The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: 2009

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Tory Reform Group Dinner – 25 November 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Tory Reform Group Dinner, held at the Cavalry and Guards Club in London on Wednesday 25th November 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Here at Cavalry & Guards Club: moment to remember contribution of Cavalry, Guards and Services generally in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as we sit here over dinner. We owe them a lot.

    You may think “British Foreign Policy in a Changing World” is an odd subject for someone who was Foreign Secretary for a mere 94 days.

    I partly agree: except – it seems to me – those 94 days were a golden age. We were at war with no-one. There were no “dodgy dossiers”. All was serene. A period on which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office looks back with great nostalgia. All was serene. A period on which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office looks back with great nostalgia.

    This evening, I want to focus on the world as it is – only then can we make policy with a clear-eyed appreciation of what is happening elsewhere and where the British national interest lies. This means shedding the nostalgia and fantasies that so often bedevil British attitudes.

    Fifty years ago, no-one could have predicted the present social or geo-political landscape.

    The Soviet Union and the United States were the two super-powers. China was isolationist and something of an enigma. Japan had barely begun her post-war rise. Central and Eastern Europe fell under Soviet control. Germany was still divided. Latin America was a Continent of revolutions. The EU was in its infancy. Much of Africa was still colonised. Oil was $3 a barrel and no-one imagined an Islamic Revolution. Little of that world now survives. Huge changes – and yet the pace of change is accelerating.

    But old attitudes linger. Often, very old attitudes. Beneath a thin veneer, there are still strands of opinion that hanker for the days when Palmerston sent a gun boat. These days, there are no Palmerstons and – as it happens – not all that many gunboats.

    As we look forward, more than ever our military power will need supplementing by diplomacy, by soft power, by the intelligent use of foreign policy.

    Here, history helps us. Old alliances can be invoked. Old friendships re-asserted. But, self-interest suggests we should use the international institutions with more commitment. Our membership of NATO, of the Security Council, of the Commonwealth and of the EU can all help us. Some may dispute the last assertion but they are wrong – the EU is crucial to our foreign policy clout. Every American President I have known wants the UK to be a power inside the EU and would see us as diminished if we were outside it. America does not want us as the 51st State, but as a powerful ally within Europe.

    Of course, many recoil at shared authority within Europe but, often, intelligent policy can shackle our partners to policies we advocate. The Single Market is a case in point. So is enlargement to the East. These are two of the biggest changes in European policy since the birth of the Common Market – and both were British initiatives. Let me offer a further example.

    After the first Gulf War the Iraqis were murdering Kurds. It was genocide. I advocated a ‘Safe Havens’ policy and persuaded the EU and the Commonwealth to back it. Faced with this alliance, the US, initially reluctant, signed up to this too: troops were put in the field and hundreds of thousands of lives were saved. On these occasions others accommodated British priorities. Sometimes we must accommodate theirs.

    The Lisbon Treaty is now law. Some of it is sensible. Some of it I don’t like. In particular, I am hostile to the idea of a President and a High Representative for Foreign Policy and – to judge from the appointments made – others have reached have reached the same view. Even so, David Cameron is right to accept that despite the denial of a referendum – our economic interests require us to remain an active Member.

    Some don’t agree. Britain, they proclaim, has surrendered so much power it has the status of a Parish Council. This is absurd, of course – what Parish Council runs its own tax policy, monetary policy, defence policy and foreign policy? None, of course. Nor ever will.

    But the ‘Better Off Out’ advocates – UKIP and their sympathisers, some within our own Party – magnify the frustrations of Europe and minimise its achievements. A war between European nations is now inconceivable and yet the sceptics see no relationship between that self-evident truth and the advent of the EU. Nor do they see that, if they achieved their aim of withdrawal they would downsize our role in the world. Less important to America. Detached from our European market. A less attractive home for investment from the East. The world would not applaud our Bulldog independence: they would think we had taken leave of our political senses. And – soon – we would, no doubt, take leave of our membership of the Security Council and our influence within the international financial institutions. We would not be seen as a serious nation: we would have emasculated our future. A Little Britain not a Great Britain. A stifled voice in a big and noisier world.

    It would be folly. A march towards irrelevance at precisely the moment we need all our confidence to compete in a world that is, perhaps, changing faster than it has ever done.

    The present economic crisis may slow down the exuberant change of the last decades but it won’t stop it. For sound economic reasons the East will outgrow the West for the foreseeable future: it has a lower cost base, more – and less expensive – labour, and it can build anew without first demolishing what existed before.

    In 1700, China and India were the greatest economic powers in the world: in terms of GDP they will once again – sometime in the next few decades – sometime in the next few decades – outstrip everyone, even the US and the EU. And, since economic power leads to political authority, it will pose an increasing challenge to Western diplomacy. Also, until science develops alternative fuels, nations rich in oil and gas will flourish. Over recent years, the world has looked enviously at energy rich nations – especially in the Gulf, but also Russia, of course, and the spending power of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. At an oil price of $75 – and it will soon exceed that once again – the Gulf alone adds $140 billion a year to their war chest for investment.

    We have a Government in the UK in the UK that inherited the best economy in Western Europe yet – in 12 years – has managed to near-bankrupt the nation. We are now the most indebted industrial nation in the world. Our fiscal deficit is – unbelievably – three times that of Italy and twice that of Japan.

    Labour bought the last two elections with a reckless economic policy and now the electorate that was deceived must pick up the bill. Labour now promise to halve the deficit in four years: but even if they did so – and it is unlikely – the deficit would still be twice as high as we have ever known before. And that relative poverty impacts on our foreign policy as well as our pockets.

    Since 1997, much of Labour’s foreign policy has been thoughtless and short-term. As for Afghanistan – which was embarked upon with the false promise that “not a shot will be fired” – no conflict in our modern history can have been sanctioned with less consideration.

    We had no objective. No idea of the scale of the commitment. No plan. No exit strategy and – for years – our servicemen and women have been in harm’s way with poor equipment and inadequate numbers. There is a case for this war but the political management of it has been shameful. I believe that was true, also, of the second Iraq War. Soon, the responsibility may devolve on a new Government.

    They must ask:-

    What is the aim of this war?

    What is the cost of failure?

    Can it be won by force of arms alone?

    What is the political/diplomatic strategy?

    And why – after eight years – is this still not apparent- after – is this still not apparent?

    Can a credibly non-corrupt Afghan Government be formed?

    How many troops are necessary?

    Does the use of unmanned drones which kill more civilians than terrorists aid or hinder the cause of winning hearts and minds?

    These questions – and others – should have been asked – and considered carefully – before the conflict began and it is a failure of commonsense, let alone good government, let alone good government, that they were not. The Nation is as right to be proud of the role of our Servicemen and women as it is to be hostile at the ineptitude of our Government.

    Good foreign policy also looks at inter-generational policy. One aspect of that is overseas aid – traditionally under the bailiwick of the under the bailiwick of the Foreign Office.

    One-half of the world will go to bed hungry tonight. They live on less than $2 a day while the rich nations spend many times more on agricultural subsidies for the already well-fed as they contribute to aid for 3 billion people who often have no food in their belly at all.

    And this will get worse. In the last 50 years, world population has grown from under 3 billion to over 6.5 billion. At the birth of Christ, world population was – probably – 300 million. By 1900 – 19 centuries later – it had grown by something over one billion. We now grow by nearly one billion every decade.

    World population is projected to reach 8 or even 9 billion by 2050 and over 95% of growth is in the developing world. This is like absorbing two more nations the size of China. We ignore this at our peril.

    The plight of the poorest is made worse by an issue that will impact on everyone: the price of food.

    Here, there is a real irony. As some nations grow and improve living standards, they drive up prices beyond the reach of the poorest. If one billion Indians – one-sixth of the entire world population – together with millions of Chinese, Brazilians and Malaysians – now eat two meals a day, instead of only one, the demand for food soars.

    That puts up prices – provoking panic and moving the politics of food to the front burner of controversy. The days of cheap food are gone.

    In the future the world will need all the food we can grow – even if nations such as Ukraine and Zimbabwe once again become the agricultural bread-baskets nature designed them to be.

    It is hard to overstate the importance of a cogent foreign importance of a cogent policy, and its wider impact, and its wider impact. Apart from those issues I have touched on it must deal with:

    The hotspots of Iran and Iraq;

    The Middle East Peace Process;

    The risks of nuclear or biological terror;

    The insecurities created by the arc of uncertainty from Syria to Pakistan;

    The enigma of Russian policy-making; and much else, not least the trade promotion of Great Britain PLC.

    We must make sure the Foreign Office is equipped for these tasks. It needs to be strengthened – not weakened. We need to stop cutting overseas posts and manpower. And we need to end the absurdity of requiring HM Ambassadors to become bloggers for Government PR purposes, and advisors on media handling for every report they submit. For Heaven’s sake, they are highly trained diplomats – not under-qualified publicists.

    There is an old sneer that the Foreign Office exists for foreigners. It is often trotted out to the applause of the ignorant and the ill-informed.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. The Foreign Office exists to represent British interests overseas in diplomacy and trade. Its job is to negotiate, to persuade, to identify a identify a problem before it becomes a crisis, before it becomes a crisis, and prepare the ground for solutions. In an increasingly inter-dependent world, its role will become ever more crucial.

    Let us hope we are soon returned to a Government that will re-establish Britain’s role in this new world and a British Foreign Secretary who will, once again, carry the weight of that Office as elegantly and intelligently as Peter Carrington, Geoffrey Howe, Douglas Hurd and Malcolm Rifkind.

    The world is in a constant state of change – and we need to put Britain back where she should be – ahead of the game rather than trailing in the wake of bigger beasts. The Foreign Office has the experience and the talent to do that. William Hague has all the qualities of leadership to deliver.

    But – first – we have an election to win. If we do so, we will return to serious Government.

    And then we can return to serious policy.

  • Sir John Major’s Comments at House of Commons Select Committee – 10 November 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s contribution to the Public Administration Committee of the House of Commons, held on Tuesday 10th November 2009.

    The MPs present were Dr Tony Wright (Chairman), Paul Flynn, David Heyes, Kelvin Hopkins, Ian Liddell-Grainger, Julie Morgan, Gordon Prentice, Paul Rowen and Charles Walker.

    Q152 Chairman (Dr Tony Wright): We will make a start and extend a very warm welcome to Sir John Major. It is very kind of you to come and give evidence to us. You have on the two previous occasions we have asked you come and given evidence to us which we appreciate very much indeed. We particularly wanted you to come for this inquiry because we have had no one in front of us who has formed a government, although we have been talking about issues related to that, and I think we would like the perspective that you bring to it. We were particularly taken by an article that you and Douglas Hurd wrote in The Times back in June, where you said some rather exciting things and called for what you described as a “more adventurous experiment”, so we want to hear about this. I think you are going to say something by way of introduction?

    Sir John Major: Thank you, Chairman, thank you for inviting me. Very briefly, I would like to say a few words before answering the Committee’s questions, simply perhaps to put in context what I may say in answer to your questions later. I spent 22 years in the Commons and latterly another eight years observing it from outside, and if I may say so I am pretty dismayed at the disregard in which politics is held today and the way in which politics often seems to malfunction. I think this can be put right and I think it needs to be put right.

    Part of the remedy is reforms to make the Commons more efficient and better regarded. I think, for example, it would benefit from a wider and more experienced membership. I think we need to make the Commons more attractive by offering an alternative career structure to simply being a minister. I think for far too many members at the moment, backbench life, particularly in opposition, can be fairly fruitless and hardly uses their talents. Our system also throws up freakish government majorities which bear very little relationship to the voting pattern of the electorate at large. I think to address these over-mighty governments, Parliament needs more weapons to challenge the executive, most obviously I think through the select committee system.

    I think there are other reforms which are needed. In my view, the Commons has too many members, certainly the Government has too many ministers, the payroll vote is too dominant and Standing Orders are often too restrictive. I think this inquiry is very important. Outside Members are only one part of the kaleidoscope of necessary reform but I think the right new Members can inject experience and wisdom to government; but of course if we can widen the experience, quality and talent of future intakes in the Commons, we of course will need fewer external ministers of any sort. I think with that very broad introduction, Chairman, I am more than happy to turn to the Committee’s questions.

    Q153 Chairman: Thank you very much. There is enough there to get our teeth into. When we had Jonathan Powell in front of us the other day, who ran of course Number 10 under Tony Blair, he said, “In Europe, in pretty much all continental Europe, and the US, your gene pool from which you can choose is the entire country to be ministers, whereas here we have 300-odd MPs on the government benches from which you can choose.” Everyone who has spoken to us has spoken of this diminishing gene pool as a constraint in government-forming. Did you find that when you were making a government?

    Sir John Major: I did. I think it is not just the gene pool in the Commons, but the longer the government’s life exists, the more people have passed through being a minister, are no longer a minister, are unlikely to come back and the gene pool correspondingly reduces. When you have been there for 18 years or perhaps even 13 years, the number of people in the Commons who have passed through ministerial experience is significant, and the number of people available for the Prime Minister to select future ministers is correspondingly reduced.
    So I think there are the two aspects. Plainly, it would be desirable if we had a wider and more experienced intake into Parliament as a whole and specifically into the Commons, but also there is the secondary problem that with long-lived governments the gene pool automatically shrinks.

    Q154 Chairman: So presumably you feel well disposed towards Gordon Brown’s experiment of a government of all the talents?

