of this statement to see if there is some trick underlying it – there is no trick.

    QUESTION (The Sun):

    Prime Minister, a domestic question but one which I think may be of interest in this Crown territory. A number of MPs back home have expressed concern about the royal family including Conservative MPs and including one Minister of the Crown who has asked for a debate on the royal family and the future of the royal family. Are you prepared to have one?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have heard no such comments myself and I am disinclined to comment on domestic matters when I am so far away without having heard the domestic debate. I will happily respond to that point when I am back in the United Kingdom.

    QUESTION (The Associated Press):

    Prime Minister, could just for the record explain to us whether in your opinion disbanding LEGCO would equal a breach of the Joint Declaration?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have said that, I said that earlier.

    SAME MAN:

    Not clearly though so that we know, would disbanding LEGCO equal a breach of the Joint Declaration in your view?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We believe that the Joint Declaration shouldn’t be changed and it is partly for that reason that we have been arguing that LEGCO needs to go right the way through and I made clear the damage that we believe would be done if LEGCO were to be disbanded, damage not just to Hong Kong though certainly to Hong Kong but also to China and that is a point we have made repeatedly to China and will continue to make to China.

  • Mr Major’s Speech in Hong Kong – 4 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech given in Hong Kong at the British Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce on Monday 4th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr Chairman, Mr Governor, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am delighted to have the opportunity of being back here in Hong Kong. It is now just over a quarter of a century since I first came here, working in that occasion for the Chartered Bank. I had arrived to carry out an inspection or two and you can recall how popular I might have been.

    Hong Kong of course has changed very greatly since my first visit. In fact, to be frank, it has changed quite a bit in the four and a half years since I was last here. But not I think changed for the worst. The doomsters, the gloomsters, always with us in this part of the world and elsewhere, have been proved wrong again and again. There have been arguments certainly, arguments about principles certainly, arguments about things that mattered, of course, arguments but no disasters.

    Later on I shall have some announcements to make about the future. But before I turn to those, let me just spend a moment or two on what has actually happened. Hong Kong has become the world’s eighth largest trading economy, up from 10th four years ago; your foreign exchange reserves have risen by 60 percent, from 29 billion US dollars to around 52 billion, they are now the second highest per head anywhere in the world; your gross domestic product has gone up by a quarter, it now corresponds to over one-fifth of China’s GDP, a truly astonishing achievement for a territory with a population of 6 million at a time of uncertainty; your spending on public services has gone up by 75 percent on education, by 99 percent on health, but because you have grown overall and restrained expenditure elsewhere, expenditure as a proportion of your income has remained about 16 percent of GDP – in European terms an almost unimaginable statistic; taxes meanwhile have been cut, cut, cut, cut and cut again, not as far enough clearly as some of you would have wished, but I can tell you I would happily defend a 15 percent rate of income tax back home. Your top rate of salaries tax, that infamous 15 percent, now has to be paid by only 2 percent of the working population, though I do appreciate that many of that 2 percent will be present here on this occasion.

    And when you just have a look at some of those indications of what has happened in Hong Kong, it is no wonder it has become an even more international city. Over 200 more regional headquarters than in 1991, as well, as 11,000 more Britons, 11,000 more Americans and almost 9,000 more Japanese.

    There have been other visible signs of progress as well. The last time I came here I had just returned from Peking where I signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the airport. There was no West Kowloon reclamation, no new airport, no Tsing Ma Bridge – I saw both of them just yesterday; no convention centre extension, a great building, a building which will quite literally become one of the best known buildings anywhere in the world; no British Consulate General which is going to be, by some measure, our biggest Consular post in the world, a symbol of Britain’s commitment to the future of Hong Kong.

    So Hong Kong, as so often in its history, has defied the pessimistic smart Alecs. Indeed it has defied the odds. You have shown that it is possible to prosper while standing up vigorously for your way of life, the way of life, the freedoms and values that generate the prosperity that you can see right across Hong Kong.

    People often ask: what can we learn from Hong Kong? The best answer is go to Hong Kong and see for yourself, see the energy, the dynamism, the sheer guts in business enterprise, the determination to make the best of life however unpromising it may sometimes look, to think positive and to act positive. And those are some of the reasons why Hong Kong packs such a big punch in Asia and right around the world.

