The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: CBI

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at CBI Annual Dinner – 5 September 2019

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sir John Major at the CBI dinner in Glasgow on 5 September 2019.

    It’s a great pleasure to be here this evening.

    This is not the speech I intended to deliver. But we are not living through normal times ……

    In Westminster, Ministers who wish to leave Europe without a deal are playing fast and loose with the future of our United Kingdom.

    To achieve his aims, the Prime Minister even announced plans to prorogue Parliament – to be clear, that means to shut it down – to prevent MPs voting against a “no-deal” Brexit.

    I cannot believe any previous Prime Minister – from Pitt, to Disraeli, to Churchill, to Thatcher – would have even contemplated such an action.

    They regarded Parliament as Sovereign, not a rubber stamp – useful only to approve the Prime Minister’s wishes.

    To thwart a “no-deal” Brexit, Parliament is now about to agree legislation that will prevent the UK from leaving without a deal.

    In retaliation, the Prime Minister removed the Whip from 21 Conservative Members of Parliament who opposed the Government.

    This is a rare, but valid, discipline, and one I used myself – but with a difference. Usually, the Whip is restored before an Election, as I did in the 1990s after promises of good behaviour.

    But, this time, the punishment goes further. Conservative MPs are being de-selected and thrown out of the Party – their careers ended for voting with their conscience, and for what they believe is the right policy for their constituents and their country.

    These MPs are not wild, fringe figures. Some are long-term loyalists, like my friends Ken Clarke, Nick Soames and Alastair Burt.

    Others are younger MPs, prepared to sacrifice their political future for their country.

    That takes character and courage. Such men and women adorn Parliament, and the millions whose views they represent will not forgive or forget that they have been treated so brutally, whilst the Brexiteers – who voted regularly against Mrs May – now sit in the Cabinet, and reside at No 10.

    The legitimate concerns of those who have been banished from the Party; their sturdy independence; their repeated support for a Brexit deal; their long and loyal public service to the Party; seem to be worth nothing – unless they become cyphers, parroting the views of a Prime Minister influenced by a political anarchist, who cares not a fig for the future of the Party I have served all my life.

    We have seen over-mighty advisers before. It is a familiar script. It always ends badly. I offer the Prime Minister some friendly advice: get rid of these advisers before they poison the political atmosphere beyond repair. And do it quickly.

    There is no need for them to be led out of Downing Street by armed police, but go they should. And now.

    And, Prime Minister – at the same time – reinstate those Members of Parliament you have expelled because, without them – and others like them – we will cease to be a broad-based national Party, and be seen as a mean-minded sect.

    The Government must change its tone.

    Ministers routinely insult half the electorate as “Remoaners”. The surgeon who drew up the Yellowhammer risk register of epilepsy and neurology drugs is told he is a “fear-mongering Remainer”.

    Businessmen are warned that a negative attitude on Brexit will lead to their companies being frozen out of any future Government consultation.

    This is behaviour I never thought to see from any British Government, and it must stop.

    The abuse comes from Cabinet Ministers; and the threats from No 10 Special Advisers.

    I repeat: it must stop.

    Ahead lie many challenges. If we are to meet them we need Government of the highest quality, not Government by bluster and threat in a climate of aggressive bullying.

    Without decisions in the long-term British interest, we will fail future generations. We need our four nations to come together as, perhaps, they have never done before.

    And yet, at this very moment, when unity is so crucial, our United Kingdom is being torn apart by the divisions of Brexit.

    My view of Brexit is no secret. It has never changed. For me, it is not a matter of ideology, it is a matter of practicalities.

    I believe Brexit will be bad for our four countries: bad for our future, bad for industry and commerce, and bad for millions of individuals – most notably, the young and those who have very little.

    One of Brexit’s most pernicious effects is that those with the least will be hurt the most. Wealth will not trickle down, but hardship will. For many – myself included – that offends to the core, and transcends old instincts and old loyalties.

    Many supporters of Brexit declare proudly that they are prepared to bear an economic hit if we leave Europe. I am sure they are sincere.

    But I ask them to think more of those – the majority – who cannot afford to take such a hit. Do they not matter? Of course they do. Are they really to be ignored? For, if they are, the divisions in our society will only fester and grow.

    Our world today has three dominant influences: the United States, China and the European Union. Their size and power means they will be pre-eminent in addressing global problems such as climate change, trade rules, technology standards and control of financial markets.

