The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: 1995

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the 1995 Welsh Conservative Party Conference – 9 June 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Welsh Conservative Party Conference, held in Llangollen on Friday 9th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Bosnia

    Mr Chairman, I’d like to turn first to the remaining Royal Welch Fusiliers – and the Royal Air Force military observer – still being held hostage in Bosnia.

    That is where the thoughts of many people in Wales will be until they are safely home.

    Of course, we’re all relieved that so many of their colleagues have now been released unharmed.

    But let us be clear. These are impartial peacekeepers who should never have been seized in the first place.

    To hold just one hostage, just one peacekeeper – let alone dozens – is despicable.

    No reputable army would have contemplated doing it.

    The leaders of the Bosnian Serbs know that they will be held personally responsible if they let any harm befall our men.

    They should release them unharmed.

    Release them unconditionally.

    And release them immediately.

    Mr Chairman, I spoke this morning to the Commander of the First Royal Welch Fusiliers in Gorazde, Colonel Jonathan Riley.

    Let me tell you about the vital work the Fusiliers are doing.

    One company of the Fusiliers is at Bugojno – a base in Central Bosnia I visited last year.

    There British soldiers helped to establish a ceasefire between the Muslims and the Croats 15 months ago.

    The Fusiliers are making that ceasefire work.

    They and their colleagues are patrolling 140 miles of the old battle lines.

    They are helping former enemies to live together, work together, and rebuild their lives – in peace.

    Just a few months ago people there were killing each other in their thousands.

    Today, thanks to British and other United Nations soldiers, across a large area fields are being planted and children are playing safely and happily.

    In Gorazde, where three companies of the Fusiliers are stationed, there are about 45 thousand people.

    United Nations agencies have been supplying them with food and medicine.

    But Gorazde is now under heavy bombardment. Serb artillery is ranged against a large force of Bosnian government infantry.

    But the Welch Fusiliers are facing these difficulties with great determination and are in good spirits, as Colonel Riley told me.

    Let me give you just one example of the work the Fusiliers have done.

    On 23rd May, a little over a fortnight ago, two of the Fusiliers’ armoured cars were escorting an aid convoy.

    They came under heavy fire from the Bosnian Serb army. They fired back in self defence – as is their right.

    Their vehicles were hit, but they came away without casualties.

    On its way back, the patrol stopped to help a heavily pregnant Bosnian woman – and the Royal Welch Fusiliers delivered her baby and took mother and child to safety.

    Mr Chairman, life in Gorazde for the Royal Welch Fusiliers is arduous, uncomfortable and at times dangerous.

    But they have done a superb job.

    And I believe we should be very proud of them.

    I want the UN forces in Bosnia to be able to go on doing their job, so long as they are not facing unacceptable risks.

    We have a clear duty to save lives and prevent mass slaughter in our own continent.

    Yet there is an even stronger reason for us to have our troops there.

    There are war memorials across Wales and throughout the United Kingdom bearing the names of the millions who died in World Wars which began in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

    In the years before 1914, and again in the 1930s, Britain paid a heavy price for the mistaken view that events hundreds of miles away had no importance to us.

    By the time we learned that we could not turn our back on the fate of fellow Europeans, it was too late.

    So the British troops who are in Bosnia today are upholding a vital national interest – the preservation of stability in Europe.

    But while they are there they must have all the protection we can give them in discharging their duties.

    That is why the Government has decided to send reinforcements to Bosnia.

    It was a hard decision.

    But I am sure that it was also the right decision.

    One thousand men – an armoured engineer squadron and two artillery batteries – are already on their way.

    And I can confirm today that, as soon as details are finalised with the United Nations, over 5,000 men of the 24th Air Mobile Brigade will be deployed to Bosnia.

    They will form half of a new UN Rapid Reaction Force at the disposal of General Rupert Smith and his fellow commanders.

    They will provide additional protection for UN forces – and our British troops – so that they can defend themselves. And so that they can respond more robustly if they are attacked.

    But I must make this clear: British troops are not there to fight a war.

    It is possible the warring parties might make their job impossible.

    And, if they do, we might be forced to withdraw those troops. I don’t want that to happen, but it could.

    That would have dire consequences for everyone in Bosnia and grave risks for the whole region.

    Mr Chairman, that is why we should give our total backing to our forces.

    We ask much of our young soldiers.

    They are performing magnificently.

    And they should know that this Government will do whatever is necessary to provide them with the protection they need and the security they deserve.

    The Nation

    Mr Chairman, the Conservative Party has always had a strong vision of the right future for our country.

    Throughout the last twenty years we have set the agenda for Britain.

    The Right to Buy.

    Trade union reform,

    The free market.

    Strong defences.

    Membership of Europe.

    Tests in schools.

    Punishing not rewarding crime.

    Time and time again it has been policies which have been vindicated by events.

    And yet, all the time, our opponents have fought our ideas ferociously, and then been forced belatedly – and half-heartedly – to accept them.

    We have been successful in determining the terms of debate in this country because:-

    – our fundamental convictions haven’t changed;

    – our instincts and values have always been close to those of the British people;

    – and we have always put the national interest first.

    Many of the details of our agenda over the last 15 years are nearing completion.

    Now we are ready once again to move the terms of the political debate forward.

    While our opponents modernise themselves – up to a point – by catching up with our agenda of the 1980s, we will be moving ahead to shape the agenda of the 21st century.

    Let me remind you of the five key themes which we will pursue in building a stronger nation.

    They can be summarised by saying that we will work for:

    – A Nation of Enterprise and Prosperity;

    – A Nation of Opportunity and Ownership;

    – A Nation of Law and Order;

    – A Nation of First Class Public Services;

    – A Sovereign Nation.

    It is on the fifth of those themes – a sovereign nation – that I wish to concentrate today.

    Wales – the economy transformed

    A strong nation needs first and foremost to have a strong economy.

    Here in Wales the economy has been transformed by Conservative reforms.

    Wales is now more competitive.

    – There are 16 per cent more businesses in Wales today than in 1980. Self-employment is up by 40 per cent.

    – Wales has secured nearly £7 billion of inward investment in the last decade – creating or securing over 120,000 jobs.

    – With only 5 per cent of the UK’s population, Wales consistently attracts between 10 and 20 per cent of the UK’s investment from overseas.

    The fruits of this new prosperity may not be obvious to opposition politicians with their gift for competitive whingeing.

    But they’re clear for people with eyes to see – and clear right around Wales.

    – Home ownership has soared from 59 per cent in 1979 to 72 per cent – higher than anywhere else in the UK.

    – For the first time in decades unemployment in Wales is down to the UK average – and it’s falling steadily.

    – Ownership of consumer durables has soared. Half of households in Wales now own a microwave. 69 per cent – more than two thirds – have a video. And 72 per cent – nearly three quarters – have a car.

    Mr Chairman, what created this unparalleled prosperity?

    It wasn’t socialism.

    It wasn’t Liberalism or nationalism.

    It was Conservatism.

    And it is only Conservatism that will preserve that prosperity – and expand it.

    Wales has changed. It’s no longer famous as the home of dying trades, outdated technologies and clapped-out union attitudes.

    Today it has tomorrow’s industries, not yesterday’s problems.

    Now Wales exports televisions, computers, and compact disc players.

    It is a major tourist destination. And a growing financial centre.

    That is the strong and secure future for Wales under the Conservatives.

    Europe and the Social Chapter

    But our opponents have a very different approach.

    Even though Labour copy our rhetoric daily, there remain many differences between their policies and ours.

    But one difference is fundamental.

    At heart Labour believes that Britain should steadily progress down the road which leads to a federal European superstate.

    The piecemeal erosion of our sovereignty.

    The step by step construction of a United States of Europe.

    Mr Chairman, that is not the right way for a successful Europe.

    It’s not what I believe the people of Europe want. Or the people of the UK. Or the Party.

    And it is not what this Government will ever accept.

    We believe in an effective Single Market with rules fairly applied to all.

    A Europe which strengthens its competitiveness instead of undermining it.

    A Europe built around the free co-operation of sovereign nation-states.

    A Europe which, as it enlarges, recognises that it must be more flexible and cannot become too rigid.

    We will not ride on an escalator that takes us where we do not want to go.

    We will battle for the right sort of Europe – and Britain’s interest in it – in all circumstances and at all times.

    That is why, so long as I am Prime Minister, our opt-outs and our right to say no will not be negotiable.

    Labour’s misguided approach to Europe is summed up by their devotion to the Social Chapter.

    Of course, these days they are happy to use the language of markets, competitiveness, and of success.

    They don’t understand it, but they use it.

    But they talk more loudly and enthusiastically about their commitments to the Social Chapter and the minimum wage.

    Those policies are the ball and chain which Labour would put round the ankle of British business – and thereby cripple our chances of winning in the world’s markets.

    Mr Chairman, I fought to keep Britain out of the Social Chapter.

    I did so at Maastricht even though I was outnumbered on this issue by eleven to one.

    Monsieur Delors lamented that by doing so I had made Britain a “paradise” for foreign investment.

    What has happened since has justified his judgement – and mine.

    For the Social Chapter is not a fixed menu of measures.

    It’s a mechanism which would allow Brussels to foist an endless stream of directives on British business. And just look at some of what we have avoided in the last two years alone, thanks to our opt-out.

    The Works Council Directive.

    The Parental Leave Directive.

    The Part Time Work Directive.

    They might sound harmless.

    But they’re not. Together they would blunt the competitive edge of British businesses.

    Just those three directives alone would cost our companies almost £2 billion a year.

    But don’t just look at the statistics.

    Listen to what foreign companies say. And do.

    Companies like Black and Decker. They’ve switched their factories from Germany to Britain.

    Companies like Daimler Benz. Their Chairman has warned that his company may do the same unless the German government sorts out the problem of rising social costs.

    Companies like Nikko, a large Japanese bank. Their Deputy Chairman has said that firms invest in Britain because of our lower employment costs.

    Companies like Sabena, the national airline of Belgium. They say that they cannot compete with British airlines because

    Belgian social costs are almost three times higher than in Britain.

    So, Mr Chairman, when some suggest that we should surrender the huge competitive advantage which we have gained by staying outside the Social Chapter, my answer is simple.

    That opt-out was hard-won.

    And it is not negotiable.

    And while the opt-out stays in the UK, foreign investment will stay in Wales.

    That’s a Conservative promise that no other party can match.

    But what is Labour’s reaction to this enormous competitive advantage which Britain has gained from sixteen years of Conservative government?

    Do they queue up to praise it?

    Do they promise to build on it?

    Do they even to undertake to protect it?

    No, of course not.

    Labour’s pledge is to do everything they can to eliminate that competitive advantage as fast as possible.

    The Labour leader has said that one of the first acts of a Labour Government would be to sign up to the Social Chapter. That would be a huge and wholly unnecessary blow to British business and British jobs.

    And Mr Chairman, when it really matters, I don’t believe that the British public will vote for a party which is offering them the fastest sell-out since the Christmas sales.

    The Minimum Wage

    Then there is Labour’s commitment to a minimum wage.