    Sir John Major: I do, yes, I do. I think the idea of bringing in some people from outside is a very attractive idea. I do not think it should be over-done, and plainly some of those brought in are going to be a success, have been a success I think, and others perhaps less so, but that is true of all ministers and all political careers. So I have no objection to it, I think it is the right thing to do and I can quite see after many years in government why the Prime Minister is attracted to bringing people in. I think that is the right thing to do although it does raise some obvious questions of accountability and other matters which I have no doubt we will come to.

    Q155 Chairman: As Prime Minister, is not your self-interest to get as many people as possible on the payroll, because that is the basic control mechanism of government, is it not?

    Sir John Major: Well, it ought not to be. The payroll is too big and ought to be reduced. I think there are some fairly evident reforms which could be made to Standing Orders, should be made to Standing Orders, which will enable the payroll vote to be significantly reduced. Let me offer you several thoughts about that. Firstly, I see no reason whatsoever why we should not change Standing Orders in the Lords and Standing Orders in the Commons so that senior ministers may appear in both Houses, speak in both Houses, answer questions in both Houses, but only vote in the House to which they are a member. If you did that you would automatically diminish the number of duplicated ministers which are at present necessary to make sure that both Houses have a proper representation.

    It is fairly insulting in some ways to the House of Lords to have a Cabinet minister, or even a minister of state, in the Commons who actually is responsible for legislation pass on a second-hand brief to a junior minister in the Lords who then has to address the Lords, having mugged it up the night before he makes his speech. I do not think that is good government. If you made that reform you could significantly reduce the number of junior ministers, I am not quite sure how much but I think you could certainly reduce the overall size of government by between a quarter and a third. The second change I think which is necessary to diminish the payroll vote, the size of which is a constitutional outrage, would be to restrict parliamentary private secretaries to senior ministers and not have a parliamentary private secretary to every minister, whatever his responsibilities however senior or however lowly.

    Personally, I would restrict PPSs to Cabinet ministers. I think if you did that, you could significantly reduce the size of the payroll vote. In terms of democratic accountability in the Commons, I think that would be very attractive. The counterpoint is, if you are doing that, I do think you have to open alternative opportunities for Members and an alternative career path for Members, and I think there are ways in which you can do that.

    Q156 Chairman: Finally on one of those points, if you simply reduce the number of Members of Parliament, which is what the Conservative proposal is at the moment, that would make the problem worse rather than better, would it not, because you would have diminished the gene pool even further and the balance between the payroll and the rest of the numbers would be even worse?

    Sir John Major: That rather depends on how much you reduce the payroll. The overall size of the Commons has drifted upwards over recent years with each successive Boundary Commission – I think it is too high at the moment – and if you did reduce the size of the Commons, maybe you would attract a higher quality of future aspirants to be there. You are quite right, of course, if you diminish the size of the Commons and do not reduce the size of the Government, then you alter that equation. At the moment, in a government party broadly you have a 1:4 chance of being a minister at any time, and that is much too high a proportion, I think, not least because it diminishes the accountability of the Government to the Commons for precisely the reason you raise, the sheer size of the payroll vote.

    Chairman: I am sure we will come back to that.

    Q157 Mr Prentice: My first question I suppose is, did you always appoint ministers on merit or were there other considerations?

    Sir John Major: There were other considerations. Of course merit was the first consideration but there were other considerations as well, and they may vary dependent upon the size of the majority you have. I had, as you will well recall, Gordon, a very tiny majority, at times effectively we were a minority government, and it was necessary to keep a political balance within the party, so I had to look at a political balance as well as straightforward merit. To take matters to absurdity, you might on pure merit have had all the merit on one particular philosophical part of your party but it would have been absurd to appoint every minister from that part; you simply could not have carried on a government that way. So merit is the first point but I think you need a proper balance in Parliament of ministers as well.

    Q158 Mr Prentice: But all this talk about appointing on competence is just moonshine, is it not, because the reality of politics meant that you and your predecessors would very often appoint ‘one of us’, a political soul mate rather than a member of the opposition in the party, one of the “bastards”, to quote.

    Sir John Major: Hardly a soul mate.

    Q159 Mr Prentice: I am just wondering if the politics of it all crowds out and makes redundant this noble idea of bringing into government people who stand head and shoulders above their colleagues and are super-competent.

    Sir John Major: I do not think it is quite as clear cut as that. Self-evidently, for the reason you yourself alluded to, I did not appoint solely people who were entirely philosophically congenial; my life might have been a good deal easier had I chosen to do so but I chose to strike a wider balance. I think your point would be absolutely right if you over-did the number of external appointments, but I think it is desirable to bring in people who have a particular talent to government where there is a shortfall in that talent in the Commons.

    If you compare the House of Commons today with, say, 30, 40 years ago, where are the businessmen, the farmers, the soldiers? There is a different structure. Politics has changed, not just in one party but in all parties, it has changed, and I do not disparage the role of someone who is a professional politician at all, it is the question of whether you have the right mixture in the House of Commons.

    That is why I am keen to see a wider and sometimes more experienced spread of intake. Sometimes it is desirable to bring in people who have a particular gift to government, either in the Commons, which is much more difficult to do, or indeed in the Lords in the way the present Prime Minister has done.

    Mr Prentice: The present Prime Minister brought in Alan Sugar who has huge business experience, and we read in the Telegraph yesterday, that Alan Sugar might quit as Enterprise Tsar. He said, “Too much negative stuff is really unhelpful. I may decide it is simply not worth it when you are giving your time free of charge for no agenda. What am I going to get out of it?”

    Mr Walker: A peerage.

    Q160 Mr Prentice: Then he goes on to say, “I have not got my titles for the sake of a badge.” He obviously feels he can contribute something. But there is a man who is obviously wounded by the criticism and that is an issue, is it not? You would bring people into politics and they just cannot take it.

    Sir John Major: There are many people who have come into politics who I think have made a significant contribution. If you look at the present Government, without going further back, I would argue Lord Darzi was a success, I think I would argue that Lord Adonis is a success – was in education, is at transport. I think Lord Davies, Mervyn Davies, is proving to be a success. So these are people with a particular experience who I think have enhanced the ability of government to deal with problems.

    Of course you cannot take that too far and, as I said earlier, some appointments will be more successful than others, and everyone will have their own judgments about that. I would rate those three a particular success and I think there are others. Those who are not a success perhaps will leave government fairly speedily, others will not. Personally, I would change the system of appointment. If I were appointing Mr X to the House of Lords to be a minister, I would like a constitutional change, if we put him in the Lords, which gave him a peerage for the period of that Parliament and then when he left government that peerage would fall away in terms of legislation. He could keep the title, I have no objection to him continuing to be Lord X, but I think he would lose his legislative position when he left government.

    If the party to whom he adhered wished to put him back in the House of Lords, then let them later put him on a working peers list. I have no objection to that, but I think the automaticity of coming into the Lords, becoming a peer, serving for five minutes and retaining membership of the House of Lords is something I would look at and change.

    Q161 Chairman: The proposal you made in The Times though, with Douglas Hurd, was even more radical, was it not? It was that some such person would not even need to be in the Lords at all, you said there should be a percentage of these people who can just be appointed?

    Sir John Major: We advocated that as well. We set out a series of things. We were thinking more of the Commons than the Lords when we actually wrote that. In terms of the Lords, if you wish to put people in, you can, and providing you do not offer them the peerage for life then I think it is proper to give them the peerage for the period in which they serve in the Government and let them be fully-fledged members of the House of Lords during their period there. What we were looking at was there might be very exceptional circumstances in the Commons where, because of the particular skill, the Commons would require that particular minister to be within the House of Commons so they are directly answerable to the House of Commons, though under my proposals of course even if they were in the Lords they could be brought to the Commons to be answerable.

    That was where we were being a little more radical and trailing our coat and suggesting there might be a small number of unelected ministers who would serve also in the Commons for the period of their time in government. If you did that of course, let us pre-suppose the Prime Minister of the day brought in five unelected people – no, three, five is perhaps over-doing it I think – three unelected people to serve in the Commons as ministers, I think the inevitable consequence of that is there would have to be three unelected additions to the Opposition as well as to the governing party, but that is not our preferred option. But we do think that is something which conceivably should be open to a Prime Minister.

    Q162 Mr Walker: I was going to call you “Prime Minister”. I almost stood when you came in. Sir John, it does really sound like serious consideration should be given to a separation of powers. I am a legislator, I have no real management ability, I think the idea of me running a department is probably quite laughable, or even part of a department. Why can we not start biting the bullet on this and perhaps accept we need to have a debate about the separation of powers, so you have people in Parliament who represent their constituents, scrutinise government and hold it to account, and then we have people drawn from the best and the brightest out there being ministers, or whatever you want to call them, and when they cease being a minister they retire back to public life with no title, just the pleasure of having served their country?

    Sir John Major: Well, you could do that. Constitutionally it would be an enormous change and I think it would lose something, because although today we are concentrating on bringing in experience to help politics, I do not think people should under-estimate the importance of a political skill in running a huge department and presenting a policy. I think I would argue someone who is a professional politician, who has served in the House of Commons and learned the arts of politics, is often going to present policy far more effectively than somebody who has just been brought in from outside.

    I see the argument for the separation of powers, it is there, but it is not a route down which I would myself wish to go, I think it is too big a constitutional change and I would not do that. Although it is very fashionable these days to disparage politics and politicians, I think it would be a great loss were we to lose the ability of people going through the political system serving as ministers directly and representing policy. I also think it would be slightly less democratic, noticeably less democratic, than the system we have at present.

    Q163 Mr Walker: You mention the role of the backbencher. Being called a backbencher now is a term of derision and I do not think it should be a term of derision. You said there should be a career structure for backbenchers which is more robust than the one we currently have in place. We currently have select committees, you can be chairman of standing committees, but what other additions could we make to the House which would allow someone to have a rewarding career as a parliamentarian as opposed to being judged on whether or not they held ministerial office?

    Sir John Major: If I may say something for the moment in defence of backbenchers. A really good backbencher is often the grit in the oyster; Tam Dalyell perhaps. He would often hold eccentric views but he was an extraordinarily able and good backbencher and suddenly apt to fire at ministers the most devastating question of all, and that is, “Why?” I remember him standing up in the House of Commons in response to an answer from a minister and just saying, “Why?” and it was brilliant.

    So I do not think one should permit people to disparage the role of the backbencher, I think it is extremely important, and there are people who philosophically wish to be backbenchers, represent their constituents, argue their case, do not have ambition, do not believe they have a field marshal’s baton in their knapsack, and it is very important that Parliament has a considerable number of them. So I support the role of the backbencher.

    What I do think we ought to do, the point I was getting at, and it is not a million miles away from this Select Committee, if you look at select committees, they were an innovation introduced by Norman St John-Stevas 30-odd years ago, I think they have been pretty successful, I think they could be more successful and I return to my concern about holding the government to account. In terms of a career structure, the sort of thing I have in mind and no doubt this Committee or at least its Chairman would agree with it, I think we should change the status of select committees. I would pay select committee chairmen at the rate of a senior minister, a minister of state at least, and the Chairman of the Accounts Committee perhaps at the rate of a Cabinet minister. I would pay the vice-chairman of the committee as well. I do not know whether there are allowances now for committee members but I would give them. I would give them more work to do. I would have them elected by the House, not appointed by the usual channels. I think that would be a significant improvement. So paid, elected by the usual channels to give them more independence than they have previously had.

    Then I would look at the work they do. One thing which I think could be done and should be done is quite a constitutional change but well worthwhile. At the moment, governments produce a one year parliamentary programme but they have a five-year manifesto. I see no reason why governments could not announce a parliamentary programme which spread over a good deal longer than a year so that Green Papers could be produced on the proposed legislation, the select committees would take on the role of examining those Green Papers, taking public evidence and advising upon that legislation, before the legislation comes to be drafted. I think if you did that, you would get much better legislation. I think it would be quite a rewarding thing to do. Bring in the experts on health and cross-examine them, bring in the chief constables and examine them on the annual Criminal Justice Bill.

    I think that would be a good idea for this reason: too often in the last few years large parts of Bills have either not been debated or have been inadequately debated, and you see a few years down the road that those parts of the Bills have often not been brought into operation and then in the subsequent Bill they are quietly repealed without ever having been brought into operation. That is very amateurish. That is not the way to run a whelk stall, let alone one of the oldest parliaments in the world. If you looked at your legislation more on a parliamentary basis than on an annual basis and gave the select committees this additional role, it would be a good deal more work for the select committees, and I am entirely content for them to be paid for the extra work they do because I think the reward would be better legislation, and if you want Parliament to be effective, efficient and well regarded, it needs to produce legislation which works and is seen to be effective and is seen to be properly democratically examined. I am not personally convinced at the moment it is. So those are the sort of changes I have in mind.

    Q164 Mr Walker: So would you agree that we need people who are ambitious for Parliament, not just ambitious to get ahead in the executive, but in the way you are ambitious for Parliament, people who come here – able, bright people, far brighter than I am – who are ambitious for Parliament and want to make their mark within Parliament?

    Sir John Major: Emphatically, I would, yes. I do think you need people ambitious for Parliament. If you have a Parliament in which every member has as his primary ambition to be Prime Minister or a minister, you do not have a Parliament which will hold the government to account. You need people of an independent strand of mind. One of the advantages of bringing in older people is that the career structure through the select committees would be particularly attractive, and they would be particularly experienced, though of course that raises wider questions of getting them selected and adopted as we all understand, but if they were there I think it would be better for Parliament and I think we should encourage that. In terms of standing committees, you might look at similar reforms but I think it is less evident how you do that than it is with select committees.

    Q165 Paul Flynn: Very good to see you back here, John.

    Sir John Major: Thank you, Paul.