    Last week I attended a meeting of European and Asian Heads of Government in Bangkok, the first meeting of its kind, an initiative long overdue and one I welcomed with enthusiasm. There are very few foreign policy questions that matter more today than the relationship between West and East, between Europe and Asia. Hong Kong is at the heart of the economic relationship between the two. Annual two-way trade is worth 40 billion US dollars. Literally thousands of European firms are based here, doing business not only in Hong Kong but in the whole region. And what a remarkable region it is, north to China and Japan, south to Australia, West as far as India.

    Europe has no better market and no better business base in the whole of this vast and booming region. And that is why Hong Kong needs to be involved in any economic follow-up to the Heads of Government meeting in Bangkok last week. Hong Kong of course is already a member of APEC and the World Trade Organisation.

    And Britain occupies a special position in this relationship, and I am not talking here just about the historical link, vital though that is, I am talking about something a good deal broader than that. Hong Kong is the Europeans’ first choice as a base to do business with Asia. Across the globe the United Kingdom is the Asians’ first choice as a base to do business with Europe, Asian banks in London, European banks in Hong Kong. Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Hong Kong investment in Britain exceeds Asian investment in the whole of the rest of Europe added together. European, especially British investment, in Hong Kong far exceeds other external investment in the territory. This is partly a product of history, indeed everything is partly a product of history, but it is very much also a product of present circumstances of hard-headed calculations about the future.

    Asian businessmen naturally wish to increase their stake in the world’s largest market – Europe – and they have calculated that much the best gateway is the United Kingdom. And they come to Britain because we share a common belief in enterprise. They like our relatively low taxes, not as low as yours of course, but Britain now enjoys the lowest tax burden of any major European economy and when possible we intend to get them lower still. They like our low inflation, Britain is enjoying the longest period of low inflation it seems for over 50 years. They like our commitment to free trade and fair competition. They like being treated on exactly the same basis as domestic investors. And they like a country that has resisted Europe in burdening employers with extra costs. In Britain, for every 100 pounds spent on wages, an employer has to add an extra 18 pounds for non-wage costs, 18 pounds in the UK but an extra 32 pounds in Germany, 34 pounds in Spain, 41 pounds in France and 44 pounds in Italy. So no wonder Britain remains the first choice for foreign investors coming to Europe – low taxes, low inflation, low costs.

    My aim is to turn Britain into the enterprise centre of Europe, an economy that rewards get up and go. Now that may sound familiar to you. We seek those virtues, you have them here in Hong Kong, they are the economic virtues of Hong Kong. And just as I would like Britain to be the enterprise centre of Europe, I see Hong Kong as the enterprise centre of Asia, the channel for European trade and investment into the huge markets of China and Asia.

    Overseas investors flock here for exactly the same reasons. And they come here because underpinning all these policies, Hong Kong has the most important legacy that Britain has given to its former colonies across the globe – the rule of law. You are all here, and your businesses and your families have thrived here precisely because of the rules of law. You have been able to enjoy living here, without interference from government, without harassment from the police, with a confidence that a contract once signed is a real contract, not just the beginning of year upon year of negotiation, with confidence in a fair and transparent legal process in which no-one is above the law, with confidence that the tendering process is fair and that all your companies can compete in an open market according to the same rules, and with confidence that there is that free flow of information, uncensored and unfiltered which is so vital to market decisions. You have benefited too from the work of the truly exceptionally dedicated civil servants of Hong Kong who set such high standards of administrative ability and can-do spirit.

    The rule of law in Hong Kong, the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong, the free flow of information, all that has been crucial to the development of Hong Kong as the pre-eminent business centre of this region. Who doubts, who seriously doubts that if Hong Kong had not developed its laws and had not preserved its rights and its freedoms, its success as a world centre for business would be far, far less than it is today?

    Twelve years ago the Chinese government clearly recognised these important facts of life when they undertook, in the Joint Declaration, to maintain Hong Kong’s laws, its rights, its freedoms and the application here of the International Human Rights Covenants. Why did they do that? It was because they saw that it was in their Chinese interests that Hong Kong should continue to thrive and develop as an international business centre. They knew that it was in this role that Hong Kong could best contribute to the spectacular modernisation of China. And they saw, wisely, that Hong Kong’s formula for success was one that included as vital ingredients, not optional extras, the rights and freedoms that the people and the businessmen based here had been guaranteed for years under the law.