    Of course the idea sounds attractive. Who would not want to help people on low incomes.

    But it is a delusion.

    The only way to make people better off is to strengthen the economy, raise skill levels and cut costs.

    That is what we have been doing.

    It is the reason why Britain has seen unemployment fall further and faster in the last two years than anywhere else in Europe.

    It is down by 650,000 since 1992.

    And it is still falling by around 600 a day.

    Falling unemployment is the most effective anti-poverty measure of all.

    And taking measures that destroy jobs is the fastest route to impoverishing a nation.

    Yet that is precisely what a minimum wage does.

    And it would be the low income jobs which the low-skilled, the part-time and the young depend on – either as the first rung on the ladder or as a useful supplement to the family income which would be lost.

    Mr Chairman, we must continue to tell people the truth about the Minimum Wage.

    We must not let them by seduced by its friendly sounding name.

    Under its sugar coating lies the bitter reality that it will cost people their jobs.

    Labour and Devolution

    But, Mr Chairman, of all Labour’s ideas the one which would cause most damage to Wales – and to the United Kingdom – is their plan to tamper with our nation’s constitution.

    Those who want to rip it up should realise that it is not some patchwork quilt that can be stitched together in a different way.

    It’s not a mix’n’match assembly kit.

    It is the product of generations.

    A union that has weathered trial and tribulations because we realise that, united, we are stronger, divided we are weaker.

    No wonder then that we have learned today that a clear majority of the British people – and even most Labour supporters – believe that Labour’s devolution plans would weaken the United Kingdom.

    They are right to think that.

    For Labour’s plans would potentially set each part of the United Kingdom against the others.

    That is why the last time this poison pill was offered, the Welsh people rejected devolution overwhelmingly.

    And that is why they would be wise to do so again.

    Frankly, Labour’s plans for a Welsh assembly are an insult to Wales.

    They carry no conviction.

    They are the left-overs of their plans for Scotland.

    There would be a Parliament at Westminster, a Parliament in Edinburgh, but only an assembly in Wales.

    Now, I think a Parliament in Edinburgh is a mistake.

    But Labour don’t.

    So, if it is right for Scotland, why isn’t it right for Wales?

    Why are Labour taking Wales for granted when it has so often been loyal to them? Let me tell you.

    Labour want a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for their own party political reasons.

    They are afraid of the Scottish Nationalists.

    But a Scottish Parliament, with wide powers including the power to raise more taxes, ought to mean fewer Scottish MPs at Westminster.

    That would mean fewer Labour MPs.

    So to justify keeping Labour’s over-representation at Westminster they have cooked up the idea of a Welsh Assembly and Regional Assemblies around England.

    It’s a blatantly self-interested partisan policy to benefit the Labour Party.

    So the people of Wales would have foisted upon them a whole new layer of bureaucracy, and a whole new class of politicians, just so that Labour can protect their narrow party political interest in Scotland.

    It is a shameful spectacle – and Labour deserve to be punished for it by the electorate.

    In England, Labour’s desperate attempt to find a rational policy has produced a lurch from one policy to another. One day they support regional assemblies everywhere.

    Another day they want regional assemblies to be phased in, in some places.

    Because on yet another day they say regional assemblies would never appear in regions where they were not wanted.

    In Scotland, there is no answer to the big questions.

    Why should Scottish MPs be allowed to vote at Westminster on matters affecting England and Wales, when English and Welsh MPs would not be allowed to vote the same matters affecting Scotland?

    How can that be defended? No answer.

    What is the justification for the Tartan tax – forcing Scottish people to pay more tax than the English and Welsh just because they live North of the border?

    No answer.

    And what happens when a Scottish Prime Minister answerable to a Scottish Parliament finds himself in conflict with a United Kingdom Prime Minister answerable to a United Kingdom Parliament?

    You’ve guessed it – no answer.

    In Wales, as Neil Kinnock said, “Rightly or wrongly, the people will see the Assembly as a body which, in order to justify its forlorn existence, will have to take power from whatever tier of government it can get it’

    So the assembly would try to grab the powers of Welsh councils.

    That’s Labour’s new meaning of devolution.

    Not devolution down to the people, but p to the bureaucrats.

    Labour say their Welsh assembly wouldn’t be allowed to raise taxes.

    But have any of us ever met a socialist elected at any level who doesn’t want to spend more of the public’s money?

    So how long would it be before this Assembly started to demand the power to do so?

    These ideas would produce a decade of constitutional upheaval and muddle.

    But the damage would not stop there.

    The Assembly would become the focus of resentment against Westminster and a recipe for conflict with the rest of the United Kingdom.

    The Nationalists at least have logic on their side.

    They are profoundly wrong, but at least their arguments are logical.

    As for Labour, they have abandoned even the pretence of rationality in their schemes.

    The Mad Hatter could have dreamed them up.

    In their eagerness to tamper with the historical constitution of our Houses of Parliament, to divide up the United Kingdom internally, and to cast aside many of the veto powers protecting our sovereignty in Europe, Labour would inflict great damage on this nation.

    Mr Chairman, we must fight with all our strengths to stop the nation sleepwalking to such a disaster.

    That is our historic task.

    And you have my pledge to put the maintenance of our United Kingdom – and of the place of Wales within it – at the very centre of our campaign for the next Election.

    The Liberals

    Mr Chairman, a few days ago Mr Paddy Ashdown announced that the Liberals were dropping the pretence of being neutral between the Conservative and Labour parties.

    He said that the Liberals would never do a deal with us. Mr Chairman, I have news for Mr Ashdown.

    We’ve always known that he would be happy to prop up a Labour government.

    That’s no surprise at all.

    Mr Ashdown would no doubt be happy to be Minister for Morris Dancing in a Blair Cabinet.

    In fact, I’m sure he’d do that very well.

    But the Leader of the Liberal Democrats announcing the death of Liberalism as an independent political force is of some significance.

    Liberalism has in the past been a powerful force in the history of Wales.

    Whatever our quarrels with the Liberals, we should acknowledge that in parts of Wales they have fought socialism as vigorously as us.

    So I suspect that there will be some Liberals who cannot stomach being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Labour Party.

    They now know from the lips of their own Leader that there is now only one political party in this country which is committed to fighting the divisive, illiberal force of socialism and state control.

    Us.

    So those Liberals who still support the ancient Liberal virtues of individual liberty, of limiting the state, and of ever wider opportunity are welcome to join us.

    For only the Conservative Party now stands for those values.

    And we are open to anyone who shares them.

    Peroration

    Mr Chairman, I’ve no time for fainthearts in this Party.

    At the next election we will defeat Labour and their fellow travellers just as decisively as we have at the last four.

    We will be able to point to clear evidence of rising prosperity, as our decisions bear fruit.

    We will have a detailed agenda of policies to shape a stronger Britain in the new millennium.

    And we will have the knowledge that we and we alone will defend our nation’s interests abroad and our national unity at home.

    That is a strong platform.

    It is the right platform.

    And it is a winning platform.

  • PMQT – 8 June 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 8th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

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

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

    Mr. Legg: Following last week’s launch of the European Commission’s blueprint for the introduction of a single currency, will my right hon. Friend confirm that during the lifetime of this Parliament he will not make any commitments, or support any proposals, for the United Kingdom to subscribe to a timetable for joining the single currency?

    The Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm that. I do not believe that the question of joining a single currency will in practice arise for some time, and I confirm my hon. Friend’s proposition. Arguably, the circumstances may not ever be right, and it is for that reason that I have preserved the House’s right to make its own decision as and when the practical time for a decision may arise. Even if that time does arise, we should need to consider not only the economic conditions but the political and constitutional implications.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister accept that, as a result of the withdrawal of mortgage help for those who become unemployed, the vast majority of home owners–particularly new home owners–will have to take out mortgage insurance? What is his estimate of the cost of that policy to a home owner with an average mortgage?

    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, any responsible Government must review the size of the social security budget– now running at well over £80 million of taxpayers’ money. As for the cost, the right hon. Gentleman may have seen–as I have–the news that the Skipton building society proposes to introduce cover for all its borrowers without increasing premiums.

    I believe that lenders should recognise their obligation to protect home owners, and I hope that others will do the same.

    Mr. Blair: I assume that the Prime Minister is holding that out as an example of what is going to happen. Does he say that there will be any additional cost? If so, what is his estimate?

    The Prime Minister: I am sorry that my first reply clearly flummoxed the right hon. Gentleman. I was holding out what is being done by the Skipton building society as an example of best practice, and I very much hope that other people will have to pay–

    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Who is paying?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman shouts, “Who is paying?” Despite what the Labour party has to say about holding down public expenditure, both he and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition seem keen that the taxpayer should pay on every occasion.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister has failed to deal with the fact that the vast majority of home owners will have to pay more for his policy. If he cannot give us an estimate of the cost, what does he say to this morning’s reports that the insurance claims of many people who have cover are not even met? Would it not be sensible to reconsider a policy that is, in effect, a tax on every home owner, will mean more repossessions and will depress an already depressed housing market?

    The Prime Minister: One would hardly imagine, to listen to the right hon. Gentleman, that, as far as housing is concerned, a Labour study group, for example, threatened to abolish mortgage interest relief totally.

    On the particular point about insurance, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has made clear, we wish to have a high-quality, comprehensive system of mortgage insurance to minimise the danger of home owners losing their home through misfortune. In terms of best practice, I have already said what the cost might be. I hope that other people will look towards that best practice. My right hon. Friend has been working with the Association of British Insurers to develop guidelines for the best practice of mortgage protection insurance and many new, quality products are emerging. That is very much the reason why I welcome initiatives like that from Skipton.

     

    Q2. Mr. Colin Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 June.

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

    Mr. Shepherd: Is my right hon. Friend aware that no one living in Herefordshire now need wait more than nine months for hospital in-patient treatment, and that that significant progress, along with much else, has come about during the first year of the operation of the Hereford hospitals national health service trust? Is that not a good example of the success of health service reforms, and does he agree that it would be crazy to reverse those changes, especially along the lines of the proposals espoused this week by the Labour party?

    Mr. Mackinlay: Assume that the answer is yes and let us get on with it.

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman says that the answer is yes, but I very much doubt that he will ever be here to give the answer, either yes or no. I am pleased to hear of the success of my hon. Friend’s local hospital trust. I recall that it was not all that long ago that the Opposition Front-Bench team was saying that every hospital trust was going to be privatised after the next election, and here is a hospital trust in the national health service performing as my hon. Friend has just set out. He is right about the Opposition’s plans on the health service. They are now sharpening up a threat to the health service, not least by abolishing fundholding, which covers more than 40 per cent. of general practitioner patients up and down the country.

    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Hear, hear.

    The Prime Minister: “Hear, hear,” says the hon. Gentleman. What will he say to the patients of those fundholders when the extra facilities provided by fundholding are lost? He may say, “Hear, hear.” He does not like it. He does not like the extra facilities. If he wishes to damage GP care, that is the way to do it, and that, he acknowledges, is his party’s policy.