    Q166 Paul Flynn: One of your early ambitions as Prime Minister was a very laudable one, which was to take the yah-boo out of Prime Minister’s Questions. You suggested this and, in a spirit of co-operation, in your first fortnight as Prime Minister I had the luck to have a Question drawn and I sent every word I was going to ask in that Question, stripped of adjectives and on a serious subject, to 10 Downing Street, and when I asked the Question your reply was described in a Times editorial as a “typical Civil Service brief with a party political sting in the tale”. I had not given my “yah” but you gave your “boo”. Within a month, Prime Minister Questions had gone back to what it always was. Is it not likely, that because the system is favourable to the Prime Minister of the day and the party political of the day, it is very, very difficult to institute reforms particularly when they are sabotaged by what in this case was the person who started it all?

    Sir John Major: Well, one man’s boo is another man’s cheer. Surprisingly, Paul, I do not remember that incident 19 years on; I am sorry not to have an absolute total recollection of it. I am surprised if I responded in that way because I recall for some months both Neil Kinnock and I at the outset tried to take some of the heat out of Prime Minister’s Questions. He did too and I have always paid great credit to him for doing that. Eventually, as you say, the system forced us back into it. It was decreed by those who write about these things that it was becoming deathly boring, the backbenchers became restive, they needed a little blood at Prime Minister’s Question Time, and so things did drift back.

    Prime Minister’s Questions is a thing apart. I think all of us who have been in Parliament know it is a unique few minutes each week and the rest of Parliament is not generally like Prime Minister’s Questions, for which in the interests of good government I think most of us would give a hearty cheer and not a boo. So if I did not treat your question with the importance it deserved, I offer you an apology 19 years later, but I cannot entirely remember the incident.

    Q167 Paul Flynn: One of the things that many of us find distressing about the political reality of life today is this subservience of governments and oppositions particularly to the red top daily newspapers. You had your problems with The Sun, have you been sickened in the last 24 hours by The Sun’s attack on the Prime Minister?

    Sir John Major: I did not particularly have my problems with The Sun, I had my problems with everybody! Let us not understate this. You may or may not accept this, but some time ago I had the self-denying ordinance that I no longer buy the morning newspapers, so I do not really feel in a position to comment on them.

    Q168 Paul Flynn: You are happy about what I can only perceive as the press deteriorating? I can recall the editor of The Sun threatening to dump something on your desk at one time.

    Sir John Major: Yes, I read about that, I do not ever recall it happening but I have read about that. The press exist and there is nothing whatever you can do about it. I advise everyone to understand that very early in their political career. There is not a great deal you can do about it, just concentrate on what needs to be done and get on. I am not sure I always handled that extremely well, probably I did not, but that is ancient history, and with experience perhaps comes a wisdom about it. I just advise people to carry on doing what they think is right.
    Speaking about what is right, they may in the short term have an extremely difficult time of it, but I think over a period if you stick to what it is you believe and continue to advocate it, even if people disagree with it, they will admire you for the way you stick to what you say. You and I can both think of parliamentary mavericks who have done exactly that over the last few years and been very valuable.

    Q169 Paul Flynn: Why did you not follow your own advice about getting talented and experienced people in the Lords by going into the Lords yourself?

    Sir John Major: I have never ruled that out but I think it is a matter of personal preference. I think if you are going to go in the Lords, for me I thought, “Am I going to be able to make a significant contribution and be there as frequently as I would wish.” The truth is, there were so many things I did outside the House of Lords that I wished to do. In politics, most of the rest of your life is extinguished if you become a senior minister, that was my fate. I am very proud to have done the job but that was my fate for a very long time and when I finished with politics I thought a sabbatical from it was a very good idea, and I have continued to take the sabbatical.

    At the moment, for example, I am abroad between five and six months of the year. Very useful, because it gives me a perspective of this country from the Far East, from Africa, from Latin America, from America, from Eastern Europe, but if you are abroad five months of the year, I am not entirely sure you are going to make the contribution to the House of Lords that you would wish.

    Paul Flynn: Thank you very much.

    Q170 Paul Rowen: Sir John, you had five Cabinet reshuffles in your seven years as Prime Minister, what would it be like under your system and how do you avoid having that number of reshuffles?

    Sir John Major: I think there were too many reshuffles. We were passing through a period in probably the 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s, in which an annual reshuffle became an event rather like Christmas and Easter. I think in some ways the present Government have been wise to leave ministers in place in many cases for longer. Certain senior ministers have served in positions for a very long time and I think that is attractive. It is not universally true, the number of Defence Ministers we have had and Prisons Ministers we have had, have been far more than is wise I think over recent years, but in other positions ministers have served longer.

    So I think the implicit criticism in your question is justified. I do not think you should automatically assume there is going to be an annual reshuffle and, where you have someone who is good at the job, it is more in the interests of good government to let them continue to do that job than to go through the old maxim of “Onward and upward, this minister is talented.” So fewer reshuffles would probably lead to ministers more in command of their departments and better legislation. I think that is right.

    Q171 Paul Rowen: Is not part of the reason you had so many reshuffles and we have had so many in the last couple of years is events, which you do not control?

    Sir John Major: I have observed that. I remember not being in control of events. Yes, it is part of the reason, but it is not the only reason. There was a tendency to have an annual reshuffle. Events are going to be the same whether X is the minister or Y is the minister. The reshuffle may be brought about because the event had wrecked X’s capacity to continue, that of course may be the case and you may need a mini-reshuffle in that department, but it does not have to be more general.

    Q172 Paul Rowen: Do not Prime Ministers use the reshuffle as a way of hanging on to power? Certainly Tony Blair in his last few months reshuffled twice. Is that not one of the tactics which you as a Prime Minister used?

    Sir John Major: No, actually it is not. No, it certainly was not. I am not sure what Tony Blair did or how his reshuffle would have helped him. It seemed to me he had a fairly secure majority, so he certainly was not minded to.

    Q173 Paul Rowen: There were the Brownites and the Blairs and the people who were baying for his blood.

    Sir John Major: I am shocked that you suggest there was a difference between the then Prime Minister and the then Chancellor. I did not observe it at close quarters and I think I would prefer not to comment on it.

    Q174 Paul Rowen: Your majority, as you said earlier, was very small, given the proposals you have actually put forward in the article in The Times, fewer ministers, less power of patronage, how would you in that circumstance have been able to command a majority to get your programme through?

    Sir John Major: It is always difficult if you have a small majority and it perhaps would have been marginally more difficult if we had had a lower payroll vote, it probably would, but the important point is not whether it is convenient for any Prime Minister or any government but whether it is right for Parliament to have a better democratic structure. I think it is. I can speak now, having been through the system and observed it from outside. Whether I would have taken that view at the time I was in power is a more questionable point, I cannot go back and tell you, but if I now look at what Charles Walker called the interests of Parliament, then I think it is the right thing for Parliament to do in the future.

    Q175 Paul Rowen: Finally, Sir John, how do we restore public confidence in politics?

    Sir John Major: When there are great crises there is a huge clamour, but as those crises begin to be solved and as things begin to be put right, I think you do see confidence rising in Parliament, so it is important that that happens. If the crisis deepens and worsens and spirals out of control, then that confidence does not reappear. But the first thing is not gimmicks, I do not think you can restore the status of Parliament with gimmicks.

    I do think you can restore it with solid, sensible policy, and the proposals I have made this morning are because I believe they would contribute to solid, sensible policy and I think you need to see that over a period of years. I think if you did, it would have its impact on public perceptions.

    Q176 Chairman: Sir John, you had an interesting phrase, you said, “In this age of freakish government majorities”.

    Sir John Major: Yes.

    Q177 Chairman: You did not have a freakish government majority, although you had some freaks behind you as I remember, but is not the remedy for that to think about the cause of the freakishness rather than to deal with some of the other things?

    Sir John Major: Well, it is a remedy. I do not think the freakish majority takes away from any of the other proposals I would make, which are made more pertinent by the freakish majority but which I think are desirable in themselves. What I meant by freakish majority is that probably the 1979 result reflected the overall vote in a first-past-the-post system; 1983 did not; 1987 did not; actually 1992 did not because on the basis of the plurality of votes in 1992 the then Conservative Government should have had a majority of 70 and not 21. We did of course have a majority of 21 with rather more than 21 who were dissatisfied with many of our policies, so we were a minority government on some issues even before the majority began to fall. Then in 1997 you had a freakish result again.

    It is odd, and people tend not to remember it, but in 1987 or 1983 – I forget which – the Labour Party got 27% of the vote and 240-odd seats, in 1997 the Conservatives got between 31 and 32%, 3 or 4% more votes, but 70 fewer seats. That is what I meant by freakish majorities. At the last election, with a vote percentage which was, I do not know, 35, 36%, a very significant working majority was again delivered to the government of the day.

    I think the problem lies essentially in the remit given to the Boundary Commissions which are still producing distorted results. That is a matter which Parliament can put right. You could look at the voting system but that has other disadvantages if you move to proportional representation. Proportional representation might be seen as more democratic and fair in terms of a direct number of members for the proportion of the votes cast, but I think it does have other disadvantages in producing perpetual coalition or minority governments. So I would not go down that route, but I do think you need to look at the maldisposition of the present electoral system in terms of the relative size of constituencies.

    Q178 Chairman: You have been quite radical in much of what you are saying to us, I am trying to entice you to be radical on this one too. As you well know, if you go back to the post-war period, the two major parties were getting over 90% of the vote between them, now that is down to 50% or something. The context in which politics happens has changed completely and yet we still have an electoral system which delivers the freakish results you describe. So is not the fact in the outside world the way people behave politically has just changed fundamentally and that, not the essential rights or wrongs of the system, causes us to go back and look at it?

    Sir John Major: I think the world has changed and we now do have more regional parties, we have some single issue parties which have not really got into Parliament yet but could, and we have a much lower proportionate level of support for each of the two major parties. That is undoubtedly true. I think before you make any more radical changes we really ought to look at the disposition of the boundaries; I would not go beyond that at this stage.

    Q179 David Heyes: One of the consequences of reducing the number of constituencies dramatically would be an increase in constituency workload for Members, and that is a massive part of the job, rightly or wrongly, for most MPs nowadays, and there is a certain routine – some may even say drudgery – about that. How does that sit with wanting to widen the pool of talent in the Commons? You make the job less attractive if you create fewer opportunities for people to go into, and at the same time you are bringing in talent from outside which might reduce the opportunity for preferment once you became a Member. There seem to be some real contradictions in here.

    Sir John Major: You are quite right, there is an element of contradiction in reducing the number of Members because you increase the workload and distract them from the legislative responsibilities they have in the House of Commons; I think that is undoubtedly true. But I think you have to weigh that against the other advantages I see in a smaller House of Commons. I think you can partly deal with it if you have a proper back-up structure for Members of Parliament.

    I know it is not fantastically fashionable to talk about those sorts of things at this particular moment, but it is important that Members of Parliament have the right back-up structure to assist their constituents and support them in the work they are doing. I think it is unfortunate that one or two incidents have caused great difficulty with that. Yes, you are right, there is an element of contradiction. Nothing in this world is clean-cut and absolutely certain or it would have happened, so of course there are contradictions in changes and you have to take the course you think on balance is the best.

    The course on balance which I think is best is a smaller number of Members. I am not talking about a hugely radical reduction, I would not go below 500 for example, so you would take out 150 maybe over two or three Parliaments. That would be the sort of thing I would have in mind. So there would be an increase in constituency workload but I would hope that could significantly be compensated by the degree of back-up given to the Members who are retained in the House.

    Q180 David Heyes: I wonder how we would get to this better political world you paint for us. The reality is that no Prime Minister, no government in power, is going to yield the power which exists in the payroll vote, in the number of ministerial appointments available to him; is going to yield power to potentially troublesome select committees like this one. You did not do it when you had the chance, how is it going to be brought about, how are we going to achieve it?

    Sir John Major: I think the answer to that question is because there is a general recognition amongst senior politicians and among every Member of Parliament that the reputation of the House of Commons has fallen and needs to be restored. One of the methods of restoring the House of Commons would be reforms of that sort. I hope it is not too starry-eyed to imagine there are still a lot of people in the House of Commons, to borrow Charles Walker’s point, who are concerned about the reputation and nature of the House of Commons. I am sure you are. I think if that is the case, then you can have these reforms and see them implemented. I think they should be implemented.

    If we continue as we are, if the reputation of the House of Commons continues to fall, for whatever reason, then I think that is immensely damaging to almost every aspect of our way of life, and it needs to be reversed, and I think politicians know that. If that means some uncomfortable decisions for an incoming government or a continuing government, well so be it. That is a necessary change which I think they would be prepared to accept. You are quite right, I did not do it. I have not come here to plead there was some golden age in which every democratic reform which needed to be made was made by me. I am not saying that. What I am saying is that having had the experience of being in government and then seeing it from outside, I can now see more clearly than you can from within the Westminster/Whitehall circus the sort of changes which I think need to be made and which would be well received across the country.

    Q181 Julie Morgan: Sir John, going back to your discussion with the Chairman, why would you be so much against coalition governments, particularly if that reflects how the public feel and voted?

    Sir John Major: Only because I think it is more difficult to take really difficult, structural decisions. One point about politics at the moment is that the decisions government has to take are more complex and more difficult than the decisions we have had to take in the past. The easy things have been done, the difficult things remain to be done. If you have a coalition government, there is always the tendency that when something is very unpopular but necessary, if you try and put it through with a minority government, the third party or fourth party, whatever it may be, which supports that government may withdraw their support and the government may collapse. I think that does mean the really serious problems which need to be tackled – and there are going to be a lot of them over the next few years – are now and will probably not be taken because the government of the day would fear they could not get them through the House of Commons.