    We have been working with China in order to achieve a successful transition incorporating these elements. The road has not been smooth but we have kept at it so far, and we will keep at it in future. The Chinese Foreign Minister’s visit to London in October last year, and the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Peking in January, allowed detailed and businesslike discussions on all aspects of the transition. My own meeting with Premier Li Peng last week has confirmed our commitment to this process. Our consistent aim has been to forge agreements which are clearly in the interests of Hong Kong and which will ensure the continuity of Hong Kong’s systems and Hong Kong’s institutions.

    There is still much to do, but a good deal has been achieved since the Joint Declaration of 1984 agreements on Hong Kong’s membership of international bodies like the World Trade Organisation; on the Court of Final Appeal; on the future of defence lands; on the network of international treaties applying to Hong Kong; on agreements that the pessimists said at the time could not be done, and much else besides. So the groundwork has been laid for the final phase of the transition, for the final push.

    The overriding priority in this period of the transition must be to maintain the rule of law and ensure that it commands the confidence of the local community and the international community after 1997. That has been the number one item on Chris Patten’s agenda for the last three and a half years. It is the number one item on the British government’s Hong Kong agenda over the next year and a half. If the rule of law does not rule the market, you enter it only with the greatest of caution, because you never know whether your contract will stick, whether your competitor has an inside track that you cannot hope to compete with, or even whether you will find yourself arbitrarily detained in a commercial dispute. But if you know that the market is ruled by law, you can commit yourself to it whole-heartedly. It is why we believe, and will continue to believe, that the voice of the people of Hong Kong, plainly heard in free and fair elections in 1994 and 1995 must be respected. We didn’t suddenly dream up that proposition by ourselves, it was a central feature of the Joint Declaration, agreed by Britain, agreed by China as the necessary underpinning for the confidence of the people of Hong Kong in the maintenance of their way of life.

    We are quite clear that electoral arrangements, passed by the Legislative Council in 1994, were and are wholly compatible with the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. Those elected by the people of Hong Kong, in record numbers, should be allowed to serve their full four year term. That is what Hong Kong people wish to see, that is what the world would wish to see, that I am convinced would also be in China’s, as well as Hong Kong’s best interests.

    We have insisted too, therefore, that the laws of Hong Kong should not be changed by decree in 1997, that the human rights of Hong Kong people must continue to be protected in every respect, as they are now, including the obligation to report under the international covenants, and that the interests of all who live, work and invest in Hong Kong will be given equal treatment under the law after 1997 as they are today.

    We have put these arguments, arguments both of principle and of sensible practice at the highest levels to the Chinese leadership. Malcolm Rifkind did so in Peking in January, I did so with Premier Li Peng last week. In response he confirmed China’s commitment to key elements of the Joint Declaration, but we reached no agreement on LEGCO or on the Bill of Rights. We did not agree to disagree, we just disagreed.

    We are not going to leave it there. We are not going to go on saying in public and private something we don’t believe, we will say only what we do believe. We do not, and we will not, simply lie down and accept what we are told.

    Let me reiterate what Malcolm Rifkind said to LEGCO in January:

    If there were any suggestion of a breach of the Joint Declaration, we would have a duty to pursue every legal and other avenue available to us but standing up for Hong Kong way of life isn’t only a job for British ministers. If Hong Kong people want the undertakings made in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law to be fully and faithfully honoured, they too will have to be prepared to stand up and say so and that goes for all walks of life, lawyers, journalists, civil servants, businessmen, policemen.

    Hong Kong businessmen have a special responsibility not least because many of the opportunities you have to make these points lie with interlocutors in China and your interests will be directly affected if things go wrong. If you don’t appear to care about the survival of Hong Kong’s system, its rule of law, clean government and a free society, then others may draw the conclusion that they don’ t really matter but of course they do and everybody in this room knows that they matter.