    Mr. Sheldon: In the week of the funeral of Lord Wilson, will the Prime Minister consider one of the most important aspects of Lord Wilson’s premiership: his concern about manufacturing production, after the decline of which he called for the need to reinstate Britain as the workshop of the world? In his period, levels of investment in manufacturing were very large and much greater than they have been in the years of this Administration. In the light of today’s decline in the index of industrial production, will the Prime Minister start to accord to manufacturing industry investment the sort of priority that Lord Wilson had?

    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman will know, not only has there been in the past year or so a substantial improvement in the quantum of manufacturing and in manufacturing investment; there has also been, for the first time, I think, since before Lord Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964, a growth in the number of people with full-time jobs in manufacturing industry. When one considers our export figures and breaks them down, one sees the extent to which manufacturing industry–the management and work force in manufacturing industry–have begun to improve and sell their product with greater skill, both at home and abroad, so I share the right hon. Gentleman’s aspirations for manufacturing and I believe that they are coming about.

     

    Q3. Mr. Wilkinson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 June.

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

    Mr. Wilkinson: Has my right hon. Friend had time today to study the recently renegotiated Anglo-United States air services agreement? In that regard, can he confirm that he will use the national veto if necessary on any attempt by the European Union to usurp our country’s right to negotiate with other countries both the destinations for British airlines and the frequency of services, because the EU has shown itself to be manifestly incompetent in curbing the gross subsidies to state carriers on the part of some of our continental partners?

    The Prime Minister: Yes, that has always been negotiated as a national matter and we believe that that is the right way to deal with it. Our concern is to secure the maximum benefits for United Kingdom passengers through increased choice and lower prices. We believe that negotiation by national Governments is the most appropriate way to achieve that. It is precisely in that way that we reached agreement this week with the United States on a further deal to liberalise our air services.

    Mr. Hardy: The Prime Minister will be aware that, during the past few days, many of his colleagues have been trumpeting achievements on employment, suggesting that it is lower in Britain than in most other European countries. Does he accept that examination of the statistics shows that that is eyewash? Does he also accept that many jobs in Britain are filled by people who are paid wages that no one else in Europe would accept?

    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on any of his propositions. Not only is our employment pretty much the lowest in Europe, with the exception of Holland among the larger nations, on any basis that one cares to calculate, but the number of people in employment is growing. For example, if I look at the constituencies of hon. Members whose names are down to ask questions today I see that, from the peak, unemployment in Warwickshire, North is down 40 per cent. [Interruption.] I promise that the hon. Gentleman is not asking a planted question. Unemployment in Southampton, Itchen is down 25 per cent. and it is down 30 per cent. in Denton and Reddish and 24 per cent. in Sedgefield.

     

    Q4. Mr. Nigel Evans: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 June.

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

    Mr. Evans: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Labour councillors in Mid Glamorgan recently gave themselves an allowance increase of 388 per cent.? Does he agree that that is an incredibly selfish and greedy example of how Labour councils work? They whinge about other people’s pay increases but, given the first opportunity, they have their snouts firmly in the trough, they put themselves first and stuff everyone they are supposed to represent.

    The Prime Minister: I did indeed see those reports in the morning press and I would say to those councils and others that they also have a duty to remember that they are spending local taxpayers’ money. If that is an example of new Labour in action, it seems to have no advantages whatsoever over old Labour.

     

    Q5. Mr. Mike O’Brien: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 June.

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

    Mr. O’Brien: The House of Commons Library has told me that, since 1979, unemployment is up more than 100 per cent. in north Warwickshire. If the Prime Minister and his Government come forward with pre-election tax cuts, will those not be bought at the price of underfunding schools and the police? In my county of Warwickshire, we are losing 172 teachers and more than 50 police officers. Are not undermining the police and damaging the educational opportunities of children in Warwickshire too high a price to pay for this Prime Minister who is seeking to save his political neck and that of this discredited Government?

    The Prime Minister: I take it that that was–implicitly–a condemnation of the 388 per cent. increase in Labour councillors’ allowances in Mid Glamorgan.

    Mr. Prescott: What about the Warwickshire 100 per cent. unemployment?

    The Prime Minister: On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, if the deputy leader of the Labour party would care to stop shouting– [Interruption.] The Labour party cannot have it both ways. Labour Members cannot criticise us week after week after week over alleged tax increases and then say that they would oppose tax reductions as well. They had better make up their mind whether they are in favour of high tax, low tax, no tax, or just taking every opportunity that they can on any issue to say whatever happens to be appropriate on the day for a cheap, short-term headline.

    As for education and other matters, the hon. Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O’Brien) will have seen right the way through the period in office of this Government an increase in resources spent on the health service–a dramatic increase in the health service, another £1.3 billion this year, a huge increase in 1979 in real terms over and above inflation year after year after year after year. In education, it does not matter whether one looks at primary, secondary or further education. That is why in 1979 one in eight of our young adults were getting into university and these days it is pretty nearly one in three as a result of the changes that we have made and the increased resources that we have made available.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 7 June 1995

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 7th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Annual General Meetings

    Dr. Spink: To ask the Prime Minister what action he plans to take to prevent pay resolutions submitted by shareholders at company annual general meetings being treated at votes of confidence in the board of directors.

    The Prime Minister: It is for the board to decide how it wishes to respond to any resolution which is submitted by shareholders to the company’s annual general meeting. It is not for Government to determine the stance which either the directors or shareholders should adopt.

     

    Executive Pay

    Dr. Spink: To ask the Prime Minister what action he plans to take to empower and encourage institutional shareholders to control directors’ pay, and particularly in respect of the utilities.

    The Prime Minister: The Government believe that institutional investors should take an active interest in the management of companies in which they invest, including matters such as executive remuneration. The terms of reference of the Greenbury committee, which is examining the structure within which executive pay is determined and disclosed, include consideration of the role of shareholders. I look forward to seeing the committee’s recommendations.

     

    Lowe Bell Communications

    Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister what contracts have been awarded to Lowe Bell Communications since D-Day PR contract in 1994.

    The Prime Minister: Lowe Bell Communications has been awarded no further contracts relating to the World War Two commemorations since the D-Day contract. As for other contracts, this information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 6 June 1995

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 6th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    VJ Day

    Dr. Godman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will re-define VJ day as VP day, victory in the Pacific; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister: No.

     

    Churchill Papers

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister on which occasions the Churchill papers were offered for sale to the Government.

    The Prime Minister: I cannot answer for previous Administrations. A formal offer of sale was made by the current trustees in 1991.

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will instruct the national heritage fund to put the Churchill papers up for public tender without reservation.

    The Prime Minister: No. The papers which constitute the Churchill archive are now the property of the Sir Winston Churchill archive trust, a charitable trust set up for the purpose of preserving the archive intact for the nation.

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister what consideration he gave when deciding whether the Official Secrets Acts covered the Churchill papers in the case of Peter Wright; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister: The case to which the hon. Member refers has little or no relevance to the question of the applicability of the Official Secrets Acts to the Churchill papers.

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister if the national heritage fund is free to sell private papers acquired from the Churchill family; and what evidence he has as to their current market value, taking into account the copyright provisions.

    The Prime Minister: The private papers sold by the Churchill family were bought on behalf of the specially constituted Sir Winston Churchill archive trust through the money allocated from the heritage lottery fund by the national heritage memorial fund. The only way the trust could dispose of the papers would be with the consent of the trustees of the national heritage memorial fund. As trustees of a charitable trust, they may not, in any case, dispose of the permanent endowment of the trust without the consent of the Charity Commissioners or of the courts. The independent advice on the value of the papers which the national heritage memorial fund received took into account the intended arrangements as to copyright ownership.

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister (1) if he will take impartial professional advice as to the open market value, subject to the existing restrictions on copyright, of the private papers purchased by the national heritage fund from the Churchill family;

    (2) what account was taken of the value of the copyright when estimating the amount which might have been paid by purchasers of the Churchill memoirs.

    The Prime Minister: The independent advice on the value of the papers which the national heritage memorial fund received took into account the intended arrangements as to copyright ownership.

     

    Ministers’s Official Broadcasts

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister if drafts of Ministers’ official broadcasts are classified as official papers.

    The Prime Minister: If such drafts are created or acquired by Ministers by virtue of their office, they would be official papers.

     

    Living Standards

    Mr. Austin-Walker: To ask the Prime Minister what is his policy in respect of the state funding improvements in individuals living standards in old age.

    The Prime Minister: Our policy on pensions remains unchanged. We will maintain the value of the basic state pension by increasing it in line with prices, encourage personal responsibility for additional pension provision through occupational and personal pensions and target extra resources on those with low incomes.

     

    Housing Benefit

    Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Prime Minister what provisions his Department has made to ensure that accommodation designed to provide care and support for vulnerable residents and those at risk, is fully covered under the proposed changes to housing benefit.

    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has recently received the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee following its public consultation on the proposed changes to housing benefit. He will be considering carefully the position of sheltered and supported housing under the changes as part of the response to the report.

     

    Ministerial Documents

    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister what classes of document relating directly or indirectly to the performance by Ministers and officials of their duties are still regarded as state papers which cannot be sold for personal gain by Ministers and officials.

    The Prime Minister: Papers which are created or acquired by Ministers or officials, or other Crown servants, by virtue of the office they hold under, or in their service to, the Crown, are regarded as state papers which should not be sold for personal gain. I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to him on 4 May 1995, Official Report, columns 281 82 in respect of the convention relating to papers taken away by Prime Ministers on leaving office.

     

    Local Education Authorities

    Mr. Redmond: To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 25 April, Official Report, column 65, where in the current edition of “Social Trends” can be found the information that education authorities employ two administrators for every three teachers; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), on 27 April, Official Report, column 613.

  • PMQT – 6 June 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 6th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Hoyle: Will the Prime Minister take time off from his engagements to reflect on his fatuous remark that householders suffering from negative equity were responsible for their own plight? Does he not recall that, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he was the main architect of the inflationary Budget of 1988, which led to the dramatic rise in house prices? Instead of blaming those unfortunate householders, will he not for once accept that he is responsible for their calamity?

    The Prime Minister: I know the hon. Gentleman well enough to suspect that he knows that he has quoted me out of context. The remarks that he described as fatuous were actually made by the shadow Chancellor about what I said and were not in fact what I said. I am flattered that the hon. Gentleman should think that I was the main architect of the 1988 Budget, but I rather fancy that the then Chancellor might dispute it.

    Mr. Pickles: Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to look at the decision of Essex county council to end bussing pupils to grammar schools? Is he aware of the great anger in my constituency about that decision? Is he further aware that the savings have now proved to be negligible? Does he agree that, unless the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats reverse their decision, education will go backwards in Essex and only the rich and privileged will be able to afford grammar schools?

    The Prime Minister: I have seen the press reports. I have not called for a detailed report of what has happened, but superficially, on the basis of the reports that I have seen, what has happened seems to be in fairly sharp conflict with the rhetoric of the Leader of the Labour party and the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, both of whom have given me notice that they will be elsewhere this afternoon. I understand that the hon. Member for Sheffield Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) has called on the Government to do something. He wants us to do something to protect the electors from the malice of Labour and Liberal councils.