    The example I gave will not appeal particularly to many members of this Committee, but I very much doubt, whether you agree with them or disagree with them, that the trade union reforms of the 1980s could have been got through a Parliament in which a government did not have a majority. I doubt in future that some of the difficult decisions which may have to be taken about retirement age and things of that sort, would necessarily get through with a minority government, and everyone in this room can think of other examples like that. So I think the advantage of the government having a majority, particularly in terms of a crisis, is that it can actually do things which are unpopular but necessary, whereas I think with a minority government that is less likely to be the case unless you have a very mature series of opposition parties who will recognise the national interest and push aside the short-term political advantage of ousting the government.

    Q182 Chairman: Your Government was a coalition, was it not?

    Sir John Major: I did once say that, I believe. It was an unstructured comment caught on a microphone-not the only one of mine I recall.

    Certainly I did say that once, I think it was in Canada.

    Q183 Chairman: Life would have been happier with a proper coalition, would it not?

    Sir John Major: I doubt it. I doubt it, because a coalition partner would have demanded policies which I might not have liked, that my party might not have liked, and another set of difficulties I could have done without.

    Q184 Julie Morgan: Going back to ministerial appointments, looking back at them with your experience and if you had brought people in from outside much more widely, looking back do you have any regrets that there were some you did not bring in or you should have appointed?

    Sir John Major: It is difficult to re-invent the past looking back at this distance in time. I am sure at the time there were people who would have made a contribution, either in the Lords or the Commons. Looking back at this time, it would probably be invidious to name them but I am sure the answer is, yes, there would have been. I think also today, when the policy gets so much more complex, that is more so than it was then.

    Q185 Julie Morgan: What about party allegiances? Do you think that if you bring in people from outside they should be of the party allegiance of the Government?

    Sir John Major: I think they should commit themselves to collective responsibility, yes. It is a mistake that we politicians make that we believe everybody is a Conservative, a member of the Labour Party, a Liberal Democratic, or whatever, but the truth is for a lot of people who have no particularly strong political allegiance, more so these days than for a very long period of time, they vote for the party which they think might be the most competent and the most amenable; they are largely apolitical. I see no reason why people like that should not come into the Lords, but I do think they would need to commit themselves to the principle of collective responsibility in the House of Lords and not take a free ride by saying, “Yes, I will come into the House of Lords, yes I will support the Government when I think they are right, but I reserve the right to exercise my conscience in an awkward way whilst retaining my position if I think they are wrong.” I think you would get a chaotic situation then.

    Q186 Julie Morgan: So you think it is possible for people to come in, completely apolitical and function successfully as a minister from outside?

    Sir John Major: I do, yes I do. I can think, and do not ask me to name them because it would embarrass lots of people, of quite a few politicians over the 30 years I have been in the House of Commons or close to it, who might have served in more than one party and who were concerned about pragmatic, good government rather than ideology. So I do think it is possible, yes. Some of them have served in rather senior positions.

    Q187 Mr Prentice: So we would have a government stuffed full of technocrats, with no ideological leaning really, but they would just kind of do the right thing?

    Sir John Major: The words “stuffed full” are rather evocative. I do not remember, Gordon, saying “stuffed full”. I was thinking of the occasional people with particular skills. Do I think the government can survive with one or two people, or quite a few people, in it, who are not ideologues for their particular philosophy, most emphatically I do. Indeed I sometimes think government would be more effective if there were more pragmatists and fewer ideologues. There is a distinction I think between ideology and conviction, and I do think people need to have their convictions, but I do not think you need to have a government of ideologues, and some people who had no particular ideological bent but a pragmatic wish to serve and an intellectual and other capability to be of service, could be useful in government.

    Q188 Mr Prentice: I am just wondering if the grit in the oyster you talked about earlier could end up as Prime Minister as you ended up? I have this quote in front of me, you talking about your own regrets, and you say, “I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics, I was too conservative, too conventional, too safe, too often, too defensive, too reactive, later too often on the back foot.” Just reading that quote and reflecting on it, it surprised me that you ended up where you did in Number 10, and I do not say that in an impertinent way at all.

    Sir John Major: I was referring to my time in Number 10 rather than prior to that, and I do not move away from that quote at all. That was a reflective and I hope honest view, after the event, of how things might have been different. I do not want to traipse over the problems of the 1990s again, they were there, they have gone, we have moved on, but I think you have to learn from it. There is no point denying what the problems were, or not reflecting honestly upon them. The quote you produced just now is a perfectly fair reflection of what my view was some time after I left government.

    Q189 Mr Prentice: Can I turn to the problems of 2009 because we had Ann Abraham in front of us, last week I think, talking about the Equitable Life saga, something which has been going on for years and years and years, and she bemoaned the fact that for “Parliament” you might read “Government” because of the strong whipping system, with MPs voting the party line instead of standing back and looking at the issue in the round and coming to their own conclusions about it. My question to you is this, would you like to see more free votes, not on peripheral matters but really quite big issues like Equitable Life? Is there a role for more free votes in this Parliament which you envisage?

    Sir John Major: I think within limits, yes. I think within limits there are. I mean it is a problem, that if ever a government is defeated on a major issue technically it needs to resign. In practice I think there are occasions – and we do this in terms of things like embryology – where we have free votes on really important issues. I think there may be some other issues – I do not know whether this one would fall in that category – where it might be wise to let the House of Commons have its head without a whipping system; I would not object to that.

    Q190 Mr Prentice: You were a previous Chancellor, a previous Chief Secretary, and you will be familiar – even though you spend so much time out of the country – with the history of Equitable Life. Do you think – looking at that issue in particular – there is a case for a free vote on something with the huge public expenditure ramifications that there could be?

    Sir John Major: I did say I do not know whether I can comment on that particular issue. As it happens, I may know less about Equitable Life than you may imagine; I have not particularly studied it. One of the advantages of not being in politics any more is that I do not have to pretend to have an opinion upon everything I have not studied. If I have not studied it I can say I have not studied it and not have an opinion. So I will choose to do so on this particular occasion.

    I do think there may be a case for rather more free votes. I think the other thing that actually is the flipside of this is, one of the problems it seems to me in government is that senior ministers, given the pressure of our political system – which is more pressurised than almost any in the world, I think – is they have very little thinking time. They do not have time to sit back and do blue skies thinking or reflect entirely afresh upon the policies to which their party is committed. They do not come and say, “I wonder whether that actually in retrospect is right”. There is an idea that existed some time ago, and I think it was originally invented by Michael Palliser of the Foreign Office; he had a policy planning staff in the Foreign Office that was a sort of antibody to departmental culture, and I think David Miliband may have revived it – I am not entirely sure about that – and that (to borrow the phrase of a few minutes earlier) was intended to be the “grit in the oyster”.

    That would be an ideal body for some of these outside experts to join. It would be quite refreshing to see a policy planning staff with the leeway to be counterintuitive within every department, so that you actually consistently get somebody within the department challenging what is being done with external help and asking: is this really right? We all know you can get caught in a tramline on policy and find it very difficult to move off it, and very little fresh thinking often is devoted to that policy. I think that sort of grit in every department would be an extremely helpful aid to policy; and it would be very useful to put policy advisers in it. We have tsars, we have envoys, we have advisers, we have political advisers, we have all sorts of things now – they are of mixed value some of them, I think – but a policy adviser attached to a unit like that with the freedom within the department to think the unthinkable and question the accepted wisdom I think would be a very useful addition to the making of good policy.

    Q191 Mr Prentice: Is that not often the role of backbenchers? I remember Tony Blair when we won that famous victory in 1997, at the first meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, with his jacket off and his gleaming white shirt, saying to us, “Just remember you [that is Labour MPs] are our ambassadors, not our shop stewards”. I remember thinking at the time, “My, you’ve got that wrong. If we can’t tell where the Government is going off the rails no-one can”. I suppose my question is this: to what extent –

    Sir John Major: How effective do you think that was in the next 10 years?

    Q192 Mr Prentice: How? In keeping us quiet?

    Sir John Major: I am sorry, I know I am here to answer questions and not ask them but I would be interested to know what you thought about that?

    Chairman: The answer would differ as to whether you said five years or 10 years, I think.

    Q193 Mr Prentice: My question is this: in most comparable democracies – and you mentioned Canada – Members of Parliament, whether it is the Liberal Party, the NDP, or the Conservatives, they meet together as a caucus and take a view on the big issues of the day; and it would be inconceivable in these comparable democracies for huge policy changes to be made because they are instructed by the leadership – which is what happens in Britain. Colleagues from Canada and Australia are just completely nonplussed when I tell them about the changes brought in by the Blair administration that were never even discussed or debated in the Parliamentary Labour Party. We never had a vote on going to war in Iraq – absolutely astonishing. Is there not a role for the parliamentary caucus – whether it is the 1922 Committee, the Parliamentary Labour Party or whatever?

    Sir John Major: I cannot answer for the Parliamentary Labour Party. I can only say in the period that I was there if the 1922 Committee did not like a policy the Chairman of the 1922 Committee would be in to see the minister concerned or the Prime Minister pretty quickly or, more likely, in to see the Chief Whip, and the Chief Whip would be in to see the Prime Minister or the minister pretty quickly. If you do not carry your party with you on a policy then there are obviously turbulent times ahead. Of course there is a role for backbenchers – it would be absurd not to say there is – there has to be; but the whole thrust of what I was trying to say earlier was to try and put Parliament in a position where the executive is more challenged than it has been in the past. I absolutely agree with the thrust of your question and I think there are many ways of doing it, some of which I suggested.

    Q194 Chairman: Can I return, as we come towards the end, to this question about the professional politician, because it is something that you picked up in what you said today and what you said in your article in The Times. We have heard a lot of it and it is obviously something that we, most of us, talk about as well. Lord Turnbull, a former Cabinet Secretary, when he came to us said, “There is a growing trend for people to come into politics more or less straight from university. They lick envelopes in Central Office, become a special adviser, on and on it goes, and by the time they are in their mid-30s they are Cabinet ministers, barely touching the sides of real life”.

    I think we can all recognise the people that he is talking about right across politics; but it is a funny thing, is it not, because there is no other area of life where we would not demand that the people who engage in it are not professional, and a sense of devoting their life to it; politics, we say, should be different. But I notice that in the article you wrote your argument was not that these people, the people with more experience of life rather than people that I just described, should not go into government, should not become Cabinet ministers – because you talked earlier on about the skills that you need to develop through a lifetime of activity to be good at it – you say in your piece that you think these people should come in and be backbenchers; they should be the “Why?” people. I see the logic of that but, if we go down that route, with politics in the House as frustrating as you have described it, and as we all know it to be, why on earth would such people want to be doing something like that?

    Sir John Major: No, I was also talking about people coming into government, not just into the backbenches. If I failed to give you that impression let me try and correct it now. I do think there is a role to bring people into government. I would like to widen the intake into the House of Commons. I would certainly like to do that, although I understand the obvious difficulties of doing that, in getting people selected; but I do think there is a role in bringing people into government who are particularly talented.

    Q195 Chairman: But your article with Douglas Hurd says, “We have in mind professionals who have succeeded in their chosen career and have years of energy and good health ahead of them, which they could use not as ministers but as backbenchers to control the government of their country”. That was your proposal?

    Sir John Major: Yes, but not instead of being ministers. Of course, we were assuming that some of them might come in as ministers; I am not excluding that at all. We would like some of them to come in as backbenchers if we can – we certainly would. That is why I advocated an alternative career structure that would give more incentive for people like that to come in. Somebody coming into the House of Commons at over 50 is not realistically going to expect a ministerial career that is going to end up in Number 10, Number 11, the Foreign Office or the Home Office; they are not going to expect that; but they certainly could come in with experience and expect to be maybe Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee or the Public Administration Committee, have a senior place in Parliament and make a proper significant contribution to the way Parliament works. That was the point we were seeking to address in that particular sentence.

    Q196 Chairman: Let me then try a different approach to it, which is: you have been pretty damning in your description of the feebleness of Parliament now, but positive about the proposals that you have to do something about it; but is not the problem that we talk endlessly about the problem of the feebleness of Parliament and the need to do something about it – and we talk about it especially now but it is not a new theme – but we have a system where the Government controls essentially the entire business of the House; reform could only come through a government deciding to change things and governments for very sensible reasons – their own reasons – do not?

    Sir John Major: Governments respond to stimuli like everybody else; indeed, we might argue that governments respond too readily to stimuli too often. I think a good deal of that stimuli could well come from the sort of reports that committees like this can produce. That is why select committees are so important. I think they have to push at that door until it opens and – if governments do not like it – continue to make the argument. I am afraid I do not believe that we should have an elected dictatorship for five years, whatever its majority is. I simply do not believe that. I think that is simply not the democratic system that I find attractive.

    There should be many more stresses, many more balances; and if that is inconvenient for governments, well, it is inconvenient for governments and I think they have to live with it; but you are going to have to push them. I can make speeches about it outside; I can offer evidence to you; but you are going to have to push for it inside the House of Commons. You are going to have to say, “The present situation is unsatisfactory. We, the select committee, recommend that it is changed”.

    Q197 Chairman: We have been pushing –

    Sir John Major: Keep pushing!

    Q198 Chairman: – almost fruitlessly for years; but the point is, the brute reality is, governments have no interest – no self-interest – in making life more uncomfortable for themselves.