    British sovereignty will end on 30 June 1997. A chief executive will take over the reins of one of the most challenging jobs in the world in which he or she will need the support of Hong Kong and the understanding of the international community. The flags will change, Britain will no longer have colonial responsibility for Hong Kong but Britain’s commitments to Hong Kong will not end next summer, far from it. The guarantees in the Joint Declaration extend for 50 years until 2047, the Joint Liaison Group will continue to function until the year 2000. That means that we in Britain will have continuing responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong, not just a moral responsibility as the former colonial power and as staunch friends of Hong Kong but a specific responsibility as a signatory to the Joint Declaration. We shall watch, vigilant, over the implementation of the treaty to which Britain and China have solemnly committed themselves. That treaty is of course registered at the United Nations but it will not just be Britain which will be watching, which is watching now over the implementation of the Joint Declaration. We shall ensure that others are watching as well Hong Kong will never have to walk alone. Every trading nation, every country engaged politically, economically or commercially with China and with the whole East Asian region has a direct interest in Hong Kong’s continuing success, not just success but success founded firmly on the specific promises made by Britain and made by China in the Joint Declaration, every member of the international community, all Hong Kong’s friends and partners around the world in both hemispheres and five continents will be watching to see that the letter and spirit of the Joint Declaration are honoured now, next year and for 50 years beyond and we will be making sure that they do.

    Our commitment – our British commitment – to take such a lead does not stem just from our moral responsibility; it is powerfully reinforced by Britain’s own self-interest. After the handover, there will still be a massive British presence in Hong Kong, a thousand British companies operate here, our investment in Hong Kong is around £70 billion sterling, our exports to china are £800 million per year but to Hong Kong they are £2.7 billion a year. Moreover, some 200,000 people here will be British citizens, some 3 million may be holders of British National Overseas passports, up to 2. 4 million may hold Special Administrative Region passports. Whichever passport Hong Kong people hold, they are concerned about ease of travel. It is an important issue, important for Hong Kong’s self-confidence as well as for its economy and trade but Hong Kong knows that we are living in a world of more restrictive visa regimes because of the abuses which governments are rightly expected to tackle.

    At present, British National Overseas passport-holders have visa-free access to the United Kingdom. That will continue, there are no plans to change that. The question now is whether the United Kingdom should also extend visa-free access to future holders of the Special Administrative Region passport. I have reflected carefully on this with Cabinet colleagues in London in the light of the powerful arguments put by the governor, by the Legislative Council, by business people and by the wider community in Hong Kong in recent months and the answer is yes, we shall extend visa-free access [Applause]. We have decided that holders of SAR passports will not – I repeat will not – be required to obtain visas for visits to Britain after 30 June 1997, there will be visa-free access. This will be an improvement for many Hong Kong people who held Certificates of Identity at the moment and who at present require visas to enter Britain; from July 1997, with an SAR passport they will not.

    I hope that this decision will be welcomed in Hong Kong. We shall be placing the details before Parliament in London today. In addition, the British Government will also be urging other like-minded countries around the world to follow our lead, to do what they can to maximise ease of travel for Hong Kong people after 1997. In particular, we look to the incoming sovereign power, to China, to work with us in promoting visa-free travel for Hong Kong people whatever passport they may hold. We hope that China will place all this on a firm foundation by bringing forward soon fair, practical arrangements for ensuring that all those who have right of abode in Hong Kong now continue to do so after 1997.

    There are two other immigration and nationality matters which have been raised many times by Hong Kong people: the position of the wives and widows of ex-servicemen who fought for Britain in the War and that of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities in Hong Kong after 1997. Let me address first the question of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities with no nationality other than British.

    This is a limited group; their right of abode in Hong Kong after 1997 is guaranteed by the Joint Declaration; the British Government have made clear that any member of this group who would otherwise be stateless will be entitled to British Overseas Citizenship as will their children and grandchildren. We have also said repeatedly that if against all expectations, any solely British nationals come under pressure to leave Hong Kong, the British Government of the day would consider with considerable and particular sympathy their case for admission to the United Kingdom. Let me make clear today to this group that we are prepared to guarantee – repeat to guarantee – admission and settlement if at any time after 1 July 1997 they were to come under pressure to leave Hong Kong. It is the position of course, that this group do not wish to leave Hong Kong, they are settled here, their business is here, their families ties are here but they wish to be sure that if they come under pressure to leave that they will have a country to go to. Mr. Chairman, from today, they have that assurance [applause].