    Mr. Prescott: Bearing in mind the fact that it was the Prime Minister who set up the Scott inquiry and appointed Sir Richard as chairman, can he now assure the House that Sir Richard Scott continues to enjoy his full confidence?

    The Prime Minister: I asked Sir Richard to carry out that report and I have confidence that he will do so thoroughly. When he has finished his report, I will consider it. When I have considered it, I will comment on it.

    Mr. Prescott: We welcome the Prime Minister’s support for Sir Richard Scott. May I remind the Prime Minister that it was his Chancellor, on the BBC’s “Question Time” last year, who said that he would resign if the inquiry found that he had acted improperly? Can the Prime Minister assure us that, if the inquiry finds that any Minister had knowingly misled the House, he or she must resign?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman may wish to draw conclusions from a partial report not yet– [Hon. Members:– “Yes or no?”] I will reply to the question in my own way.

    The right hon. Gentleman may wish to draw his conclusions on the basis of a partial report; I will draw my conclusions when the report has been responded to by those mentioned in it, when a final report has been produced and when I have had time to study and consider that final report.

    Mr. Prescott rose —

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman should contain himself a moment.

    At that point I will make my judgement on the basis of the facts, not now, as the right hon. Gentleman does, on the basis of his prejudices.

    Mr. Prescott: Will the Prime Minister make it clear that if the inquiry, in its final conclusions, finds that any Ministers have misled the House, they must be asked to resign?

    The Prime Minister: I have made it perfectly clear that I am making no judgements on what may be in the report until the report is complete. What we have seen thus far is a malicious leak of a part of the report– [Interruption.] I repeat, what we have seen thus far is a malicious leak of a part of the report. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to whom the right hon. Gentleman is clearly referring, has made it perfectly clear that he rejects the observations contained in the draft extract and has said that he is confident that he will persuade the inquiry that those views are wrong and inaccurate. We will await the final report.

    Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the disgraceful leak of the Scott inquiry proceedings and their subsequent exploitation by the BBC and the Opposition is a denial of natural justice?

    Mr. Skinner: The Government leaked it.

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has clearly finally flipped if he believes what he is shouting out at the moment. [Hon. Members:– “Who leaked it?”] I wish I knew who had maliciously leaked this selective aspect of the report. But I do know who is seeking to take advantage of that leaked report in studio after studio. I wonder what people might make of someone who takes a partial extract of an incomplete report before it is responded to and appears in every studio in the land to smear someone. I know what I make of him. I make of him the shadow Foreign Secretary.

    Mr. Beith: If the Prime Minister has formed no conclusion about the judgements that will be contained in the final version of the Scott report, how was it possible for reports to emanate from Downing Street yesterday of full support for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in his denial of the conclusions that have been leaked? Will the Prime Minister ever tell us the truth about all this or will the Government behave true to form and never take responsibility for anything that goes wrong?

    The Prime Minister: There was a time, a long time ago, when the Liberal party actually believed in waiting for the facts before it smeared, but that is not so these days. Like Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen, at the first available opportunity it takes the worst possible construction, without facts, without right of reply, without consideration and makes its judgements. I will not do that. I will make my judgement on the basis of the facts when the people criticised have had the opportunity to reply and when they have replied. One day, the right hon. Gentleman might learn that that is the right way for anyone in the House to behave.

    Mr. Butterfill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there can be no public interest defence in what the BBC has done? To behave in the way that it has in respect of a report that will be published in full in any event can only be a subversion of the public interest.

    The Prime Minister: I said a few moments ago how much I deplore the malicious leak and that it appears to have been broadcast without any opportunity being given for the people named in it to respond. I believe that the people of this country will make up their own minds about that behaviour.

     

    Q2. Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Prentice: Further to the Prime Minister’s wholly inadequate reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle), may I remind him of what he said last week? He spoke of the crazy situation of spiralling house prices and silly borrowing. Will he never take responsibility for anything–or is he content to allow mortgage misery to continue for millions of people, shuffling responsibility on to anyone but himself?

    The Prime Minister: What the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) said–which the hon. Gentleman clearly did not understand–was that I had personally blamed the people who had taken mortgages for their difficulties. That is not what I said, as anyone who reads what I said–

    Mr. Prentice indicated dissent.

    The Prime Minister: Here again, the hon. Gentleman does not want to know what was said; he just wants to take the political opportunity to smear again and again and again. That is the single constant factor in the attitude of Opposition Front and Back Benchers: never mind the facts–let us live with the myths.

    Mr. Anthony Coombs: I warmly welcome the Government’s robust approach to the Messina conference last weekend, but will my right hon. Friend remind Jacques Santer, the President of the European Commission, that, far from wanting to give up the opt-out or our national veto, the vast majority of the British people want the European Commission’s interference in the nooks and crannies of British life to be reduced? Is it not typical that the only people who do not appreciate that are members of the European Commission itself and members of the Opposition parties?

    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, we certainly intend to retain the veto in regard to a range of important matters. The Labour party is wrong to seek to undermine the veto position: that will not be understood by people in this country, and it is wholly wrong.

    If Labour Members had taken the opportunity to read the OECD report or any of the other reports, they would also know that their policies on the social chapter can do nothing but harm to this country, while giving great comfort to our competitors.

    I confirm to my hon. Friend that we shall sustain the veto, continue our policy of seeking genuine subsidiarity and certainly try to ensure that the essential parts of British life are protected from external interference.

     

    Q3. Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Sheerman: Looking back on four and a half years in No. 10, what does the Prime Minister most regret? Does he most regret the loss of 800,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector, the repossession of the houses of a third of a million people or his total failure to appoint a team of Cabinet colleagues who are honest, trustworthy or competent?

    The Prime Minister: I will tell the hon. Gentleman precisely what I am most pleased about that has been achieved in the past few years. I am most pleased that we now have the best opportunity for sustained recovery with low inflation and job creation that the country has seen for 30 years. The hon. Gentleman can name no western European country whose position has improved so much over the past four years; he can name no western European country whose unemployment has fallen so rapidly; and he can name no western European country with prospects such as ours. That is what I look back on having achieved in the past four and a half years.

    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend accept that I was in no way misled by our right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he wrote to me about arms to Iraq on 4 May 1989? I was astonished, therefore, that the matter was raised at all in the Scott report. When I asked my right hon. Friend what the score was, however, he replied again that the guidelines were applied on a case-by-case basis, in the light of the circumstances of the day.

    Does my right hon. Friend accept that these are guidelines, not tablets of stone, and that it would be the height of insanity if they were not operated in the light of the circumstances of the day? Does he further accept that I know of no more honourable man in politics than our right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food?

    The Prime Minister: I strongly agree with what my hon. Friend has had to say in the last couple of moments. My right hon. Friend has made those points to the Scott inquiry and I have no doubt that in the response to the preliminary report he will re-emphasise those points.

     

    Q4. Mr. Martlew: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Martlew: The Prime Minister will recall that in the Budget statement in November 1993 the Chancellor gave the go-ahead for the upgrading of the west coast main line. He said that it was the most important rail link in the country.

    Does the Prime Minister realise that to date there have been no contracts let and no work done on that line, the line is crumbling, the service is deteriorating and thousands of passengers are being inconvenienced by the delay? Will he give his Transport Secretary instructions to stop asset-stripping our national railways, and get on with upgrading the west coast main line?

    The Prime Minister: If the facts are as stated by the hon. Gentleman, I think he has made the most classic case for privatisation I have ever heard.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the SPARKS Children and Sport Luncheon – 5 June 1995

    Below is Mr Major’s speech at the SPARKS “Children and Sport” luncheon held on 5th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Sir Alexander, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen. For many reasons, it’s a great privilege to be with you today.

    First, I greatly admire SPARKS and the work that it does.

    Secondly, as many of you may know, sport is a subject very close to my heart and – indeed, in the case of Chelsea and Surrey – close enough to break it from time to time.

    And thirdly, this luncheon enables me to set the stage for some sporting announcements the Government will make shortly.

    I have never believed that the quality of life should revolve simply around material success. That may be important, but it’s not all-important.

    Of equal importance to the quality of life for most people is the availability of sport, of all aspects of the Arts, and the maintenance of our built heritage. It is all too easy for these areas to be overlooked.

    Three years ago, as part of an attempt to redress the balance, I set up the Department of National Heritage. I did so to protect, enhance and develop those areas – because I believe they play an important part in the way of life in our country. Today, I wish to focus on sport.

    I don’t need to tell the supporters of Sparks about the value of organised sport. Your letterhead reads like a roll of honour of British sport. But sadly, I believe children play less sport than they should. I would like to change that because I believe sport is good for children and good for our Nation.

    Britain largely gave organised sport to the world. We invented many of the sports. And, even where we didn’t invent them, we codified and made them popular in every part of the world. We should be proud of that. Today, sport is as much part of the world’s heritage as of our own. But its genesis was with us.

    The pleasure of sport is open to all ages – but most open to those who learn to love sport when young. That is why – and you may feel the same way – I can’t readily accept a situation in which most 14 year olds are offered only an hour and a half a week of physical exercise in our schools – while surveys tell us they spend a day and a half a week watching television.

    This is a trend I intend to reverse. And, since I am where I am, with your help I can do something about it.

    Some people regard sport as frivolous. I don’t agree. It’s part of a rounded life for millions.

    A love of sport is also one of the gifts we can give to children. It’s good for both their physical and mental growth.

    It allows them to let off steam.

    It lets them enjoy the sense of growing strength and skills. It’s a binding force between generations.

    But all this is to be too dispassionate about sport. Above all, it produces pure enjoyment for those who play and those who watch. Frankly, for me, it needs no other recommendation than that.

    But competitive sport does teach something else very valuable as well. For every time it delivers both a winner and a loser. Sportsmen must learn to be both.

    Sport only works if both parties play by the rules, accept the result with good grace, and never shout at the referee. And those, too, are lessons which are valuable in later life, even if it doesn’t always look that way when you watch the proceedings of the House of Commons on television.

    And there is a wider social case for sport too; playing sport with others provides social skills. It opens doors. It offers the equipment for a more fulfilled life, both when taking part and when looking on.

    Many young people have always had good access to sport. But others have been less fortunate. Inadequate sporting provision takes something from young lives – and dangerously so, for it removes one of the best means of learning how to live alongside others and make a contribution as part of a team.

    I have an ambition to share with you all. And I’m going to need your help to deliver it. I want to put sport back at the heart of weekly life in every school. To re-establish sport as one of the great pillars of education alongside the academic, the vocational and the moral. It should never have been relegated by the educational theorists to be just one part of one subject in the curriculum. But it has and, over time, that must be reversed.

    If we are to bring about the sea change that I want to see, we in Government will need the help of men and women of goodwill everywhere, parents, teachers, coaches, sporting bodies themselves. I can tell you today that we will be publishing shortly a Policy Statement that will set out in the direction we wish to go, both in school and beyond.