    The giants of our world will decide these issues. Once outside Europe, we British will have little or no voice. We are not used to being outside the inner circles of decision-making – and we will hate it.

    Until Brexit, the world has seen the UK as a leading member of the EU, able to shape its policy, and as the closest ally of the United States.

    But now, as we leave the EU, the United States is turning away from Europe and towards the Pacific.

    The EU gone: America looking elsewhere. Once that happens, our ability to advance our national interests will fall. No “ifs. No “buts”.

    But there is a wider mischief. By leaving the EU, we weaken it.

    Anti-Europeans may cheer, but a weaker Europe leaves the UK more at the mercy of decisions taken by a – I hope temporarily – dysfunctional United States, and a long-term autocratic China.

    It also leaves the UK more vulnerable to Putin’s aggressive and assertive Russia. None of that will be welcome, but it is the inevitable legacy of Brexit.

    Our new UK Government knows this to be true. Yet they ignore it – and pursue our exit from Europe on an artificial date, without a deal.

    Some do so for ideological reasons. Others for political and personal advantage.

    Neither the ideologue nor the self-interested Brexiteer appears to put our national wellbeing first.

    Our new Cabinet has no majority and no mandate. Governments change personnel – even their Prime Ministers – within the normal term of a Parliament, but not like this: the composition of the present Cabinet is more than the usual changing of the guard.

    It more resembles an entirely new Government after a General Election: but this Government was not elected.

    The lack of its own mandate is not the only impediment to its moral authority to change the whole direction of our country. The new Cabinet is chalk and cheese in character to the one elected two years ago.

    It is not a Cabinet of all available talents. It is a faction of a faction, with no counter-balance of opinion to hold it back. Upon Brexit, the Cabinet non–believers are mere window dressing. They will not be listened to, and will always be out-voted.

    This is a Cabinet committed to deliver Brexit “do or die”, “come what may”, as the Prime Minister puts it. They are pledged to this. Their seat at the Cabinet table depends upon accepting whatever deal the inner core of “hard-line” Brexiteers decide upon.

    The campaign that won the Referendum, with undeliverable promises and assertions that were then – and are still – false, are now in Downing Street, and in power.

    They have not, as promised, united the nation. Far from it.

    Instead, they have locked out half the electorate. Whilst pleading the “will of the people”, they have redefined Brexit into the hardest and most uncompromising breach with Europe.

    This is not what was pledged when people voted to leave the EU. Back then, a deal with Europe was promised. As it was in the Conservative Manifesto for the last election. And in Parliament ever since.

    Let us be absolutely clear on this point: there is no electoral mandate – nor has there ever been – for a “no deal” Brexit.

    So, when Cabinet Ministers tell us that is what our four nations voted for we, the electors, know that is emphatically not the truth.

    In Scotland, in Northern Ireland, and in many parts of England – the majority view has been utterly ignored. So have the young.

    And so have the many minority communities who, quite rightly, were offended and repelled by the anti-immigrant sentiment that powered the “Leave” campaign.

    Once the Brexit blindfold falls away there will be a heavy price to pay for these factional politics.

    The Prime Minister tells us he is a “One-Nation” Conservative – except, as we see, when it is convenient for him not to be so.

    Yet his strongest support has come from colleagues who could never be described as “One-Nation” Tories, and who would be aghast if they thought he would genuinely govern in that tradition.

    ***

    My fear is that Brexit will unsettle the unity of our UK. The Union is not England writ large. It belongs to Scotland too, and has served both our nations well.

    Today, the risk of separation is growing – but it is not inevitable.

    The core ambition of the Scottish Government is an independent Scotland – free of the Union with England. In England, the Brexit campaign has promoted English nationalism.

    The English Nationalists affect not to care about separation. They care more about leaving Europe. But the collapse of Unionism in England, and ambition for independence in Scotland, could lead to a calamitous outcome for us both.

    If she will bear the cost, I have never doubted that Scotland could govern herself.

    But I believe Scotland and England together are greater than the sum of their parts. That is why I am a Unionist.

    If Scotland secedes, it will weaken every part of the United Kingdom – including Scotland.