    The second matter concerns the wives and widows of ex-servicemen from Hong Kong. The Home Secretary has written personally to each of them to make clear they are free to come to the United Kingdom at any time and to settle there if they wish. What they continue to press for is full British citizenship in view of their husbands’ service to the Crown in time of war. Because the numbers involved are extremely small, this is an issue that could be satisfactorily dealt with by a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament. The Government would be happy to see such a Bill come forward and would encourage and facilitate its passage through Parliament. As a result, these ladies will then receive full British citizenship [applause]. Let me summarise the assurances I have been able to give today:

    First, Britain’s commitment to Hong Kong will continue well beyond the summer of 1997. That is both our moral responsibility and overwhelming in our own self-interest.

    Second, if in the future there were any suggestion of a breach of the Joint Declaration, we would mobilise the international community and pursue every legal or other avenue open to us.

    Third, we will give visa-free access to holders of the passport of the Special Administrative Region.

    Fourth, we are prepared to guarantee to the ethnic minorities admission and settlement in the United Kingdom if after 1997 they were to come under pressure to leave Hong Kong.

    Fifth, we will facilitate a Private Member’s Bill to give British citizenship to the wives and widows of the ex-servicemen from Hong Kong who fought in the War.

    Mr. Chairman, these five points will I hope help to provide reassurance to you, the people of Hong Kong, about Britain’s active interest in your future.

    As I said earlier, Hong Kong is at Europe’s and Asia’s crossroads, 1997 will not change that. Europe’s ties with Asia are ties of culture, of commerce, of history. That is especially true of Britain – of 24 Asian countries 8 are members of the Commonwealth. Britain is the largest European investor in China and in Asia as a whole but nowhere do we have as large a stake as we have here in Hong Kong.

    Will Hong Kong continue to succeed? You have succeeded magnificently already often against the odds. You have been an example to the world of what can be achieved by an open-market economy. It is your values – Hong Kong values – that are being copied all around the world. It is Hong Kong that points the way in the region. “Made in Hong Kong” is stamped these days on ideas and values, not just on toys and on textiles so it matters that Hong Kong continues to succeed, it matters to Britain, it matters to China, it matters to the world that Hong Kong succeeds.

    Next summer, the eyes of that world will be on Hong Kong, the world’s television cameras will be trained on the Territory, the world’s journalists encamped here literally in their thousands. For the next sixteen months people everywhere will be asking one question over and over again: “Will it all survive? Will it all work?” I am sure that it will, sure with one caveat, with one qualification, to be honest with one “if”: it will work and survive, as Anson Chan has said, if you remain true to yourselves, if you remain true to your values, true to the values that helped you create here in this Chinese city a community that is decent and prosperous, mightily successful and the whole world hopes abidingly free – not just now but for the future. Thank you very much! [Applause]

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    Mr. Chairman, Mr. Major represents the Westminster tradition of democracy, the home of free speech and so forth. In a meeting here with Mr. Rifkind here he dodged this question. I would like to ask you to answer it:

    The question simply is: Given the situation in which 6 million people are being handed to a country and a government which over 70 per cent do not want, how on earth can you sleep comfortably at night?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think you put it in the most aggressive way possible [Applause] and in the tradition of Westminster democracy, don’t be surprised if I am tempted to reply the same way!

    When you say “handed over”, you are a businessman, you enter into deals, you operate under the rule of law. We operate under the rule of law as well and the rule of law required that on 30 June, whether we like it or not, the British lease on Hong Kong actually ended. That is not a matter of an option, not a renewable option, it was a matter of international law. I don’t like it any more than you like it but I have to obey the law, I can’t simply address a reality as though it were a fiction and ignore it so our responsibility is to make sure that we mobilise our resources in negotiation and our resources in international pressure to make sure that the law is fully obeyed and to make sure that the agreements that have been reached between ourselves and China are fully obeyed as well and if you are inviting me to upend the original agreement that ends on 30 June 1997, hope you are not also going to say to me that I should take a tough line with the Chinese if they don’t obey the agreements and the law that they made in 1984 with Geoffrey Howe and Margaret Thatcher because this Colony exists because of the rule of law and that is something the Westminster tradition has to obey as well – and we will – but our interests in Hong Kong do not disappear, they don’t find people handed over bound hand and foot and powerless; that is not remotely the way things are going to be in 1997 as I have just spent the last half an hour trying – I hope successfully with many but perhaps not with you – to explain to people. [Applause] I think it is very doubtful that Malcolm Rifkind dodged the question but by God, I am not going to!