    It will be a detailed programme. But it will also be the platform for further development beyond our immediate plans. It will sustain the place of minor sports that bring much enjoyment, but it will also ensure that our great traditional sports – cricket, hockey, swimming, athletics, football, netball, rugby, tennis and the like – are put firmly at the centre of the stage.

    Our policy plans will reassert our commitment to competitive and team sport in school and beyond school. They will encourage schools, governors and parents to match sporting provision in their school against the best – and help them to do so. But we know, also, that sports education is only the first step to a lifetime’s enjoyment of sport. We need to ensure that sporting opportunities continue after school.

    At present, too many teenagers find it difficult to transfer their sporting interests to the world outside school.

    So we will aim to improve links between school and club sport. To give improved access to high quality coaching and to promote sensible arrangements to share facilities and equipment.

    There is much in this for clubs as well as schools. If a club wants to see its sport grow, and the standard at which it is played improve, it will need to build up its pool of talent. Active links with local schools are clearly the best means of achieving this.

    More school sport, and better links between schools and clubs, will be two key themes of our policy. But there’s another aspect too.

    I take as much pride as anyone in seeing British sportsmen and women leading the world. That was why I was so keen to see the Olympics come to Britain. The Barcelona Games were a giant fillip for Spanish sport – and we must work to get high quality world sport here in the future.

    But the first ingredients we need to win are the men and women themselves. I don’t want to see them having to go abroad to learn how to exploit their talents to the full. We need fully developed programmes of talent spotting and talent support right here at home. And then we can see our sportsmen going out and showing the world how to do it – Cape Town, and Atlanta, and, please Heaven, Bridgetown, Barbados and Adelaide too.

    Sport in schools; sport in clubs; and a new deal for elite sport. These are not three separate themes – they will run together in our policy programme. We will soon set out in detail how the Government intends to deliver these objectives. But, as we do, I know one thing. The existence of resources from the National Lottery has transformed for ever the prospects of British sport.

    Indeed, when I decided to create the National Lottery that was among my aims. It was a way to provide the resources for sport – and indeed the Arts – that would be unlikely ever to come directly from the taxpayer.

    The £300 million a year that the Lottery in full flood will provide for sport will revolutionise it over the years ahead. So, too, will the huge and growing contribution of the corporate sector.

    Many businesses, such as the ones who provide SPARKS with sponsorship, already commit considerable time and money to sport and to charity. They do a fantastic job. We hear all too much today about the claims of corporate greed. I wish we could hear more about some of the amazing corporate generosity in this country and the tens of thousands of charities that British companies support.

    I wanted to take the opportunity today to underline the importance I attach to our forthcoming plans to improve sport in Britain – and by that I mean sport for all, girls and boys and those with disabilities too. Few people have brought more pride and honour to Britain than those superb disabled athletes who have won such a hatful of medals in the Olympic Games.

    Sport is fun. I hope it’s not old fashioned to say that. Fun, fun, fun. And we want as many people as possible to enjoy it. It’s fun to be the best. And so we also want to develop the skills to make us the best. These are our ambitions for the years ahead.

    The children who suffer from the illnesses which SPARKS is doing so much to combat will not all be able to participate in sport. But almost all can take pleasure from it. And, for these children, and for people of all ages, it is a relief from the hardships they face. They have a right to that pleasure. I hope we can increasingly provide it.

    So today, let me end by paying special tribute to the excellent work which SPARKS carries out. Their sort of voluntary generosity and concern for others stands foursquare in the British tradition.

    If by being here today we can further raise the profile of SPARKS and increase its capacity to carry on with its support for innovative medical research, then all will have been worth while. I, for my part, would like to thank you all for the excellent work which you do and to wish you every success for the future.

  • Mr Major’s Lincoln Breakfast Speech on the Economy – 1 June 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to business people in Lincoln before breakfast on Thursday 1st June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    [parts of original recording were of poor quality]

    What I would like to do over the next hour and a half or so is just talk a little about where we are in terms of economic recovery, what is happening in terms of industrial, commercial and economic policy and the prospects that lie immediately ahead of us in the next two or three years and perhaps a bit longer.

    Let me firstly just trace back over some of the difficulties that we have had and try and explain to you where we are and why we are precisely where we are at the moment.

    I don’t think that anyone would dispute the fact that the recession lasted longer across the whole of western Europe than we thought it would and was sharper and harsher than we thought it would be and it was a different sort of recession than many people had seen before. We have long been accustomed in western Europe to recessions extending particularly to the manufacturing industry. This recession was a “white collar recession” in a way we had not seen before and it was for that reason in many ways more difficult to understand and more difficult to deal with.

    Essentially, the problem arose on the back of so many people investing so much in the housing market. I recall the rather crazy situation that existed in the housing market towards the end of the 1980s [indistinct] house prices went spiralling upwards and it was always likely that that was going to stop at some stage [indistinct] by the time it stopped an awful lot of people had committed themselves [indistinct] with mortgages that were a good deal bigger than ideally they would have had but inflation began to take hold, interest rates began to rise, mortgage costs began to rise, house prices stopped rising and fell and the negative equity trap which has done so much to damage confidence [indistinct] began to hit them. Because of our very high levels of owner-occupation and our particular affinity for home ownership in the United Kingdom, it hit many people rather hard at first.

    What about the economy generally? We came out of recession technically and the economy began growing again almost three years ago. As we have seen in recessions in the past, when you come out of recession it isn’t immediately apparent and people will say two or three years after the recession, technical as it is, that they don’t think it is finished and it is still going on. But yet for three successive years we have had growth. We had growth of over 4% last year, we will have growth probably of over 3% this year and if the forecasts are correct, growth of over 3% next year so for three successive years we will have had growth well above the trend average in the United Kingdom, well above that of any of our European partners probably and for the first time probably in the lifetime of most of the people sitting round the table we will have had a three-year period in which the growth of the economy has exceeded inflation. That isn’t typical if one looks at the performance of the British economy since the Second World War.

    So we have certain factors which for our economy are unusual at the moment. We have growth significantly above trend, we have inflation well below the European average, we have unemployment well below the European average, indeed, only one western European country has unemployment below us, only one country of any significant size and all the others have unemployment higher than ours. No other country in western Europe is seeing unemployment falling as regularly as we have and no other country in western Europe has also seen such a growth in exports or such an increase in investment.

    If you put those things together, it does begin to produce an economic scenario, provided we can build on it, that we haven’t seen for a very long time. I will tick the points off:

    Inflation: very low, below the average.

    Unemployment: falling.

    Investment: still continuing steadily

    Exports: growing at record levels; nine times in the last fourteen months we have hit new export levels.

    Competitiveness: growing.

    Those are a combination of circumstances we haven’t seen for a very long time. We are still attracting in the United Kingdom around 14% of all the external investment that comes into the whole of western Europe and we are doing so for the sort of reasons that were evident in the OECD report just the other day that our supply side and economic measures are more effective and more efficient than elsewhere in Europe, that we have fewer employment on-costs than most of our European partners and that don’t find ourselves tied to many of the social and other employment costs that so many of our European partners do.

    Those are great advantages. It is for those reasons that Jacques Delors I recall said something of great wisdom on this particular occasion when he said that without the Social Chapter we would become a paradise for investors and he was speaking relatively on western Europe and on this occasion I think he was correct and I think increasingly that [indistinct].

    Those are the economic circumstances that we have. They are as clement as we have had for a very long time. We look as though we are heading for a classic economic recovery. When we came out of recession in the early 1980s, we immediately had a great boom in wages, indeed right the way through the 1980/82 recession wage increases never fell below 7.5% even in the depths of the recession when unemployment was rising, the pound was at extraordinary levels and all sorts of other major [indistinct] happened and that has always led to an uncompetitive [indistinct].

    Three years after this recession technically ended, we have wage rises running at about 3.5%. That may not mean a great deal of what people these days loosely call the “feel good factor” – and indeed it means [indistinct] — than they otherwise would have been – but it does mean that our industry and commerce are infinitely more efficient, effective and competitive than otherwise they would have been.

    When people say to me: “Where is the feel good factor?”, I think I would see it this way: The feel good factor in the last two years has been wrapped up in increased competitiveness and increased jobs and the people who are benefiting from it are 600,000 people who were on the unemployment register two years ago and who are now in work. It hasn’t been dissipated across the country at large with great increases to everybody; it has wrapped up in fresh interests, fresh jobs and 600,000 have benefited from that and are back in work whereas elsewhere in Europe they are either increasingly becoming unemployed or staying unemployed.

    So that is the background about which I thought we might talk over breakfast. I thought we might talk about future policy, particularly for small and medium-sized firms and what the prospects might be for us in the years ahead.

    In simple summary: unless we throw away the gains that have been so far made, the prospects for continued growth with low inflation and the sort of stable environment that you need as businessmen and employers are extremely good unless we are silly and throw it away and I have no intention of doing that.

  • Mr Major’s Commons Statement on Bosnia – 31 May 1995

    Below is Mr Major’s statement on the situation in Bosnia, made on 31st May 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): In the three weeks since the House last debated Bosnia, the position has qualitatively changed. Conflict has grown. The shelling of Sarajevo has intensified. UN soldiers have been deliberately targeted and killed by both sides. UN personnel, including officers and men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, have been taken captive by Bosnian Serbs.

    The Government have decided to reinforce our contingent in Bosnia, and the diplomatic pace has quickened. For all those reasons, I thought it right to seek the recall of Parliament to set out the Government’s response to this tense and dangerous situation. Let me recall for the House the evolution of this crisis. The dispute in Bosnia began to crystallise in the spring of 1992, when Bosnia declared its independence. War broke out, and the country split into three parts. I believe that it would have been wrong for us to stand and watch Bosnia burn, and we did not.

    In August 1992, I convened the London conference which brought the parties together in search of a political settlement. We set up the Sarajevo airlift, and we were instrumental in establishing the United Nations protection force’s Bosnia command. The first British troops arrived in Bosnia in November 1992. Let me remind the House why we sent them. First is the humanitarian case. I believe that we have a duty–a moral responsibility if one likes–to play our part in the relief of suffering. Soldiers were being killed, but we also saw civilian suffering in Bosnia on a massive scale. There was ethnic cleansing–cold-blooded and racial-based murders. There was widespread rape and brutality. As winter approached, there was the clear prospect of widespread starvation.

    There had been nothing like it in Europe since the second world war. The aid agencies were doing their best, but they needed protection if the convoys bearing food and medicines were to get through. So we decided to play our part in providing that protection.

    Bosnia is close to the borders of the European Union. Even so, precisely the same case for help was seen by countries as far away as Canada, Malaysia and New Zealand, all of which have joined us in the task. Service men and women of 19 nations have stood with our relief agencies and our troops to help alleviate suffering. Many who would have died are alive today because of that effort. We should understand that many alive today would die if that effort were to end.

    Secondly, we sent our soldiers there for strategic reasons. The Balkans have often enough been a tinderbox in history, and war memorials throughout the United Kingdom testify to the price paid in British blood for past Balkan turbulence. The Bosnian war by itself might not directly affect our interests, but a wider conflagration across the Balkans–leading to a wider Balkan war–most certainly would affect our strategic interests.