    Sir John Major: Hang on a moment, government had no interest in 1979 in introducing a select committee system, but they did. Why did they do that? They did that because they thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps a similarly enlightened moment might come about in the future. When it does come about in the future, let us make sure the right ideas are in the ether so they can be adopted. I do not take the view that every government is automatically going to be so self-centred and so cynical that it will not try and produce a parliamentary system that will be more popular, more workable and more effective in the future.

    Q199 Kelvin Hopkins: Are there not differences between governments? Between your government and the government that followed you immediately there were considerable differences in the attitude of the Prime Minister to opposition, the attitude to strong backbenchers and strong Cabinet ministers that – whom you seemed to readily accept – but were not popular with your successor.

    Sir John Major: I am sorry, I missed the last part?

    Q200 Kelvin Hopkins: That you accepted that strong backbenchers and strong ministers and a bit of challenge from time to time were understandably part of the system, but that this was not so under Tony Blair?

    Sir John Major: I think that is a function of the size of the majority. It is thought somehow to be strong. If you have a big majority, it is very easy to be strong because your majority and your payroll vote is so large you can just ignore anything, even if it has total commonsense behind it; that is the position governments with large majorities get into. Governments without large majorities have to be more sensitive to the realities of political life.

    Whatever I may wish to do, if I could not have got it through the House of Commons I could not do it – that is the brute truth. Some of the things I wanted to do would have been very unpopular with many people here. For example, the Post Office – now the subject of great public interest – I would like to have privatised that in the early 1990s but I could not because the rightwing of my party, the populist right, simply said, “They won’t support it because you’ll lose rural post offices” in their view; so we did not have a majority to do it. At the end of the day you may say, “That’s very weak, you didn’t do it”, but it would have been folly to push ahead with something where you knew you were bound to be defeated. There is a distinct difference between a government with a large majority and a government with a small majority. It is not unrelated to that that I referred to the question of the freakish majorities that our system sometimes throws out.

    Q201 Paul Flynn: A splendid select committee report in your time was one by the Select Committee on Transport with a Conservative Chairman and a majority of Conservative members who unanimously opposed the privatisation of the railways. You went ahead with it. What do you think of that?

    Sir John Major: I do not think that select committee report preceded the privatisation of the railways.

    Q202 Paul Flynn: It did.

    Sir John Major: Which was in the manifesto and, in any event, I am bound to say I do not wish to argue about the railways unless you really wish to invite me back to do that.

    Q203 Paul Flynn: But my point is –

    Sir John Major: No, I understand your point, but the plain fact of the matter is I am not here to defend everything I did in 1992; but I would defend the privatisation of the railways, because I saw no other way in which we were going to get sufficient capital to produce a modern railway system; and a belief with government finances as they were, and certainly as they are, that without access to the private capital markets, there would be no new rolling stock, and no new improvements on the railways. We can argue about that all day but it is not what I am here for, but I think that is the reason.

    Q204 Paul Flynn: The general point is, unless a government is committed to reform – the Labour Government is committed to freedom of information, it came back and bit the Government eventually – but I think the reform you will see from this is the redistribution of the boundaries and there will be a fairer electoral system but only because it will suit, if the Conservatives are elected, the interests of a Conservative Government. The depressing thing about this is – while we are all optimistic and we hope for reforms – the truth is that governments tend to all behave in the same way, which is in their own interests; and the future governments will introduce reforms but only if they accord with their own private interests.

    Sir John Major: I am sorry you take quite such a cynical view of it. I do not agree with that view. I think governments are not entirely comprised of people who are so self-centred that they cannot see beyond their own party interest. I do not believe that to be true. It is a very fashionable view I know in many quarters, but I happen not to agree with that. I hope events will prove that I am right and you are mistaken.

    Kelvin Hopkins: If we go back to the gene pool of the House of Commons – which in the past was, I think, sufficient to produce strong governments, strong Cabinets, very good ministers – the gene pool has been diminished, has it not? How much do you think this has been diminished by the obsessive control of selections – at least by my party – to make sure that strong, big beasts do not get into Parliament so that you have a backbench stuffed full of compliant loyalists and special advisers slotted into safe seats?

    Chairman: That is not directed at you!

    Q205 Kelvin Hopkins: Does that not diminish Parliament?

    Sir John Major: I think Parliament has been diminished by the lack of a broad intake. I can see a number of reasons – including the one you mentioned – why that intake has contracted. I think there are probably other reasons to do with parliamentary life that affect it as well. I think the concern one might have if one looks forward is: how attractive is it to come into Parliament if you are someone on an average income, who is married with two children, coming into the House of Commons for a marginal seat? If you look at the immediate and long-term interests of yourself and your family, is that necessarily an attractive option? I am not entirely sure at the moment that it is, for a range of reasons that go far beyond simple financial remuneration.

    Q206 Kelvin Hopkins: Could I just follow that point, if I may. I do agree actually. When I was elected I was told by a member of my family, “I thought you were going to be a legislator, not a social worker”. The fact is that we have an enormous amount of constituency pressures-even if you have got a relatively good majority – and we have to be both a social worker and a socialite, to get round to as many functions as you possibly can. This is a very different life from that which existed, say, 40 or 50 years ago, when Members of Parliament saw their role primarily –

    Sir John Major: There are other changes as well in the work of Parliament and of ministers. I would guess that in the last 15-20 years membership of the European Union has meant a day and a half’s work a week for the Prime Minister over a year; it has increased the workload absolutely enormously. You are quite right; there is a great deal of work in terms of social work rather than political work for the constituency Member. A point I should perhaps have made I think to David Heyes when he asked me about that, I have some experience of what more work would be with a larger constituency. I had a constituency that I do not think hardly ever fell below 90,000, and may at one stage have got up to 100,000, during the years in which I was in Parliament; so I am fully aware of the extent of constituency commitment-although I fancy it has increased in the days of the Internet, text messages and everything else. I think it is probably rather different than it was when I was there, and I would happily concede that.

    Q207 Chairman: We have had a very wide-ranging discussion, which I think we ought to bring to a close. Paul, rather disobligingly, reminded you of a question that he asked you years ago. Could I say, I asked you a question years ago and Matthew Parris, sketch writing in The Times, reported it as me having asked a sensible question and you having answered giving a sensible answer. He went on to say this was a kind of glimmer of what Prime Minister’s Questions could be, although it would be dreadfully dull! My memories of it are different from Paul’s. You have been very, very open and refreshing and frank with us and we, I think, have benefited hugely from the reflections that you have given us. We are very, very grateful to you for coming along and helping us in the way that you have. Thank you.

    Sir John Major: Thank you very much, Chairman. I enjoyed meeting you all. Thank you.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Norfolk Churches Lecture – 17 October 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Norfolk Churches Lecture held at the John Innes Centre in Norfolk on Saturday 17th October 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My theme this evening is to look at some of the issues – often forgotten amid the drama of day-to-day crises – that will change our future and re-shape our world.

    Mercifully, some things remain constant, even in today’s materialistic society. A determination to preserve our historic churches is one such example of stability, and I’m delighted to be here this evening at the request of the Norfolk Churches Trust.

    I set up the Lottery partly to help preserve precious monuments, in the hope that our distant descendants will be able to enjoy them as we do. The Trust’s work is vital, and I’m delighted to see so many of you here tonight, in support of it.

    These days change is constant. The men and women I worked with over a decade ago are now part of history.

    [Indistinct, anecdotes about Yeltsin and Gorbachev].

    Since then the world has changed. Political alliances have been formed and reformed; the global market has become established and a financial crash has nearly crippled the world economy.

    Meanwhile, wealth moves inexorably from West to East, as the East grows and the West slows. In 1700, the two largest economies were China and India. Some time this century, that will once again be so.

    The words of the poet, John Donne, five hundred years ago, that “No Man is an Island” are – today – very apt. Nor any country. Nor industry.

    In recent months, the whole world has been painfully reminded of that.

    It has been a period of great uncertainty and widespread fears. Once more, events have proved that what goes up – can also go down. It may take years to correct what has happened, but I want to look beyond the recession at some long-term trends that are changing the way we live. They creep up on us unannounced, but are often more compelling arbiters of change than the decisions of any Government.

    Consider science:

    Fifty one years ago, a man called Jack Kilby invented the first integrated circuit. It was crude, but it proved to be the fore-runner of silicon chips containing – literally – billions of microscopic circuit elements. Nothing in the 20th century has so accelerated change; it led to the computer revolution; to the Digital Age. Without that circuit there would be no Silicon Valley; no Internet; no laptop; no Google; no iPods; no Blackberrys – and no PlayStations. Our world was changed forever.

    Similarly, spin-offs from the space race have given us global communications, satellites and – less happily – missiles to carry nuclear weapons: it is likely there will be further unexpected advances as a fall-out from experiments with the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to re-commence in November.

    Science has not only changed how we live: medical science is changing the quality and length of our lives. A hundred years ago, no-one knew of blood groups, hormones or barbiturates. Since then, the advance of medicine has been bewildering.

    Whole new industries have emerged. Synthetic Biology has brought together science and engineering to design and build biological functions. New technologies are delivering better drugs to combat disease, promote genetic engineering, healthy food, better pesticides, the control and destruction of pollution, and advances in forensic medicine.

    Scientists are examining how to combine computer chip technology with pharmaceutical research in order to target drugs to treat specific parts of the body. Imagine – for example – chemotherapy with only minimal side-effects.

    Such science is leading a revolution in medical care: advances in engineering techniques have given us insulin pumps for diabetes; cochlea implants for deafness; and there are realistic prospects of repairing nerve cells for sufferers of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. It may soon be possible to replace heart muscle cells. A few years ago, all this would have seemed like Black Magic. Soon, fantasy will become reality, with commercial prospects that are simply staggering.

    And then there are more subliminal issues, often very complex, that demand Government action but are too often pushed aside because the costs are now and the effects of inaction are decades away.

    Hard-to-ignore science tells us the risks of climate change are real. The burning of fossil fuels – last year, China alone built one hundred coal-fired power stations – continues to raise dioxides: by 2050 they are likely to be double the pre-industrial level. Most scientists expect this to lead to global warming of between two to five degrees.

    This sounds small – but isn’t: in the depth of the last ice age, the temperature fall was – five degrees. However, a single figure is utterly misleading: the land warms more than the sea and high latitudes more than low. So the impact of global warming is not uniform. Nor is it localised: innocent non-polluters may suffer – and the guilty may not. To put it more vividly: if China, India and the US continue to pollute, then Bangladesh and the Philippines might flood – and Singapore might sink altogether.

    We do know that coal, oil and gas are going to dominate energy supply for decades to come – irrespective of any advances in solar energy, advanced bio-fuels, fusion and other renewables.

    Since this is so, the first priority must be to develop carbon capture and storage before it leaks into the atmosphere. And then we need to store it where it is safe – probably for centuries.

    And we also need to stop cutting down the Equatorial forests which release immense carbon into the atmosphere.

    This R&D challenge is daunting – and so is the cost – but energy security and climate change – despite disagreements among scientists – is a threat no-one dares ignore. If we take no action, our generation will not be seriously inconvenienced, but our children/grandchildren may face disaster.

    Energy security is not the such only long-term problem. Take Population as an example:

    1 AD: 300 million
    1900 AD: 1.5 billion = 1 BILLION in 1900 years
    Now: 6.5 billion = growing at 1 billion every 10 years
    By 2050: equivalent of absorbing two new Chinas.

    Can we cope? Impact on climate change is obvious. On food, equally so.

    All around the world, even in the grimmest of circumstances, people hope for something better. Hope for something better is the most basic of emotions.

    For half the world, hope is nearly all they have. Today, three billion souls live on less than US$ 2 per day; and one-fifth on less than US$ 1 per day. This cannot be acceptable. I daresay no-one here today would hesitate in spending that sum on a cup of coffee on the way into work each morning.

    The rich nations do help. At present, they spend US$ 50 billion in total on overseas aid: an enormous sum. But less generous than it seems when you realise that Europe and America also spend US$ 350 billion on agricultural subsidies alone.

    To put that into context: we spend seven times as much subsidising cheap food for those already well-fed, as the whole world spends on all the needs of those whose bellies are swollen with hunger.

    Here, there is a real irony. As some nations grow and improve living standards, they drive up prices to the further detriment of even poorer nations. If one billion Indians – one sixth of the entire world population – together with millions of Chinese, Brazilians and Malaysians – now eat two meals a day, instead of only one, the demand for food soars.

    That puts up prices – provoking panic and moving the politics of food to the front burner of controversy. The days of cheap food are gone.

    So – let us recognise – now – that the world will need all the food we can grow – even if Australian harvests recover from a ten year drought, and Ukraine and Zimbabwe once again become the agricultural bread-baskets nature designed them to be.

    Nor is food the only problem. Consider the Nile – the lifeblood of Northern Africa. Population growth is putting terrible burdens on it. Sudan 5 million (1900), 150 million (2050). If the Nile can’t cope, much of North Africa returns to desert. The problem is decades ahead – the need for action is now. And, to get it, we need a new long-term approach to politics that will make great demands on Government.

    My theme has been to look at some of the issues in our post recession world. If we don’t tackle these problems now we will leave a truly dismal legacy to our successors.

    Inevitably, there is much I have not touched upon: political rivalries; the risks of nuclear or biological terrorism; the insecurities created by the arc of uncertainty from Syria to Pakistan.

    All these are unwelcome problems, complex and not easily solved, but let me add a little balance. Despite the economic downturn, we have just enjoyed fifteen years of high growth – hundreds of millions have been lifted from poverty.

    The Cold War is over: the risk of global conflagration has gone.

    Investment across nations minimises the risk of wars. Science is raising the quality of life. Medicine is raising its length: in the last forty years – since 1968 – life expectancy has risen faster than in the previous 4,000 years. Our children will be citizens of the world in a way earlier generations could never have dreamed. They will see more, do more, know more than we could ever have imagined.