  • Mr Major’s Hong Kong Speech – 3 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech, made after Chris Patten’s speech, in Hong Kong on Sunday 3rd March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr. Governor, Ladies and Gentlemen:

    Chris said, in an understatement that I have known so well over many years, that it had sometimes been a dull time. It has been a dull week. I have been working up to this evening and I am glad to be here but the last time Chris and I spoke together he referred to just a moment or so ago. We spoke side by side of course politically on many occasions but that time in Huntingdon he referred to I think was probably from memory the first time that we spoke side by side on the same day at the same meeting with the same intent and as Chris generously indicated, on that occasion I became the candidate for Huntingdon and he didn’t and I was a little surprised by this latterly and I asked, after this great event, of my former selection committee when they became my executive committee prior to the 1979 election; and said: “I am very pleased to be your candidate but why did you choose me and not Chris Patten?” and they said: “Well, Chris Patten was so good we thought he’d get a seat anywhere!” [laughter and applause] – and he did of course and latterly, to my very great regret but to your very great fortune, Bath made one of the worst decisions in its electoral history and I lost him from my Government and you gained him as your Governor.

    I might just tell you perhaps a little – to his embarrassment – of how that came about. Chris and I met the morning after the night before. We had won the election but we had lost the seat because of population changes in Chris’ s constituency of Bath and I said to Chris there were three options: he could stay in the United Kingdom and very probably fight the first promising by-election that occurred though these days in British electoral history no by-election is always a terribly attractive proposition; the second option, if he felt inclined, was that he could go into the House of Lords and back into the Cabinet after the 1992 election; the third option was that he could go to Hong Kong and look after that crucial period between 1992 and 1997 in that unique city, that unique territory, with all the obvious traumas and difficulties to be overcome and of those three decisions, after Chris had left me to consider it, I in my own mind had not a shred of doubt what decision he would take and that was indeed the decision he took. I believe it was the right decision for him and the right decision for Hong Kong and I am delighted to be here as his guest this evening.

    I have visited Hong Kong a few times over the years since I first came here to carry out a bank inspection at Standard Chartered Bank where I was less well received than I have been on this occasion [laughter]. As Chris said, I plan to make a speech tomorrow that I hope will contain one or two things of interest to the present company and other people in Hong Kong. This evening it is late and after dinner so let me just say a few things to you.

    Hong Kong by any reckoning is one of the greatest cities in the world, it is a city moving despite all the challenges into its prime, that prime lies ahead of it, not behind – not perhaps today but the New York of Asia for the 21st century and for many years to come. Many of the people who have made that possible from relatively modest beginnings are in the room tonight, many who share the responsibility in different aspects for Hong Kong’ s future are here this evening as well, a very heavy responsibility and a very big prize is at stake.

    Whenever I come to Hong Kong, I am struck essentially by three things by how much have achieved since I was last here; I saw this afternoon the Tsing Ma Bridge and the new airport, an astonishing series of changes since I signed the Memorandum of Understanding just four or so years ago; I sometimes think Hong Kong is the only city where you can change the skyline over the weekend and no-one comments, one comes back and sees these extraordinary changes; secondly, by how convincing you have always managed to confound the pessimists who are always there to predict the worst of futures for Hong Kong; and thirdly, by the sheer uniqueness of Hong Kong. I don’t just mean the size or the number of skyscrapers, I mean the vitality of the institutions and the way of life, the chemistry of boundless business energy, business energy allied both to the rule of law and the principles of free trade and that has always seemed to me to be the very nub of Hong Kong’s transition and that is what we need to preserve both in the short term and in the long term and I am confident that that can be done.

    I don’t come here from the other side of the world to doubt the difficulties and the challenges that Hong Kong faces in 1997, I don’t do that for a second. It is a difficult enterprise that you and we are engaged in, difficult for Britain, difficult for China but difficult above all for Hong Kong. It was always going to be difficult but I see no reason to be daunted by those challenges.