    If unchecked, the fighting in Bosnia could have ignited not only a Serb- Croat war in Croatia, but unrest in Kosovo and Macedonia. That could easily have dragged Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey into confrontation with one another. The Bosnian dispute has always contained within it the seeds of the nightmare of a wider Balkan war.

    The consequences of a wider Balkan conflict would be disastrous for Europe as a whole. In my judgment, it is unquestionably in our national interest to prevent that if we are able to do so. The United Nations protection force and British forces may not have extinguished the fighting in Bosnia, but they have contained it and they have prevented it from spreading. That is a remarkable tribute to their efforts. Had they not been there, the circumstances we face today might have been incomparably more serious than those that we are debating this afternoon.

    If it is in our national interest to avert a greater calamity in Bosnia and the Balkans, so it is for other members of NATO and the European Union. The strategic case and the humanitarian case were the twin reasons why I thought it right to commit British troops in 1992. Both those cases apply in equal measure today–which is why I expressly do not wish to see the United Nations protection force withdraw until or unless the risks become wholly unacceptable. I will describe in more detail the developments of the last three weeks. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary warned the House on 9 May that there was a real risk of a relapse into substantial war, in place of the ragged and uncertain peace of previous months. Since then, my right hon. Friend’s words, sadly, have been borne out. There has been a chain reaction of attack and counter-attack by Bosnian Government and Bosnian Serb forces. Both parties have violated the Sarajevo exclusion zone by firing heavy weapons on to the confrontation lines and into the city itself.

    On 24 May, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative and the protection force commander made a further attempt to stop the escalating bombardment. They issued an ultimatum that certain heavy weapons should be returned to the collection points and other heavy weapons be removed from the exclusion zone. When the Bosnian Serb army ignored that ultimatum, NATO carried out a successful air strike against an ammunition store near Pale. It did so at the United Nations’ request.

    Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Were the Russians consulted about the ultimatum? Were they consulted about the strike against the ammunition dumps? If not, would it not have been wise to do so?

    The Prime Minister: That was, as it was intended to be, a decision on the ground. No individual national Government were directly consulted. There is a proper procedure for determining how such strikes are approved, and that procedure was followed. The troops are there as United Nations troops, with a United Nations commander who happens to be a British general, and they proceeded at the request of the United Nations. I believe that they proceeded correctly.

    Shortly afterwards–in deliberate escalation–the Bosnian Serbs launched artillery attacks against the populations of Srebrenica, Gorazde and Tuzla. In the bombardment of Tuzla, 70 people were killed and 130 were injured. They were, I understand, for the most part innocent civilians in a marketplace–men, women and children going about their daily business. They were not armed combatants in the conflict.

    Following a second NATO air strike against the ammunition storage complex on 26 May, the Bosnian Serb army began to take United Nations military observers and members of the protection force as hostages. Hon. Members will have seen, in the press and on television, that some of these hostages, in an outrageous breach of international law and of their status as United Nations peacekeepers, were chained to potential targets as so- called “human shields”.

    On 27 May, the Bosnian Serb army attacked and captured a French observation post at Sarajevo. The post was subsequently retaken, but one French soldier was killed, 11 were wounded and 10 were taken captive. On Sunday 28 May, United Kingdom and Ukrainian soldiers were taken captive at Gorazde. Some of the Ukrainians were taken by Bosnian Government forces.

    I have set out in this brief summary only the bare facts of the situation confronting the United Nations and NATO commanders on the ground, but there is no doubt in my mind that these events mark a qualitative change in the conflict, and one to which we and our partners have no choice but to respond very firmly.

    Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield): The House is listening intently, obviously, because of the British soldiers who are being held, but can the Prime Minister tell the House how he reconciles humanitarian aid given by British solders in blue berets with bombing attacks by American pilots in blue berets? Is it possible to combine humanitarian aid with a combative role? Is that not the question to which he should address himself?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows precisely what has happened when the NATO attacks–not necessarily American: they are NATO planes–in these circumstances have been used, and they have been used as a deterrent to persuade the Bosnians that that sort of activity is not acceptable to the international community in any way whatever.

    It is not very long ago–as the right hon. Gentleman will recall, for he will have hated this as much as anyone else did–that the nature of atrocities that we saw at the beginning of this war spread a darkening stain right the way across the conscience of the whole of Europe and the whole of the world as well. I believe, in these circumstances, that we have not only a right but an obligation to take the action that has been taken, to try to bring this conflict to an end and to end the suffering that so many people have faced in Bosnia.

    Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): Does the Prime Minister agree with the French Prime Minister that the preparation of those air strikes was not good, and that it led to putting the peacekeepers at risk in a thoughtless way?

    The Prime Minister: I said just a moment ago that I thought that it was right for the commanders on the ground to proceed as they did, and I have to say that I do not believe that I am prepared to second-guess the decisions of the commanders on the ground to whom those decisions were delegated, and I do not wish to do so. Let me now turn to the response that I believe we should make, and first to the matter that I believe is most upon the minds of the House this afternoon: the British and the other United Nations troops who have been taken captive and held hostage.

    The situation is that more than 350 United Nations personnel–who, I remind the House, have been serving in an impartial humanitarian and peacekeeping role in Bosnia–are now being illegally held by the Bosnian Serb army. Of these, one is a Royal Air Force officer serving as a United Nations military observer, and 33 are officers and men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, who were taken captive last Sunday from observation points around the town of Gorazde, where 336 British solders are based.

    Six–not five as previously reported–of the soldiers have apparently been injured in a road accident and are in hospital, although none of them, we believe, is in a serious condition. The fusiliers are thought to be in Visegrad and in both good heart and good health. The taking of United Nations peacekeepers as hostages is a despicable act, which has rightly been condemned around the world. It is without a shred of justification. It will win the Bosnian Serbs no favours and gain them no friends. It will guarantee unremitting hostility to them, and the certainty of pariah status and international isolation.

    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mon): The Prime Minister will be aware that the whole House and those outside it–particularly in Wales–will be very concerned about the safety and welfare of the 33 young soldiers who have been taken hostage by the Serb aggressors. Will he tell the House today that whatever action he proposes to take will in no way endanger the safety of those young men, and that he will ensure that that action will be taken to secure their early release?

    The Prime Minister: I will have something to say in a few moments about what we propose to do. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand why it would be neither wise nor prudent for me to say too much about the matter at this time.

    Within hours of the capture of the British troops, we took steps to make it clear, directly and unequivocally, to the Bosnian Serb leadership that the safety of our troops in Bosnia is of vital British interest. We have told Mr. Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, that we shall hold him and General Mladic personally responsible for the well-being and the safe return of our troops. These words are not lightly spoken, and, as I shall explain, we are reinforcing our protection force contingent.

    No one should doubt our resolve to secure the safe return of our soldiers. Yet, as we embark on the moves towards such a result, I hope that the House will understand if I do not go into detail about the courses that may be available to us.

    Mr. Roy Hughes (Newport, East): Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister: In a moment. With the lives of British soldiers at stake, there will be a need for patience, a time for restraint, perhaps at times a need for silence. But if the silences are long, and if the requirement for restraint and patience becomes frustrating, no one in the House should imagine that those soldiers will be forgotten. The work to secure their release will be unremitting.

    Mr. Hughes: Does the Prime Minister appreciate that eight members of the Royal Welch Fusiliers are at present unaccounted for? Does he appreciate that there is considerable concern among their relatives back home about their safety?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the observation post near Gorazde. I understand entirely the points that he has to make. Let me turn to the reason why our forces are in Bosnia–and to what they are not there to do. Our troops have not gone to Bosnia to wage war, but even on humanitarian duties we have seen that they need protection. If they are attacked, they must be able to defend themselves robustly.

    The protection force commander in Bosnia, General Smith, knows that he has our complete support. The protection force must be able to take whatever action is necessary in justifiable self-defence. When it does so, it will have the unqualified backing of the British Government–and, I believe, of the British nation. To improve the protection force’s capacity to defend itself, the Government on Sunday night decided to enhance the equipment and manpower available to the force.

    At present, we have some 3,400 troops in Bosnia, protecting convoys and monitoring local ceasefires. A further 3,000 men and women from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy are engaged in the airlift from Italy to Sarajevo; in NATO operations to police the air exclusion zone; in the joint enforcement by NATO and the Western European Union of the arms embargo and trade sanctions; and as contingency reinforcements on a carrier task group.

    Anyone who has had the privilege of visiting any of those units, as I have, knows that they have carried out their peacekeeping tasks with scrupulous fairness and with a cool resolve–often in the face of provocation. I believe that we can be truly proud of them. But despite their military professionalism, the troops on the ground in Bosnia now need more protection, and the safety of those troops is, as I said, of vital national interest.

    So we have decided to dispatch two artillery batteries and an armoured engineer squadron to Bosnia, totalling around 1,000 personnel. The first detachment, from 19 Field Regiment, left for Bosnia yesterday. Those units will increase our contingent’s armoured capability. Crucially, they will provide artillery. They will be equipped with 12 105 mm light guns. That will provide the protection forces, for the first time, with the artillery that is now necessary as a deterrent and response to bombardment.

    That does not mean that we are taking sides in the conflict. The protection force remains neutral, and it remains impartial. But, to defend itself, it now needs a capability to fill the gap between machine guns and air strikes.

    The Government have also announced that 24 Air Mobile Brigade has been placed under orders to prepare to deploy to Bosnia. The order to move will be given unless there is a clear and rapid improvement in the situation. We have proposed to the United Nations that the brigade, as United Nations troops, should come under the command of General Rupert Smith in Sarajevo. We are now discussing the details of the deployment with the United Nations.

    Let me say a little more about 24 Air Mobile Brigade. It is a flexible, self-contained force of over 5,000 personnel. It is, as its title suggests, able to deploy very rapidly within theatre. Its equipment includes Army and Royal Air Force helicopters, Milan anti-tank weapons, artillery batteries, an air defence battery and engineer and medical support. We have constantly said that the safety of British troops is crucial; our readiness to deploy the Air Mobile Brigade is ample testimony to that.

    Let me emphasise one point that I know is of concern to the House, which should not be misunderstood in the House or beyond it. The protection force is in Bosnia as an humanitarian and peacekeeping force. It is not there to impose peace, and it is not equipped or configured to fight a war. Those points are fundamental, and we do not intend that they should be changed.

    Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey): Does the Prime Minister accept that there will be widespread support, both in the House and outside, for the concept that not just serving the British flag but serving the United Nations is among the most honourable of tasks for our armed forces?

    Although some may react by saying that, as soon as there is particular danger, the troops should be withdrawn, it is also true–given that these are among the best armed forces in the world, equipped to deal with particular danger–that many in those forces will regard the job they have started as a job that they would rather continue, if that is possible. Not necessarily success, but the attempt to bring about peace on behalf of the international community, is the reason why the forces are there, and the reason why the Government are right to support them in the way that the Prime Minister has announced.