    Over two decades, China and the US have developed huge inter-locking economic interests. Japan and China are beginning to repair old scars. Democracy is expanding. And – pre-recession – poor, forgotten Africa has been growing faster than at any time in our lifetimes. Europe has moved the free market eastwards and southwards.

    Sometimes – despite our economic problems – I think we should be more self-confident and more aware of what has been achieved.

    In a preface to some famous essays, an English philosopher flatteringly observed to his Patron that “You have planted things that are likely to last”.

    So have we – in our own time. The Free Market. The Global Market. Democracy. A Union across Europe. The concept of supra-national co-operation. All gifts from the West to the world – with the US and Europe as principal donors.

    Here in North Norfolk – you – by being here tonight – are playing your part in securing the future of our Heritage. It is up to all of us – near and far – to secure the future of our world.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Commonwealth’s 60th Anniversary Dinner – 14 October 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Commonwealth’s 60th Anniversary Dinner, held at Lords in London on Wednesday 14th October 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    When the Secretary General proposed this dinner, he brought together two institutions that inter-link and endure.

    Cricket, of course, is 400 years older than the Commonwealth but it continues to provide the cement that keeps together fifty-three diverse nations of varying size and wealth, across continents and oceans. Often, their interests converge, sometimes they collide, but they all share a common affection for cricket.

    I once tried to explain cricket to an American President – and his eyes glazed over. He found it hard to comprehend a game that could last five days – but with no positive result. I tried with Boris Yeltsin, too, over a large vodka. His eyes glazed over too, although – just perhaps – that was due to the vodka. But in the Commonwealth – the pace of cricket fits with the rhythm of life.

    The Commonwealth was born out of the break up of an Empire when common ideals, shared interests and age old sentiment saw virtue in a loose association of nations. Today, some people doubt its relevance – but they are wrong to do so.

    The Commonwealth has values in common: democracy, freedom, the rule of law. It promotes social and economic development – especially in the 32 Member States with populations of less than 1½ million.

    The well-being of Nations often hangs on the affection between populations and even on relations between individuals in Government.

    In our hard-headed, materialistic world, some think such a judgement is pure nostalgia for an age that never existed. I disagree. A Commonwealth gathering is more intimate, more friendly, than a meeting of the G20 or United Nations – and far less bloody than the European Council. Arguments may be fierce, but consensus is usually possible. It is more like an extended family than quarrelling neighbours.

    But there is nostalgia in the musings of cricket lovers: where, in the Commonwealth, have you not heard arguments about the relative merits of cricketers – often long dead before those arguing were born? Was Victor Trumper better than Hobbs? Or Learie Constantine a greater match winner than the Nawab of Pataudi? Discuss and enjoy.

    Across the Commonwealth, sport has a role, evident every four years in the Commonwealth Games. The ancient Greeks understood the value of sport – and so does the Commonwealth. And in the Commonwealth, the King of Sports is cricket. I rarely had a meeting with a Caribbean leader – or an Indian or a Pakistani – without it featuring. Good-natured banter prevailed over political wariness.

    With Australians, cricket was almost a formal agenda item and with South Africa and New Zealand it jostled with Rugby for a share of the time. Nelson Mandela once told me that one of the first questions he asked on leaving Robben Island was: “Is Don Bradman still alive”.

    At the Commonwealth Conference in Harare in 1991, we held a cricket match. I opened the batting at the Wanderers Ground with Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia. The ground was overflowing but, to prevent swollen heads among the politicians, it was made clear to us that the spectators had come to see their local hero, Graeme Hick. To them – and how wise they were – cricket mattered a good deal more than politics!

    Our time on that pitch revealed some national characteristics: Hawke stole the bowling unmercifully and when – after 10 overs – we were ushered off the pitch to – and I quote the umpire – “make way for the real cricketers”, I asked Bob if he’d known we were only due to have a brief time at the wicket. Looking – only a little shifty – he replied: “Jeez, yes, John, didn’t I tell you?”. Believe me, the Aussies are tough competitors – on and off the cricket field.

    Cricket and politics have many similarities. Apart from nostalgics, they attract pessimists. As long ago as 1932, C.P. Snow was complaining:

    “These days, a man of taste can only go to an empty ground and regret the past!”. The same dreary view can often be heard today.

    For some, the past is always the Golden Age. In the 1930s, Neville Cardus once wrote of falling asleep at Lord’s to the complaints of an elderly spectator that cricket “wasn’t what it used to be”. Cardus awoke to see Larwood bowling to Hammond. Anyone who dozed off over recent years might have woken to see Warne bowling to Tendulkar. And tomorrow, some equally compelling contest is certain.

    In the Commonwealth, cricket has always played a special role. The West Indian cricket writer, C.L.R. James argued that – for the West Indies – cricket had a magic that was a guiding light for the dispossessed and the disenfranchised.

    I believe that to be true. Over many decades, cricket has, for some, been an escape from obscurity to fame, poverty to comfort, exclusion to inclusion.

    Think of the great players who first picked up a bat and ball on the streets of Lahore or Kingston or Mumbai. But – more widely than its influence on individuals – cricket touches deep and conflicting emotions. One need only think of how an Ashes win lifts morale in England or Australia. Or a Series win between India and Pakistan – or Australia and New Zealand – or … well, I don’t think I need go on.

    Cricket can uplift whole communities – whole nations, even – or cast them down. It adds value to lives. The classic illustration was here at Lord’s in 1950. That year, the West Indies took on England at her own game, in her own country, at the very headquarters of cricket.

    And they beat her on merit. Perhaps no win in cricket ever had such social significance as Ramadhin and Valentine’s destruction of England at Lord’s. The game was won by the charm and guile of the cricketing sophisticates’ delight: the art of great spin bowling. It was intelligent cricket – the West Indies out-thought England as well as out-played them. As a result, notwithstanding their tough lives, all West Indians walked a little taller.

    The Commonwealth has infinite variety. Large nations. Small Nations. Old Nations. New Nations. Rich Nations. Poor Nations. They all take their place. And within them – cricket takes its place. And because cricket is a game of the mind, the way it is played reflects the very marrow of the nation from which the players come. Even putting aside physical characteristics, the professional cricket watcher would soon know whether he (or she) was watching Australia or Sri Lanka, West Indies or England, South Africa or India.

    Many years ago that great cricketer, Prince Ranjitsingh, analysed a cricket crowd:

    “There are all sorts and conditions of men around the ropes – bricklayers, bank clerks, soldiers, postmen and stockbrokers. And in the pavilion are QCs, artists, Archdeacons and leader writers. Bad men, good men, workers and idlers are all there and all at one in their keen-ness over the game … cricket brings the most opposite characters and the most diverse lives together”.

    He might have added that such sentiments apply to countries, too. Within the Commonwealth, cricket is an invisible bond, a shared love that brings people together. Cricket is cohesive, not divisive.

    I saw this for myself in the mid-1990s when I was invited to speak to the South African Parliament, during the first post-Apartheid visit of a British Prime Minister.

    I took with me some famous sporting personalities and we visited Soweto, armed with sporting equipment for the young children there. Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart presided over the cricket nets. That wonderful athlete Judy Simpson held a masterclass in athletics. Bobby Charlton demonstrated his mastery of football.

    In the nets, I bowled Steve Tshwete, the South African Sports Minister, first ball. It was – as I recall – the only positive headline I got that year. All Soweto turned out and the sports stars were mobbed. But cricket held sway – except for one small boy.

    He had been coached on hurdling by Judy Simpson and told to practice every single waking moment. He was then coached on cricket by Colin Cowdrey. “I’ll practice day and night, Mr Cowdrey”, the boy promised. “Absolutely not!”, said a horrified Colin, “you must be sure to get plenty of sleep too”. Colin wasn’t called “Kipper Cowdrey” for nothing.

    As the boy walked away shaking his head, I heard him mutter: “The cricket man says I’ve got to sleep. Cricket must be for sissies”. And he tossed down his cricket bat and began hurdling over it instead.

    During those hours in Soweto there was an outpouring of sheer, exuberant joy amidst profound hardship. Never doubt the healing properties of sport.

    The game of cricket today is a far cry from the age of humbug when W.G. Grace pocketed large fees for playing cricket, at the same time as he symbolised and promoted the concept of the Gentleman Amateur.

    We have moved on from the age when, in England, the Captain, the Amateurs and the Professional players all used different dressing rooms and stepped onto the pitch through separate gates. Such images symbolise times long past. As does the Empire that is now a Commonwealth.
    In an ever-shrinking, increasingly inter-dependent world, both the Commonwealth and cricket continue to grow. Once cricket was an English game. Now it belongs to many countries – even Afghanistan and China are adopting it with enthusiasm. When I saw the Prime Minister of Kuwait recently, he was telling me about the cricket pitch he has just designed at his country residence, hopeful that – by the time I next visit – it will be ready for play.

    Cricket and the Commonwealth continue to march together. The intricacies of both are difficult to explain, but both continue to thrive. They are linked by history, and have evolved over time to reflect our shared interests, common goals, sense of fair play – and sense of fun.
    In forty years’ time – when the Commonwealth marks its Centenary Year – I hope and believe that cricket will still be playing its own unique role in strengthening and widening the Commonwealth we celebrate tonight.

  • Sir John Major’s Article in The Times on Constitutional Reform – 11 July 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s article in The Times on Constitutional Reform, written jointly with The Lord Hurd of Westwell [Douglas Hurd], published on 11th July 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The row over Parliamentary expenses and the Cabinet crisis have triggered a much wider debate about Parliament and Government. The expenses system must be thoroughly cleaned out and overhauled; but it is also the right time for fuller discussion of the health and reputation of our political system. Within a few months, at the latest, we will have a General Election. Both the main parties are in the market for ideas, the Conservatives preparing for government, Labour searching for a formula which might give them a fourth term. This is a good moment for all of us outside the Party leaderships to put in our word.

    The Prime Minister’s statement on 10th June was deeply disappointing. It added nothing of substance to the debate. At present, Parliament seems to sit fewer days each year. Working hours have been shortened. Debate on legislation is routinely curtailed with much of it poorly (sometimes never) debated. Unelected spokesmen have moved from the backroom to the limelight, often with more influence than Ministers. All of this weakens Parliament. We need a House of Commons reduced in size, as David Cameron has suggested, and galvanised with greater efficiency.

    As for Government, Gordon Brown’s reshuffle was forced on him by the disintegration of his team. But for weeks the commentators had confidently predicted a reshuffle as a tactical diversion away from the Prime Minister’s other difficulties. The possibilities were analysed in the narrowest possible terms. Is he or she a Brownite or Blairite? How does their expense sheet look? How do they stand within the Labour Party?

    This is all trivia. No-one has been speaking up for change to improve the quality of Government as a whole. No one asks the critical question: who is best for this particular job? It is as if the actual daily work of Ministers – the analysis of advice and taking of decisions – is peripheral, whereas it should be the point and purpose of their existence.

    The result has been poisonous for the quality of decisions. Defence is the striking example. The Armed Services of the Crown are under formidable strain. For years, they have endured Secretaries of State who were left in Office hardly long enough to learn the ropes. Prisons are another example; we have had eight prison ministers in nine years. This is frivolous government. Of course a Prime Minister must be free to make changes when necessary; but his obligation must always be to secure the best available leadership for each department of State.

    There are too many Ministers. The total could be reduced by about one-third. Only Cabinet Ministers need Parliamentary Private Secretaries. The Treasury should remain with two Ministers, both in the Cabinet. DFID should be reunited with the Foreign Office, likewise with two Cabinet Ministers. Thus, the number of Junior Ministers could be reduced significantly. We support the recent expansion of overseas aid, but believe that Britain’s aid programme has become dangerously divorced from British foreign policy.

    Recent changes have substantially weakened the Home Office, which ought to be one of the great Offices of State. It, too, would benefit from a second Cabinet Minister and fewer Junior Ministers. This would enable us to reunite all elements of the criminal justice system, police, probation, courts and prisons, under one roof. The current system, as established by the Labour Government, is simply not working.

    Once these simplifying changes have been made, and the Cabinet appointed, we would hope that – short of disasters – the Prime Minister would leave the structure of government in place, and – subject to competence – give each Cabinet Minister a clear run of two or three years.

    Within the total number of Ministers, there are now too few with experience of life outside politics. Almost all Ministers rise through the Commons, and nowadays most MPs of all parties have moved straight from further education into some form of professional politics. The ambition of professional politicians also weakens the ability of Parliament to hold the Executive to account. More outside experience would strengthen Parliament and Government. Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers have tried to remedy this by bringing businessmen and professionals into Government through the House of Lords. This device can work well, but there is a defect of accountability which limits its use. We would look for a way in which all Ministers in the House of Lords could appear at the Despatch Box to answer to the House of Commons as a whole, and not just to Select Committees.

    We would make a more adventurous experiment in the same direction: a Prime Minister could appoint a small number of unelected Ministers of State, who would be answerable to Parliament without being members of either House. This is, of course, a device borrowed from the United States, France and other democracies which practise the separation of powers. It could deepen the quality of Ministerial government without undermining the principle of accountability to Parliament.