    In the last 50 years or so, Hong Kong has achieved a huge amount often against the odds; providing current uncertainties are resolved with pragmatic good sense, those achievements will roll on. I am myself confident about Hong Kong’s future because I believe that the nature of Hong Kong is the future, it represents the values of the future of Asia, economic liberty and freedom, openness, tolerance and decency. Those values can’t be defeated and they can’t be turned back and if I saw one thing above all else when I attend the Asia/Europe summit over the last few days in Bangkok, I saw the extent to which the eyes of some of the Europeans began to open as they saw the reality of what was actually happening in Asia not just in one centre or another – uniquely of course in Hong Kong – but right across the whole of Asia, a changing attitude, a changing level of prosperity, a changing nature, a determination to pursue economic prosperity in a way that I think many people in Europe had not imagined; they had not comprehended the sheer scale of dramatic change that is taking place in this part of the world and it was very striking to see that at the Asia/Europe summit in Bangkok just a day or so ago.

    Let me return, if I may for a moment, to Hong Kong and let me say this to you tonight, to the people who in many ways are the epitomy of what Hong Kong is, the people who in public service or in business or in politics are the driving forces of what Hong Kong presents to the world and what it is for itself and its own citizens; let me say this both to you and to the future sovereign power:

    The United Kingdom takes – and will continue to take after 1997 -, the closest possible interest in the future of Hong Kong. That has been so in the past and it will remain so in the future. There is no magic barrier that comes down on 30 June 1997 that will cut off the interest or the affection or the concern of the United Kingdom for what happens in Hong Kong after that date. You cannot cut adrift an instinct or a blood tie that has existed in the fashion of the relationship between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong simply because the legal sovereignty of the territory changes; that does and there is nothing that we can do about that but equally, there is nothing we can or would wish to do about that ongoing affection and relationship both personal and practical and political and in terms of hard cash and hard investment that exists between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong and is going to go on existing for many years after 1997. Success is not only measured by Hong Kong’s life at midnight on 30 June next but by what it will be like many years thereafter and in that the United Kingdom will continue to take an interest.

    Whatever our differences have been over the years – and there have been some and there are some – I have no doubt that China has the same interest in that success. I had the opportunity at the Bangkok summit this week of spending some time talking to Li Peng about that matter and I was able to express to hint the importance for China’s own domestic interests of China observing in full the provisions of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law and he in turn confirmed to me China’s commitment to Hong Kong’s future autonomy, stability and prosperity.

    There were issues upon which we did not agree, some of them were important issues. We did not agree on the Bill of Rights, we did not agree upon the future of LEGCO and these are not issues that we are putting in the back of the cupboard, not issues that we put to one side to forget, not issues – as the press reported – upon which we agreed to disagree. We did not agree to disagree – we just disagreed – and that is a quite different proposition and we – and by “we” I mean the United Kingdom Government – will continue to argue strongly for all the provisions of the Joint Declaration to be met in those areas of vital importance to, Hong Kong and of vital importance to the future of its people.

    For our part, I believe that we have sought and we have managed the responsibilities bequeathed by history competently and decently and we will continue to do so not only until 30 June next year but also, so far as our powers allow and so far as our instincts will take us – and that is a very long way indeed – in the period beyond 30 June next year. I hope, we all hope, that China will manage those responsibilities in future with even greater success. That is what Britain, the world and above all the people of this territory would like to see.

    Much of the history of the next century may be made here, made in China, made in this region, made in Hong Kong. The meeting in Thailand was a striking acknowledgement of that fact and that is why after last week’ s summit I believe that Hong Kong must be fully involved directly in follow-up on all economic and trade issues which are within Hong Kong’ s autonomy. Hong Kong is one of the main bridges between Europe and Asia and it must be properly represented whenever those matters are discussed between Europe and between Asia and so it is you, the people of Hong Kong, who will be helping to write the history of the next century. I have a feeling of confidence in the way in which you will do that I have no doubt you will do it with the same flair, the same energy and the same success that has made this tiny territory such an economic force in the world today. As you do that, it will be the determination of the United Kingdom to be with you in the future as we have been in the past.

    Chris said that it is possible – not certain but possible – that this might be the last occasion on which a British prime minister visits the Governor of Hong Kong in his own residence during the period of British sovereignty over Hong Kong. Perhaps – not certainly but perhaps – but of this I am certain: however uncertain it may be whether this is the last visit under British sovereignty, it will not be the last visit of a British prime minister to Hong Kong, it will not be the last visit by British people interested emotionally, politically and economically in the interests of Hong Kong, it will by no means be the last investment in Hong Kong, by no means be the end of the relationship between Britain and Hong Kong. The relationship may change because of sovereignty changes but that it will continue and endure and economically strengthen I have not a shadow of a doubt.