    The Prime Minister: I have indicated that I wish our forces to stay there, and I wish the United Nations protection force as a whole to stay there to carry out the job for which it was sent. That job is not yet concluded; I hope that it will be possible for it to remain. We see a strong case for reducing the vulnerability of United Nations personnel– particularly the United Nations military observers, who have been in the most exposed positions. Some may need to be withdrawn, others concentrated and others given stronger protection. The commanders on the ground are best placed to determine precisely how that should be done, in consultation with the Secretary-General and, through him, with the Security Council. I understand that the Secretary-General will shortly be making his recommendations to the Security Council on the future role of the protection forces.

    Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West): Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister: May I make a little progress? Our decisions have been warmly welcomed by the protection force and by other Governments. The contact group agreed on Monday that the protection force should have a rapid reaction capability. France, which at present has the largest contingent in Bosnia, has sent reinforcements to the Adriatic. Some other troop contributors are also thinking of strengthening their contingents.

    Madam Speaker, those decisions are intended to help carry UNPROFOR through a dangerous phase. We hope that they will make it more secure, will help it to fulfil its tasks, and will deter further escalation. If we can damp down the level of violence and make progress towards a lasting cessation, at that point the protection force would no longer need the enhanced protection.

    However, success for the protection force rests ultimately with the warring parties. I believe that, at this moment, Bosnia is at a turning point. It must be made clear to the parties that, if they turned to all-out war, the protection force would not be equipped to remain. It would be unable to carry out its tasks, and the risks to the troops of all nationalities would be unacceptable.

    Withdrawal is not our objective; but our ability to handle withdrawal, if it is forced upon us, would undoubtedly be helped by the further deployment that I have announced to the House today.

    Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay): Before we commit more troops to that theatre who may suffer the same fate as the troops who are already there, will my right hon. Friend comment on the report that the Serbs have said that, if we agree to cease bombing, they will release the hostages? Is that report accurate? If it is, what are we doing to make NATO give us that assurance?

    The Prime Minister: I yield to no one in my wish to have those troops returned safely to their units, but I am not entering into that sort of blackmailing deal.

    Madam Speaker, in taking those decisions, we have unequivocally signalled our serious intent. We wish to see the protection force remain in Bosnia and continue its work. We wish to restore equilibrium to a situation that has become dangerously unstable. We continue to believe that only a political settlement will end the conflict. There can be no satisfactory and lasting military solution.

    The way ahead may yet be rocky and painful. I know that many people, for good and understandable reasons, may advocate withdrawing the forces and, as I have said to the House, circumstances could arise in which that would become inevitable. But withdrawal is not a policy. No one should believe that leaving Bosnia would end the United Kingdom’s interest in the conflict.

    Mr. Morgan: I wish to put a question to the Prime Minister on behalf of the families of the 30 Welsh soldiers who are being held in Bosnia. Was it primarily the responsibility of the British Government or of the United Nations to have secured in advance some means of escape for those soldiers who were being held in the very difficult pockets of the further extensions of Bosnia in case things got extremely difficult–as they have done–and there was hostage taking? Whose responsibility was that?

    The Prime Minister: I think that we have a joint interest in securing their release. Of course, their deployment is a matter that must be determined on the ground, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and the soldiers themselves would well know. Let me turn to the possible consequences of withdrawing the protection force. If the United Nations left, what would be the likely outcome?

    The first likely outcome is that the Muslim areas, including the eastern enclaves, would be likely to come under immediate threat. The bloodshed and loss of life could be massive. Before we sent troops three years ago, Bosnia was on the brink of genocide–of atrocities far worse than we have yet seen. If we depart, I remind the House that those dangers return. Could the west stand idly by and let such actions take place in south-eastern Europe? I doubt it; I truly doubt it. Would we ignore the threat of an all- out Balkan war? Again, I do not believe that we would or should ignore such a threat. Leaving Bosnia–if the protection force is forced to do so–is neither an easy nor a pain-free option. The threats would return if the United Nations protection force withdrew, and we and our allies would have to find other ways of responding to them–ways which could conceivably impose a greater financial and military burden on us than we are now carrying. Those who contemplate withdrawal must think very carefully about the humanitarian consequences and the strategic implications for European security.

    At present, UNPROFOR is holding the ring. It must try to continue to do so, while we seek a political solution. Despite every effort by Governments and individuals–notably Lord Owen and Mr. Stoltenberg–the search for a negotiated settlement has been extremely frustrating. For months, progress has been blocked by the intransigence of the Bosnian Serbs.

    Over the past week, we have been in close touch with our partners to reinvigorate diplomatic efforts and maximise the pressure on Pale. I have spoken to the Presidents of Russia, the United States and France, the German Chancellor and the Canadian Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has attended meetings of the contact group, NATO and the European Union, and this morning had further discussions with the Russian Foreign Minister.

    As a result of those meetings, there is a renewed unity of purpose among contact group Governments. The Russian Government condemned the behaviour of the Bosnian Serbs in the strongest possible language. We wish to see an equally clear stance from President Milosevic. The contact group’s emissary is in Belgrade today. If the contact group can secure the recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the former republic of Yugoslavia, fears or ambitions of a greater Serbia should be laid to rest, and the message to the Bosnian Serbs would be absolutely unmistakable.

    I have tried to set out the situation as I see it. It is stark and it is serious, but we cannot avoid it. So I hope the word will go out this afternoon from all parts of the House that British peacekeepers, United Nations peacekeepers, must be released unharmed and unconditionally.

    Let us show our forces, whether they are on land, at sea or in the air in the former Yugoslavia and the Adriatic, that they have the total support of the House. They have saved many lives. They have brought peace and hope and a semblance of normality to central Bosnia. They have prevented the spread of war. They are defending British interests and international security. Their courage and professionalism have earned the widest admiration. They deserve our wholehearted backing, and I commend it to the House.

  • Mr Major’s London Press Conference on Bosnian Situation – 30 May 1995

    Below is the transcript of Mr Major’s press conference in London on Tuesday 30th May 1995 on the subject of Bosnia.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    All of you of course will know of the decisions that were taken on Sunday night. I should perhaps emphasise, some people perhaps may not have noticed this, that the meeting for Sunday night was of course called some time before the British hostages were taken. There will be an opportunity in the House of Commons tomorrow, in both Houses, for a full debate on the Bosnian situation generally and upon the decisions we took on Sunday night. What I would like to do in the next few minutes is to share with you how the Government intends to handle this difficult moment for our troops in Bosnia.

    Let me just say something about those troops at the outset. British people are immensely proud of their Armed Forces and I may address that remark to those of you present here in this conference, but I direct them more to our soldiers, the families and relatives of those who serve in Bosnia, and perhaps particularly to the families of those soldiers who are held hostage at the present moment. At this difficult time it is to them that my thoughts are principally directed.

    I sent, as Prime Minister, our troops to Bosnia and I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that our soldiers are released from their present captivity. We have not lightly said that this is a vital national interest. We have sent a letter to Mr Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, that we shall hold him and General Maladic personally responsible for the safety of British troops in Bosnian Serb hands.

    We are of course also acting in close concert with our allies and with those governments whose peace-keepers are also being held captive. This new development, this taking hostage of peace-keepers is an outrage, condemned by the whole international community, and rightly so. But not only is it an outrage, it is a self-defeating folly. There can be no possible gain, political or military, from threatening the lives of those who have saved countless lives, of Serb, Croat, Muslim, right across the whole of Bosnia.

    So let me say quite clearly to the Bosnian Serbs, this sort of action is the path to total international isolation and permanent pariah status.

    In the present circumstances we now have to think coolly and with a clear head about the way forward. In the past few days I have been in close contact with Chancellor Kohl, President Yeltsin, President Chirac, President Clinton and Prime Minister Cretian. My colleagues, the Foreign and Defence Secretaries, have been in equally close touch with their colleagues from NATO and from the Contact Group.

    My own view has always been that so long as the United Nations troops, including the British contingent, can carry out their humanitarian mission without unacceptable risk to their lives, then they should continue to carry out that mission. Neither do I agree with those who say that the West has no strategic interest in this conflict. The prevention of a full-scale Balkan war is very much a strategic interest for those of us in the West.

    That remains my view. And it is very easy to forget in present circumstances precisely what our troops have achieved. They have stopped the fighting from spreading more widely throughout the Balkans; they have negotiated and upheld ceasefires; they have delivered literally thousand upon thousand of tons of food and medicines to people who would otherwise surely have died; and fighting has stopped in much of Central Bosnia over the last 15 months and that of course is where most of the British troops have been based during this period.

    These are achievements that our troops there can rightly be proud of and they are not to be lightly discarded. If the United Nations Protection Forces were to be forced by events to withdraw then the consequences for all the people of Bosnia, and for the wider Balkan region, would be very grave. And it is for that reason that the British Government has never favoured withdrawal.

    But plainly we cannot go on as we are. I therefore ask Douglas Hurd and Malcolm Rifkind to pursue with our allies and partners a three-point strategy:

    – First, we are strengthening the military muscle of British troops in the Protection Forces. That is why we announced on Sunday night the despatch of two artillery batteries and an armoured engineer squadron to Bosnia, the first contingent will leave today. We are also preparing to deploy 24 Air Mobile Brigade. These deployments serve not one, but two, purposes: they will strengthen the British troops’ capacity to defend themselves and they also put in place the kind of reinforcements which would be necessary were a decision taken to withdraw from Bosnia, although I have said withdrawal emphatically is not – not – our objective.

    – Secondly, we must look urgently at the mandate and deployment of Protection Forces troops. We are proposing to our partners and allies that there should be a concentration of United Nations forces so as to reduce their vulnerability.

    – And third, we have to strain every nerve to achieve a political settlement. Without one there will be, in our judgment, no lasting end to the fighting.

    Finally, let me repeat again that we wish to see the United Nations Protection Forces stay in Bosnia, but circumstances could arise where the cost of asking British troops to bear an impossible burden, or to run unacceptable risks, could become too high. I hope that the additional reinforcements will make it possible for UNPROFOR to remain. But if the parties themselves, make that impossible, if they abuse the neutrality, the impartiality and the humanitarian purposes of the United Nations then we and other contributors may find ourselves in the position where there is no viable choice but to bring the Protection Forces home.

    Were that to happen, we would all be losers. If UNPROFOR had to pull out, the United Nations would lose, NATO would lose, the European Union would lose and the authority of the international community would lose. But the greatest loss of all I believe would be in former Yugoslavia itself where Serbs, Croats and Muslims would face a future ruled even more by violence and insecurity than they have faced in the last couple of years.

    I hope to set out these and other matters in the debate in the House of Commons tomorrow. But for the moment I will be happy to take any questions you may have, and so will the Defence Secretary. Let me say at the outset, there will be some questions I will not wish to answer on this occasion.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (David Rose):

    Prime Minister, could you elaborate on what you said about the warning to the leader and military commander of the Bosnian Serbs, that you hold them responsible?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There is not a great deal to elaborate upon it, the message is quite, clear and quite unequivocal. British troops are being held. British troops and other United Nations troops, in Bosnia on humanitarian reasons, not party to a conflict, have illegally been taken hostage and held, some of whom have been used as apparent shields against a response by the United Nations Protection Forces. That is illegal. I have made it perfectly clear to the people in command of the troops holding them that the British government will hold them personally responsible for the safety of the British troops. The position is clear and the message passed to them is unequivocal, but I don’t wish to add to it.