    The same narrowing of skills and experience needs to be remedied in the House of Commons itself. Somehow, we have to persuade talented individuals to come forward, and constituencies to accept candidates, from a wider range than at present. We have in mind professional people who have succeeded in their chosen career and have years of energy and good health ahead of them which they could use, not as Ministers but as backbenchers, to control the government of their country. The conditions of service have to be tolerable to such individuals, which bears on the issue of salaries and expenses. More important, such men and women have to feel that they can be effective Parliamentarians. Useful proposals to this end have already been made. The Select Committees should be totally freed from the control of the Whips. We would favour Parliament scrutinising and approving a two year Government policy programme. The Commons must re-establish the ability to scrutinise legislation, both domestic and European. This will mean looking again at Parliament’s not particularly vigorous hours of work, and compelling Government to limit the quantity of legislation to the Parliamentary time available for proper scrutiny.

    Out of these and other changes should emerge a Parliamentary career structure in parallel to the structure of Government. The Chairmen of Select Committees should be paid the same as Ministers of State, and emerge as nationally known figures. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee should have the salary of a Cabinet Minister. The Speaker would stand at the apex of this parliamentary career, universally known as the spokesman and champion of a Parliament of which its electors could be proud. We are some way from that now, but the time is ripe for reform. Such reform must extend beyond correcting abuses, and centre upon ensuring that the quality of Government improves, and the Executive is held to account more effectively than in recent years.

    The necessary elements are there in our history. Those of us who have been privileged to serve Parliament, in both Houses, have a duty to breathe new life back into the ceremonies, traditions and magnificent buildings of which we have been so proud in the past. Such a debate is vital to secure its future.

    The Rt Hon Sir John Major, KG, CH

    The Rt Hon The Lord Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC

    London SW1
    11th July, 2009

  • Sir John Major’s Comments on the Economy – 5 July 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s comments on the economy, made in an interview on 5th July 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    [Sir John was asked how deep the recession is].

    I think it’s as deep as I can ever remember. If you look at the contraction in the economy which is close to 5% on a year on year basis and then look at the size of the deficit, which is 175 billion or thereabouts on best estimates, about 12% of GDP, that’s a territory we have never before been in in peace-time, so this is about as bad as it has ever got, so I think the recovery pattern, you may get a small dead cat bounce here and there, but I think the recovery pattern will be very slow, and the pace and strength of the recovery may well depend on decisions yet to be taken about public expenditure and tax.

    [Sir John was asked about stories of severe public service cuts].

    I’m unsurprised by that story, I would be very surprised if departments up and down Whitehall and local authorities up and down the country weren’t looking at very significant reductions in expenditure at the current time. It would be remiss of them not to do so.

    I think one just has to look at the figures. If you’re talking of a public sector deficit of 12%, let us make the happy assumption that half of that may be wiped away by growth over the next few years, I think it’s questionable that it will, but on happier assumptions, it just conceivably might. You’ve still got a public sector deficit of around 90 billion, even that is over twice as high as we have ever had before, at the worst of any recession, even assuming we have that growth.

    Either we deal with that with public expenditure reductions or we deal with it in tax rises, or more likely a mixture of both. Let us assume for a moment that the Prime Minister’s plan not to cut public expenditure significantly holds steady. If that is the case, then you are then beyond a shadow of doubt facing very significant tax increases. Now difficult to be precise of how big, but I think we can begin to make a guess.

    [Sir John was asked whether taxes could only be on the rich].

    No, well of course, there’s already been an increase in the upper rate of 10% from 40% to 50%, but the rich can’t remotely provide the sort of money we’ll be needing, that’s relative petty cash of what we’ll be needing.

    So you’ve had an increase of 10p in the upper rate for the rich, I think you may well get 5 pence on the standard rate, you might well get VAT at 20%. Even if you got that, you would not begin to bridge the gap that must be bridged. So it would be significantly larger than that, on the assumption you aren’t going to make public expenditure reductions.

    So I think the debate needs now to concentrate on the reality of where we are, and it doesn’t matter who is in Government now, this mess isn’t going to change with a change of government, someone, whoever is in Government now or later, is going to have to correct the public finances. And if they don’t, if they just continue with the finances of this huge deficit, at some stage our national credit rating would collapse, if that happened, sterling would be in difficulty, if that happened you’re get soaring interest rates and all the good done in the 90s when we took a lot of pain to get inflation down would have been thrown away.

    So the situation we are now in is pretty serious and has been built up over many years. Normally in years when you have a good economic record, you begin to repay debt and you bring the deficit down. What has happened, particularly since 1999, is that even in good years with a boom, the debt has risen. Now of course the boom has gone, we have the debt, and we have the problems of recession, adding to that on a daily basis.

    [Sir John was asked if he spoke to current Conservative leaders].

    My conversations with current Conservatives is private and I have my own views, and I speak for myself and no-one else.

    I think the public really need to understand how deep this is. These silly exchanges about “Mr 10%”, and things of that sort, totally under-rate the difficulties that we are now facing. People need to understand that this is an unprecedented situation. We have never seen anything like this in your lifetime or mine.

    [Sir John was asked about whether politicians can now talk more about tax increases].

    It may well be if you talk about cuts you get punished by the electorate as you did in the past. There are two things crossing over here, there is the question of whether you can talk about cuts and the question of trust. Trust has been eroded over a long period and I think the present Government have done a great deal of damage to trust in Parliament and to trust in Government. But now, the public are going to find out in the next few years exactly how serious what is now happening will be.

    I think the party that tells them the truth, in the most explicit terms, will be the long-term gainer. Whether they will be the immediate short-term gainer in the battle of oratory between now and the General Election I can’t say, but in the medium and long term, the party that tells the public how deep the problem is and what needs to be done about it is the party that will earn the respect of the public and the trust of the public and the party that will be the long-term gainer, in my view.

    I think we have to address the reality, you have a deficit of 180 billion;

    Can you continue with that? No.

    Have you got to narrow it? Yes.

    Can that be done solely by growth? No.

    So how do you bridge the gap, and what are the implications of that?

    And there are some opportunities here. When people think of cuts, I would argue that we are a heavily over-governed nation. When you have subsidy to some parts of the country greater than that is provided in Cuba, you realise you are beginning to become a bit of a nanny state.

    There is an opportunity not just to deal with the problem, but to downside the sum total of Government, which I think we should do. And by downsize the sum total of Government, I don’t just mean reduce the number of MPs, although I think that is right. I do mean reduce the size of the Government machine, we have no need for a 120 Ministers and 60 PPSs, and you could reduce that by a third quite comfortably, and

    I’d happily explain how.

    And then when you’ve done that and down-sized Parliament in that respect, I think you downsize what Government does. You can’t forever have the Government increasing its role at the expense of private endeavour and the private sector. It is a route that ends eventually in national bankruptcy, which is where the Government are heading us.

    So I think there is a philosophical opportunity to reshape the country as you deal with the problem.

    [Sir John was asked whether this was a 1979 moment].

    I very much hope that will be the case, though in many cases the problems now are more serious than 1979. 1979 was very bad, and it was only because of the disaster of the 1970s that the reforms of the 1980s were politically possible.

    I think now, with the problems we’ve got, that there is scope for bigger and more fundamental changes in the next Parliament and beyond.

    [Sir John was asked whether David Cameron was a Margaret Thatcher politician].

    I think he’s a David Cameron politician. No-one can know what someone is like until they’re in the position. And often events make people. And I think he’s going to face some very uncomfortable decisions in the future. I think he’s done a remarkable job of changing the Conservative Party in the right direction for the last two or three years, so I have a very high opinion of him and I very much hope he can do what still needs to be done.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Prince’s Trust Dinner – 29 June 2009

    Below is the text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Prince’s Trust Dinner, held at Mosimann’s on Monday 29th June 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My theme tonight is – change.

    Over the past few months, we’ve lived through economic and political events that have unsettled the previous view we had of the world.

    A new Presidency has revived the perception of America. But Iraq is not yet secure. Iran is in flux. We are not winning the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan is facing an upsurge in militancy. Progress on the MEPP is bedevilled by mistrust between Israel and Palestine.

    Meanwhile the EU is locked in yet another institutional crisis while Russia is hurting economically and, once again, moving away from the West.

    Economy

    The backcloth to all this is the economic firestorm of the last few months: a time in which the unthinkable has become thinkable and the future uncertain.

    No-one can be quite sure where we now are in the economic cycle – but it seems probable that the steep economic decline is over and activity is stabilising at – or near – the bottom of the cycle. Certainly the world economy is not collapsing but no route out of our difficulties is yet apparent.

    Some of the signals are mixed. Exports are rising from a very low baseline. Some business surveys are more positive. Economic data is less bad.

    There are other positive signs. Equity is now being raised in capital markets. The Banks generally – but not universally – are now on a more sound footing. And the ‘fear factor’ – fear of a systemic collapse – has largely gone away. These are all essential components of recovery although over that recovery hovers the potent threat of protection.

    But risks remain. Many financial institutions remain heavily over-borrowed. A lot of toxic debt is still hidden somewhere in Banks, Hedge Funds or Pension Funds. Its emergence would be de-stabilising.

    Government debt is at record highs in many countries. In countries like the UK, this raises the risk of higher taxation or rising interest rates to fund the deficit. This risk increases in the recovery phase when both governments and the Private Sector begin seeking loan funds.

    Amid these mixed signals we can be sure that the economic world we are entering will be different.

    We should be under no illusions. Free trade and market forces look much less attractive to the world than they did six months ago. Millions of people feel let down – have been let down. They have saved, and been prudent, yet their security has been wrecked. The UK again illustrates the point: Jobs, Houses, Pensions – the basis of well-being for individuals – are at risk for far too many people.

    In the foreseeable future, policy makers will need to show that the free market is sound: and that they know how to curb the excesses.

    It is certain that regulation will be tougher – and more restrictive. It is likely investors will be more risk averse. Public sentiment has lost its affection for – as the public sees it – the profit-at-all-costs, high risk, casino capitalism of the recent boom. Managed and less buccaneering capitalism seems more attractive.

    Some underlying fundamentals have not changed. China exemplifies the reality that, for over a decade, the economies of the emerging world have been star performers. Of course, the crisis hit China, too. But the speed and size of China’s fiscal stimulus suggests she is recovering well ahead of the Western economies. Certainly, unlike elsewhere, credit is expanding rapidly.

    Other emerging economies will enjoy growth well ahead of their Western counterparts among them – China, India, Indonesia. Some of the smaller economies – Ukraine, the Baltic States – face more intractable problems but, in the future, we can expect most of the world’s growth to come from the East. We can no longer deny what is evident: there has been a shift of economic power. And this shift is not short-term; it is more likely to accelerate.

    This hasn’t come about because the West became careless – or degenerate: quite the reverse. Not only did the West win the argument for the free market, but Western science put rocket boosters on it.

    The moment Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit, we were in a new world: nothing in the 20th Century so accelerated change. That circuit was the forerunner of silicon chips. It led to the computer revolution. To the Digital Age. Without them, there would be no Silicon Valley; no Internet; no laptops; no Google; no iPods; no Blackberrys – and no PlayStations.

    Similarly, spin-offs from the space race have given us global communications, satellites and – less happily – missiles to carry nuclear weapons: it is likely there will be further unexpected advances as a fall-out from experiments with the Large Hadron Collider, now due to re commence operations in October.

    Science has not only changed how we live: medical science is changing the quality and length of our lives. A hundred years ago, no-one knew of blood groups, hormones or barbiturates. Since then, the advance of medicine has been bewildering.

    Whole new industries have emerged. Synthetic Biology has brought together science and engineering to design and build biological functions. New technologies are delivering better drugs to combat disease, promote genetic engineering, healthy food, better pesticides, the control and destruction of pollution, and advances in forensic medicine.

    Scientists are examining how to combine computer chip technology with pharmaceutical research in order to target drugs to treat specific parts of the body. Imagine – for example – chemotherapy with only minimal side-effects.

    Such science is leading a revolution in medical care: advances in engineering techniques have given us insulin pumps for diabetes; cochlea implants for deafness; and there are realistic prospects of repairing nerve cells for sufferers of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. It may soon be possible to replace heart muscle cells. A few years ago, all this would have seemed like Black Magic. Soon, fantasy will become reality, with investment and commercial prospects that are simply staggering.

    Population growth is also effecting change. At the time of Christ, world population was about 350 million. Over the next 19 centuries, it grew by a little over one billion. Now, we are growing at nearly one billion every ten years. Most of this growing population is very poor: 3 billion – nearly one-half the present world population – live on only a handful of dollars a day.

    Here is a cruel irony. As some nations reduce poverty and improve their own living standards, they drive up food prices. This is calamitous for even poorer nations. The arithmetic is simple: if one billion Indians – one-sixth of the entire world population – together with millions of Chinese, Brazilians and Malaysians – now eat two meals a day, instead of only one, the demand for food soars. So does the price – provoking fear and panic in poor communities.

    The rich nations promise to help – but many do not live up to their promises. It cannot be right that both Europe and America spend broadly seven times as much on providing subsidised food for those already well-fed as the whole world spends on all the needs of those who often are not fed at all.

    This statistic is even more bizarre when you realise such subsidies cut away the chance for poor nations to sell their agricultural produce – often their only export – into developed markets. This is hardly free trade.

    Now, factor in future growth. Between now and 2050 it is estimated world population will grow by the equivalent of two more nations the size of China. Most of these 2½ billion people will be very poor. This is not a problem we can ignore.

    Nor is climate change: hard-to-ignore science warns us that the long-term risks are real.

    We had better recognise coal, oil and gas are going to dominate energy supply for decades to come – irrespective of any advances in solar energy, advanced bio-fuels, fusion and other renewables.