    If I could say one thing to the people of Hong Kong, one thing that I would hope they would take and capture in their hearts for the future, it would simply be this:

    Look at yourselves and what you have achieved in the years that have gone past. I can find, wherever I look around the world, no comparative measure of success, no comparative improvement from a barren rock to the economic giant that exists today. That could not have been done without remarkable effort by remarkable people.

    If you look back on what has been achieved in the past then I believe you will have a greater reason to be confident about what can be achieved in the future and as you face that future up until next year and beyond, you will not, I promise you, face it alone and I look forward to coming back not just myself, not just this British prime minister but successive British prime ministers and British ministers visiting Hong Kong on many occasions in the future. The best of Hong Kong lies ahead, of that I am certain and if we can persuade the people of Hong Kong that that is the case then the success of that future becomes even more certain.

    Thank you for having me here this evening, I am delighted to have been here and I look forward to some of the things I have to say to you tomorrow lunchtime [applause].

  • Chris Patten’s Hong Kong Speech – 3 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Patten’s speech, made before John Major’s speech, in Hong Kong on Sunday 3rd March 1996.

    GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG, CHRIS PATTEN:

    Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen:

    The last time, Prime Minister, that you and I spoke as it were side by side, the circumstances were certainly very different. I think it is fair to say the Continent was different too but going back even further into the dark ages when we were both young with hardly a grey hair between us the first time we spoke, if not side by side then certainly seriatim, was when we were in the same queue of aspirants applying to become the Conservative Party’s candidate in Huntingdon, a safe seat in England [Laughter].

    As my guests may have noticed this evening, I was not chosen. I doubt whether either of us, Prime Minister, would have guessed then where politics and charm were to carry us. I break no secrets when I say again – which you know I mean – that I am delighted that a fair wind carried you to No 10 Downing Street and that it has brought you here again tonight.

    You are the second British prime minister to have visited Hong Kong in office; this is the fourth visit by a serving prime minister. Your predecessor came twice and you have come on your second visit as well but this is a community which of course you know well first as a banker – and we have Ian Wilson here tonight to prove it – I hope John Grey doesn’t mind me making that point – and more recently as a politician and as Prime Minister. We are delighted that we are able to see you at the end of a week which has included among much else the Anglo-Irish summit and the Bangkok summit. All of us are accustomed to being introduced by chairmen who express their gratitude that we have interrupted our busy schedules to come and speak to them. Prime Minister, we are a part not just of your busy schedule this week but of an extraordinarily punishing schedule and we are extremely pleased that you are able in those circumstances to spend a couple of days here with us in Hong Kong.

    You know, Prime Minister, how tough and how difficult are the challenges that we face in Hong Kong. The last time you came here, you were hot-foot from Peking where you had just signed the Memorandum of Understanding at the airport. While it is true that things did not subsequently work out quite as smoothly as we had all hoped – I speak with my usual mixture of euphemism and diplomatic tact! – we nevertheless just got on with things and built the airport anyway and you were able to see the spectacular results today. I think that is typical of Hong Kong. Whatever the challenges, Hong Kong manages to rise to them so that today we remain one of the most successful, one of the most prosperous and one of the most decent cities in the world. I am optimistic that Hong Kong, with its magnificent civil service, will work its way just as successfully through the problems of the next few years.

    In managing the transition – in managing this unique enterprise – both Britain and China face very difficult tasks. I want to thank you personally, Prime Minister, for the generous and unequivocal support that you have given to us in Hong Kong since I have been Governor. We couldn’t have asked for more and I think it is particularly valuable that the question of Hong Kong and its future has never been allowed to become a matter of cross-party controversy at Westminster.

    I know, Prime Minister, that you will be making your principal speeches in Hong Kong tomorrow talking to the Legislative Council and talking to the Chambers of Commerce at lunch, and then addressing an open press conference later in the day and I also suspect – in fact I know – that you, share with me antipathy to spoiling the digestive process by making lengthy speeches after dinner but we would all be grateful if, on what may be the last occasion on which a British prime minister visits this house under British sovereignty, you would say few words to us this evening. Thank you! [Applause]