    QUESTION (Sky News):

    It would seem that actually getting the forces to the area is becoming increasingly difficult with the threat of Serbian attacks, how are we going to move those troops, is it safe to move them overland or are we going to put them by air where the Serbs have control of the airport?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It depends which troops you have in mind. I don’t wish to elaborate on precisely how we will move troops for reasons that you touched upon yourself and are self-evident. Suffice to say we are looking at the movement of troops and precisely how they can most favourably and speedily be moved at the moment. As far as the new troops are concerned, some will leave later today, others will leave fairly speedily. And the decision, the preparation, to deploy 14 Air Brigade is proceeding rapidly and they will leave as soon as a firm decision is taken.

    QUESTION (George Jones, Daily Telegraph):

    Again in your statement you have referred to the real possibility that the British troops and the UN Protection Force may have to withdraw and the troops you are sending there would help in that eventuality. Do you rule out any possibility that British troops and the other UN troops there will actually take a more robust role, that they will actually become involved in making war on the Serbs, because it would seem to me that that is the only thing that they really fear?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    British troops are not there to declare war on the Serbians. They are there to carry out an humanitarian role and a certain degree of robustness in carrying out that role has always been part of the mandate, and they will carry out whatever instructions the Commanders on the ground think is appropriate to carry out the mandate they have already got.

    QUESTION (Financial Times):

    Does the fact that you want to concentrate UN troops in a more defensible space in Bosnia mean that we are no longer able to protect some of the outlying safe areas?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t necessarily know that that is the case. Certainly we are going to have to bring some of the more exposed UNMOs closer in, I think that is self-evident, that has clearly been learned. Beyond that, on this occasion, I don’t wish to say any more about the concentration of troops, we are still discussing that with the Commanders on the ground and with our Allies. And at this stage of course there is still the possibility that other countries will also decide to send more troops there as well.

    QUESTION (Carol Walker, BBC):

    How concerned are you that the Serbs will use this move to send in more troops as a provocation and will instead respond with more aggressive response and create the sort of spiral of violence which you referred to?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the spiral recently has not come from the Protection Forces but from those fighting on the ground. It was not the Protection Forces that lobbed heavy weapons and heavy artillery into Tusla recently. It was not the Protection Forces that actually took captives, that was the activity of the Serbs. It is not tolerable activity, I have made that perfectly clear. And I think in the interests of safety and for the reasons I have set out I am utterly certain we are right to despatch more troops to General Smith’s command in Bosnia.

    QUESTION:

    Could you say whether the other countries that you have just alluded to might include the US, and also could you clarify the command and control point, will the reinforcing troops be under direct British command or will they also be under UN command?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    On the latter point, we will reach a final conclusion on that later today, I will be able to tell the House of Commons tomorrow the precise details of the command and control of the new troops and in particular the Air Brigade, when despatched. On the earlier point as to which countries may add troops to it, I cannot tell which countries they may be.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, you have chosen your words carefully today but hardliners reading this transcript in Pale and elsewhere may say “One last push and these people are going to pull out! They lack the political will and the military capability to enforce their mandate.” What can you say today to leave the impression that the other options which exist are seriously still open and may well taken?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have made the point clearly that I do not wish to see the United Nations protection forces leave; I have repeated that until I am blue in the face; I repeat it again. I think the impact of having them there has not only saved a large number of lives through their humanitarian work, I think they have also diminished the fighting; as I indicated, in much of Central Bosnia where British troops have been, fighting has ceased over the last fifteen months. I don’t believe that fighting would have ceased but for the presence of the British troops there.

    Let me also make the point that if anybody harbours the illusion that if the United Nations protection forces should at some stage be forced to withdraw that the West generally will just be able wash it hands and say: “Well that is the end of it! You can get on entirely on your own!”, I think that is an utterly false delusion. There are wider, strategic interests and it certainly would not be the end of the matter if the protection forces were forced to leave; we would still have those wider, strategic interests. No-one need imagine that we can just lightly walk from this and pretend that something of very great importance right on the borders of the European Union isn’t of interest to us – it clearly is.

    QUESTION:

    You seemed to suggest that these extra troops are going to bolster the UN protection force and yet you won’t say in answer to Don McIntyre, whose control they will be under. Are you trying to confuse us or the Bosnian Serbs, please?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No. I shall be confusing no-one by tomorrow. We are still discussing the precise details of the command and control of 24 Air Brigade when they get there and as I indicated a moment ago I will make the decision clear to the House of Commons tomorrow but there are some very practical and detailed matters to be considered, they are under active discussion at the moment.

    SIMON WALTERS (THE SUN):

    Prime Minister, you say that the troops will stay there until you think the risk is unacceptable. Do you not think that the mood in this country is that the risk to our troops is now unacceptable and that for that reason they should be brought home immediately

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t believe that is the mood of the country, no, Simon, not remotely and I recall very well the mood of this country a couple of years when it looked as though we might see genocide on a very wide scale in Bosnia; I remember the immensely warm and concerned reaction when so many of the Bosnian children who were hurt needed treatment.

    I don’t think the British nation would wish lightly that British troops and United Nations troops should turn their back on Bosnia and open up the dangers of what might then happen in the enclaves and don’t be in any doubt about what might happen if United Nations protection forces came out, in the interregnum before anything materially happened, there may well be great trouble in the enclaves. The Serbs would certainly be able to take the enclaves and I don’t know whether you or anyone else can tell me quite how many people then would be killed. I don’t think that is a matter of no concern to us, I believe it is of concern to us.

    You have seen what has happened in Central Bosnia, I have just set that out. British troops have been in Central Bosnia for the last fifteen months and the fighting in Central Bosnia has all but died away. Once we move away, the danger of a full-scale attack on enclaves is clearly there. If there was a full-scale attack on the enclaves, you would see bloodshed on a scale we have not yet previously seen. I believe we have both a strategic interest in preventing a wider Balkan War – I spelt that out a few minutes ago – and I think we have a humanitarian obligation to try and prevent that sort of bloodshed and it is for those reasons that the United Nations protection forces are there as a whole. I believe it was right to send them, I believe it has been right to keep them there, I believe it is right that they are there now and I believe it is right to keep them there for as long as they can remain there without unacceptable risks to the lives of British and other United Nations soldiers.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible] request to President Clinton to send troops?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It wasn’t a request, I simply stated that some countries may well send more.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, given what has happened in the aftermath of the NATO air strikes, does that strategic step still look sensible to you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is not a matter I am going to discuss on this particular occasion but if you mean do we rule them out for good, the answer is no.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, what role, if any, are the Americans and Russians playing in the new scenario?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there is a very substantial role. The Croat Federation in the West was substantially a result of American negotiation. Clearly, the Russians still have more influence than most over the Serbs, certainly in Belgrade and perhaps beyond Belgrade so they have a very substantial role to play and they are playing it and think it is very important they continue to do so.

    CHARLES WRIGHT:

    Are you satisfied with the response you have had from President Yeltsin so far and given the Russian interests you have mentioned is there more you think they could do?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We are in constant touch with the Russians, the Foreign Secretary is meeting Foreign Minister Kozyrev very possibly at this moment, they are certainly meeting today. When I spoke to President Yeltsin from Bonn on Friday of last week, he responded immediately to our concerns about the escalation and I believe took action immediately so I think yes, they do have a role to play.

    QUESTION (CH4 NEWS):

    Wasn’t the determination and the toughness of the Bosnian Serbs underestimated here? Wasn’t it always likely that they were going to take hostages? Are you happy that the lessons of previous air strikes were properly learned?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it is very easy to suddenly say when they have taken hostages that you ought not have had people in exposed positions. It is very easy to say that in retrospect but of course they weren’t in exposed positions for no good reason; they were in exposed positions – observation posts for the protection of the towns. The UNMOs were out there for very good strategic reason, brave men doing a job that they believed in for sound reasons for the overall success of the mission so I don’t think with hindsight that I would wish to enter any criticism of the Commanders on the ground.

    On the general question of air strikes that you raised, of course, when this whole dispute began some three years or so ago, there were some who thought that all the West needed to do or perhaps should do was to lay back and handle the matter with fairly substantial air strikes. I always thought that was unreal and wasn’t a proposition that ever commended itself to the British military advice that I had or that I ever thought was remotely likely.

    People may say that if you hadn’t put troops on the ground, the United Nations personnel on the ground, no hostages could have been taken but I would have thought that civilian hostages put near the sort of targets that might have been attacked from the air would have been just as likely if we had tried just to deal with air attacks, apart from which the prospect of delivering humanitarian aid with air attacks was negligible, there was no prospect of it whatsoever. The prospect of actually ending the conflict from the air was, on the basis of every single piece of military advice I ever had, equally impossible so although some felt two or three years ago that all we had to do was to unleash air attacks from the relative safety of 5,000 feet, that was never a credible posture for the West to entertain, it wasn’t then and isn’t now.

    GEORGE PASKER-WATSON (THE SUN):

    How did you feel last night when you saw the footage of the British soldiers who were being paraded on Serbian television? Did you not think it smacked very much of during the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein did the same thing?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think how I felt was expressed very clearly by the message that has been sent to Mr. Karadic and General Mladic; they will be in no doubt about how I felt about it.

    KEVIN BROWN (FINANCIAL TIMES):

    What did you mean by “straining every nerve to find a political settlement”? Is there some new diplomatic initiative under way which has resulted from the recent crisis?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The diplomatic initiatives have continued throughout this whole period; they, frankly, haven’t been very successful so far except as far as the Muslim/Croat Federation in the West is concerned. We may be nearer at the moment to Mr. Milosevic recognising Bosnia than we have been at any stage in the past; that would clearly be a significant step forward. We are not yet – let me make that clear and it is by no means certain we will get there in the next day or so but as we speak at least we are a good deal nearer there than we have been at any stage in past. That would be quite a significant step forward and I hope that we will be able to build on that, if it is achievable, in the next 24 or 48 hours or so.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Bosnia – 26 May 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on Bosnia, made on 26th May 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked whether further air attacks on Bosnia could be expected]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it is very difficult to make that judgement from here, it is possible there will be, but I think we will be guided, as ever, by the views of the Commanders on the ground. I certainly would not rule them out. If they seem to be necessary then we would support them.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if further escalation was inevitable]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have been trying very hard to avoid that for a long time.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked whether that was the case]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well you say that but I don’t think that is wholly true. At the outset of these problems we faced the prospect that the dispute might have moved into a cross-Balkan war, that could well have happened, we might well have seen it moving down south to Kosovo, we might well have a complete explosion there, we might have had other people entering, we might have had a full scale Balkan war. And I think what people do not give credit for is the fact that that has been avoided. It is still a very messy situation but it could have been far worse.