    As dioxides rise, scientists warn of global warming of up to five degrees: this sounds small – but isn’t: in the depth of the last ice-age the temperature fall was – five degrees. But – this single figure is utterly misleading: the land warms more than the sea and high altitudes more than low. So the impact of global warming is not uniform. Nor is it localised: innocent non-polluters may suffer – and the guilty may not: no-one can predict where the flood, or hurricane, or drought risks will be. This does not make it easy to persuade the polluters to stop.

    Nor do the time-lags: the main perils of global warming lie far ahead. It takes decades for the oceans to adjust, and centuries for ice-sheets to melt. Yet, for all its scientific uncertainty, climate change is a challenge we cannot, dare not, ignore.

    Politics is changing our world, too.

    Fifty years ago, no-one could have predicted the world of today.

    The Soviet Union and the United States were the two super-powers. China was isolationist. Japan had barely begun her post-war rise. Central and Eastern Europe fell under Soviet control. Germany was still divided. Latin America was a continent of revolutions. The EU was in its infancy. Much of Africa was still colonised. Oil was $3 a barrel and no-one imagined an Islamic Revolution.

    We worry about Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Arab-Israel and the stability of the Middle East – but talk of it as though it were one problem – which it is not – and without looking at history in order to understand the roots of conflict.

    We conflate Islam and fundamentalism: and yet fundamentalism is a perversion of Islam, that threatens it as much as us. Bin Laden hates the Saudis even more than he hates the Americans!

    In its diversity, there are tensions between Christian, Muslim and Jew; Arab, Persian, Kurd and Turk; Shia and Sunni; between Monarchies and Republics; Secular and Islamic societies; Monarchies and Republics. Some countries have oil, some not. Some are large, others small.

    The Middle East embraces nations in which references to the Prophet Mohammed, or the Old and New Testaments, are part of everyday conversation. For some – the Salafists – Islam was perfect when founded and cannot be changed or improved.

    It is a cauldron. It is not a liberal democracy.

    Over the centuries we – in Europe – have chosen democracy as our form of government. Others – China, Russia, much of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa – seem to accept, even welcome, a form of autocratic quasi-democracy, that is more concerned to enhance competition than to use social expenditure to improve what Disraeli called “the Condition of the People”.

    As we go forward, the West will need to take account of this. We cannot – other than by example – presume to impose our own democratic system of government – itself imperfect, despite its longevity – on other nations with their own histories and cultures.

    I have not talked tonight of our own country although, no doubt, many expected me to do so. I did not – because I despair at Government that is reduced to a soap opera and Parliament to irrelevance and disaffection.

    But – if you wish – please ask!

  • Sir John Major’s Comments on the Inquiry into the Iraq War (II) – 18 June 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s comments on the Inquiry into the Iraq War in an interview with ITN held on Thursday 18th June 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Frankly I find it quite inexplicable, utterly baffling, that anyone could ever have thought than an inquiry of this nature, with the level of public concern, and frankly, the obligation we owe to the families of the servicemen and women who lost their lives and were injured, that anyone could have contemplated that this could be predominantly held in private. It is an extraordinary belief that it could have been that way.

  • Sir John Major’s Statement on the Inquiry into the Iraq War – 18 June 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s statement on the Inquiry into the Iraq War, issued on Thursday 18th June 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    INQUIRY INTO THE IRAQ WAR

    The Government’s decision to hold the Inquiry into the Iraq War in private is inexplicable – not least in its own interests. Any material which puts our national security at risk must, of course, be withheld but if, as the Government proclaims, its position will be wholly vindicated, then it should welcome maximum publicity on all other disclosures. It should also engender confidence in its findings by taking evidence under oath. Only then can witnesses be bound to offer full and frank responses.

    The arrangements currently proposed run the risk of being viewed sceptically by some, and denounced as a whitewash by others. I am astonished the Government cannot understand this.

    There are other, wider reasons for a Public Inquiry:

    – To settle – once and for all – the continuing debate upon whether the war was legal, or not.

    – To explain how, and why, we went to war on a false premise, with the public apparently being misled on the cause of the war, and the missile capability of Saddam’s Iraq.

    – Last – but by no means least – the Government needs to provide some kind of closure for the families and friends of those who have perished, or been maimed, in pursuit of this policy.

    If the Government is seen to obfuscate on this issue, lingering doubts will always remain. It is imperative that, when next any British Government commits our armed forces to war, that Government’s word is trusted beyond doubt. For this reason, and for the sake of all those who have either risked, or given, their lives in Iraq, nothing but an Inquiry with full disclosure – under oath – will do.

    THE RT HON SIR JOHN MAJOR, KG, CH
    18th June, 2009

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Carlton Club Political Committee Dinner – 16 June 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Carlton Club Political Committee Dinner, held at the Carlton Club in London on Tuesday 16th June 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    When Tim Eggar invited me to join you this evening, I didn’t realise I would be doing so at such a surreal moment.

    Just over a week ago, we had a Cabinet reshuffle beyond parody, with an outcome beyond belief.

    Before it began, Ministers were queuing to leave the Government rather than join it. When it was complete, the Prime Minister had himself been reshuffled. The Prime Minister’s allies told us we could not have another unelected Prime Minister in this Parliament. But now we have – doubly unelected since he’s in the Lords. He may not have the title Prime Minister but, if not, it’s the only one he doesn’t have.

    If newspaper reports are to be believed, a tired and fractious Gordon Brown was sent to bed on Thursday evening, whilst the new First Minister set about finalising the Ministerial changes. Presumably the next morning, Gordon was informed he had:-

    A Chancellor of the Exchequer he tried to sack;

    A Foreign Secretary he didn’t want to keep; and

    A brand new Cabinet appointment: former social worker Tessa Jowell, whose responsibility seems to be “Caring for Gordon”. She is No. 10’s own Supernanny.

    Poor Gordon. No more late nights. No more early mornings. No more playing with the computer after lights out. No more YouTube. No more voting for TV talent shows. No more throwing things around the room. And if there’s one more tantrum – Gordon will be sent straight to the Naughty Step.

    I told you it was beyond parody. Unfortunately, with things as they are, it is not beyond belief.

    Nor is Gordon’s capacity to undermine the Office of Prime Minister. Given everything else that should be occupying his mind at the moment, is it really a good use of his time to make telephone calls checking on the progress of a talent show singer? Frankly, I’d be more impressed if he’d taken time out to check on the progress of our limbless soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

    At the moment there’s a general assumption that the Conservatives will win the next election. Certainly, Labour can’t. Nor can the Lib Dems.

    But we can’t yet be confident we will get a clear majority. Winning the General Election is still unfinished business.

    When we lost – in 1997 – we had been in Government for 18 years: so long, many electors thought a fifth successive win would be bad for democracy.

    But it is ironic that the electorate turfed out the only Government in the last 50 years to leave Office with every single economic indicator improving, and elected a Party that has nearly bankrupted the Nation.

    When the economic crisis began, Gordon Brown blamed America. He stopped when Barack Obama became President. After all – it’s difficult to kick ass when you’re licking boots. So now the Prime Minister refers to the global crisis. Of course there is an international dimension, but to blame others for our mess is, at best, a half-truth. It’s a very New Labour response: political self-interest comes first. National well being trails far behind. And the unvarnished truth scarcely gets a look-in.

    The truth is starker. Even if there had been no international crisis:

    – We would still be in recession.
    – Our national and personal debt levels would still be at record highs.
    – Our banking system would still have been poorly regulated.
    – Our pension system would still have been wrecked.
    – Our education system would still need reform.
    – Our health system would still be unable to cope.
    – And our prison system would still be overflowing with prisoners who need not be there, whilst others who should be there are being released early.

    None of that can be blamed on America.

    At the wrong end of these policy failures – are innocent individuals.

    Everyone has three pillars to their security: job; pension; home. After twelve years of Labour, none of them is secure. In time, property values will recover. But, for many, the other pillars will not recover in time to help them.

    Unemployment is rising rapidly: anyone over 40 will find it hard to get another job at a comparable income. The impact on domestic life is immense.

    For those coming up to retirement, the future is bleak:

    Pensions based on the level of retirement income are dead – Gordon Brown killed them with a tax levy; and

    Pensions based on investment value have collapsed – destroyed because Gordon Brown ignored the growth of debt.

    Millions paid into a UK pension fund for nearly 40 years: now they are finding the lump sum due to them is down by one-third, with the yearly annuity down by 40%. That is not a one-year loss: it’s a loss for the rest of their lives.

    Nor can they sell their houses to make a capital gain: the collapse in property prices has closed that option.

    Savers suffer too: with interest rates at record low levels, their savings no longer earn any income.

    These are Labour’s victims: all innocent bystanders. So are the secondary victims. Many retirees help their adult children become home-owners; or pay for the education of their grandchildren. In future, fewer will be able to do so. Children and grandchildren lose out.
    Labour caused this. No-one else: they cannot put it right. No one asks the mugger to set the broken bones.

    But a Conservative Party can do so – provided we put the individual in the forefront of our policy – and our oratory.
    Labour inherited a flourishing economy: like every Labour Government before then. They will be leaving a train wreck – worse, even, than 1979. Taxpayers will be repaying Labour’s debts for the next two decades.

    Because – be in no doubt: we are not simply facing a short-term crisis. What has occurred will affect politics for years. Labour’s legacy won’t disappear with a change of Government. It can’t be glossed over or pushed aside: ahead lie decisions as serious as any taken – during peace-time – in living memory.

    We should say that: this country is crying out for someone to speak to it directly and honestly; to tell them what has happened and why; and what now must be done. With wise policy, this can be an opportunity. Out of such crises often come great changes. That is the task for David Cameron. Necessity compels us to cut our cloth according to our means. We can do that in one of two ways.

    We could simply top slice budgets, with everyone bearing an equal share of the pain. That is easy to do but – a mistake.

    Or we could prioritise. We could re-shape Government, reduce it in size, be selective about what Government does, cut out whole functions, abolish unnecessary bodies, cut quangos, end the billions wasted on consultancies, on rebranding, and on fake schemes that serve only as political window-dressing. This needs doing – and the crisis presents that opportunity.

    The screams of outrage would be shrill, but we should not shrink from a truth the public recognise: we cannot go on living in a financial never-never land.

    And there is a philosophical point here that is critical to our future.

    Of course, we must be compassionate. Heartless politics is divisive. To many, it can be frightening. But compassionate policies do not necessarily mean big government. We are over-governed. Smaller government is necessary now for financial reasons: but it is also desirable. Tories should not be defensive about it. Our aim should always be to extend liberty and choice – not to restrict it or bind it in smothering regulation.

    We should not accept that big is better. Big government restrains and confines; it weakens ambition; it cuts back on opportunity and it undermines enterprise. Often, it is anti-libertarian. For many people – unfamiliar with government and perhaps unsophisticated about it – it induces wariness, even fear, of The Man in Whitehall. “They” – Whitehall and politicians – “know best”; “are in charge”; “must be obeyed and not challenged”: this is appalling – “they” are our servants, not our masters in a free society.

    Labour’s old scare tactic – that we will cut public spending and they won’t – is back again. But that’s not the difference between us: the difference is we’re telling the Country the truth – and they are not.

    We must spend within our means or face widespread tax increases – milking the rich will not raise enough. Unless spending is concentrated on what is essential, everyone will be milked. And if we put up taxes to pay for more and more spending, we will entrench high unemployment too – because we will have crushed investment and savings. That is a message we must get across.

    None of this will be comfortable, but it’s essential Government becomes a serious business once again – and not the soap opera it has become. And it’s essential the public are told the truth – and not the puerile easy-to-spot lies with which Labour now insult our intelligence.

    In an attempt to regain the political initiative we can expect some ill-thought-out policies. One might be electing all (or most of) the House of Lords. The argument is that election confers legitimacy: true – but, sadly, it doesn’t confer talent or wisdom or experience or knowledge.

    An elected Lords would be a pale shadow of the Commons but, being elected, would challenge it. It would give more political clout to the Whips and less brain-power to the scrutiny of legislation. The plain truth is that electing the Lords is a populist gesture that would seriously weaken the way Parliament works.

    Out would go Field-Marshals, Cabinet Secretaries, former senior Ministers, Captains of Industry, Church Leaders and Academics.

    Out would go men and women of proven ability and achievement.

    In would come a new would-be professional political class who couldn’t get elected to the Commons.

    It would be a poor bargain for good government: akin to polluting vintage port with tap water. But very New Labour.

    Over twelve years, New Labour have debased Parliament; taken us to war on a false premise; embellished that error by linking Iraq to the 9/11 attack on New York for which there is not a thread of evidence; affronted civil liberties in an over-reaction to the terrorist threat; and made a mockery of the criminal justice system.

    In our country we have always valued personal privacy: it’s why we cherish the secret ballot and the right to silence. In cliché terms, an Englishman’s home has always been his castle. No longer. New Labour have ushered in what the Information Commissioner calls “a surveillance society”. In the atmosphere of fear-mongering, all this has passed relatively unchallenged. It is time it was.

    Nor is there a case for the National Identity Register to hold the DNA of innocent people never charged with an offence. And it cannot be acceptable that our homes or cars can be bugged, our letters and emails intercepted and opened – without the sanction of the High Court. All this is legal under legislation introduced by Labour and passed by its supine backbenchers.

    For too long we have been drifting with our eyes closed towards a siege society with too much of our nation becoming clients of Government spending or Government contracts or Government subsidy. This is alien to our instincts and our history and our national self-interest.

    Change is essential or decline is certain.

    The poet Philip Larkin once wrote: “Most things are not meant.” Labour did not mean to damage our national wellbeing, but they have. They did not mean to damage our personal liberty, but they have. Larkin was right: “Most things are not meant”, but his poem was even more prescient. It is entitled: “Going, Going”. Let us hope it is not long before they are gone.