    By weaken, I don’t simply mean losing the disbursements of the Barnett Formula. I mean losing trade without barriers. Trade without borders. Trade without tariffs. Today, trade across the Union is as simple as trade between Glasgow and Edinburgh. This would not be so after separation.

    The risk for Scottish prosperity is that the volume of trade with England is three and a half times larger than trade between Scotland and the EU. But if Scotland abandons the Union, those tariff-free, barrier-free, border-free advantages could be lost.

    But the Union is also about culture and identity.

    It is about mutual benefits to our way of life, our international influence, our world profile, our defence and security, our research and learning, and all the aspects of our long and close relationship.

    For 300 years, England and Scotland have faced the world together with shared values and mutual interests. That should be cherished, not thrown away.

    Yet, it could be, if Nationalists – in England and Scotland – focus on “England First” and “Scotland First”, rather than both nations in harmony.

    I fully understand why Scotland has reasons for grievance.

    Five years ago, Scots voted to remain in the UK and, with it, the EU: but they now see English votes taking them out of Europe.

    But even legitimate resentment is no basis for wise and thoughtful policy. Nor does it overcome the problems of independence.

    The fiscal gap. Higher taxes. Lower spending. The vulnerability of greater isolation. They will affect every Scot: but all of this is avoidable if good neighbourliness replaces the bitter hostilities of nationalism.

    England and Scotland have long united around a common patriotism. Nationalism is not patriotism.

    If we let nationalism divide us – Scottish nationalism or English nationalism – we will create a schism that cannot be bridged. And, if that comes to pass, we will all be the losers – in this generation and far beyond.

    ***

    I come back to business – and what lies ahead. In the run-up to Brexit, there were glowing promises of milk and honey in a future “Global Britain”. It is a brilliant and enticing slogan but yet another fable.

    The deceit is breathtaking. It turns truth on its head.

    Brexit will reduce our global reach, not enhance it.

    On the day we leave the EU, we will lose trade deals with over 70 countries. These were negotiated by the EU but only for its members. All our present trade advantages will go with them.

    It will take many years to replace them. And – if/when we do so – will British business get the same advantages as now? Of course not. How can we?

    The European market is the richest free trade market ever known. Our British market is one-eighth its size – and one-eighth its attraction.

    Any bilateral deal we strike will never match the deal the EU can obtain on our behalf.

    Since the referendum, the EU has new deals with Japan, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. All of these could have benefited the UK. Post Brexit, none of them will.

    Our Brexiteer Cabinet knows this, but won’t admit it: instead they try and hide it. Ignoring what they have thrown away, they promise deals with America, India and China.

    That is the right ambition. But it may not be achievable and – where it is – it will involve the UK making concessions.

    While Mr Trump makes extravagant promises of a “great deal” – and no doubt it would be for America – Larry Summers, a former US Treasury Secretary scorns the UK’s trade ambitions as “delusional”.

    America is poised to demand deep access to our agriculture and the NHS. The Prime Minister says that won’t happen – but there again he said he would “lie down in front of the bull-dozers at Heathrow Airport”, and we have yet to see that …….

    In any event, any deal requires the approval of Congress, and Republican and Democrat leaders have said they will block it if our Brexit departure harms Ireland – as it undoubtedly will.

    So we should not rely on a deal any time soon.

    And what deal is likely with India if they demand freely available visas? Or with China if they demand acquiescence in their policy towards Hong Kong: even the most supine Cabinet could not accept that.

    Far from “Global Britain” post Brexit, my fear is that we will become less global than we have been for generations.

    ***

    There will be people here tonight of all political persuasions, and of none.

    I am a conservative by conviction, not background, and have been since I first began to think for myself. As a boy, I learned the old adage about speaking truth to power. Today, I assert that it is just as important for power to speak truth to people.

    But, at the moment, it is not.

    Too often – instead of uncomfortable truths – we are offered false hopes and undeliverable promises. The public deserves to know what lies ahead without optimistic embellishment.

    And if they discover – too late – that they were misled, then distrust for our politics will grow, and millions of disillusioned voters may find themselves politically homeless.

    Many businesses, many people, are fearful of the short-term turbulence of Brexit. They are right to be so, although the scale is unknown. But, however turbulent, we will come through the initial shock – even if we do leave without a deal.

    But I am far more concerned about the long-term.

    The danger that our United Kingdom will become less relevant year after year. The fear that we are being led out of the mainstream and into the slipstream. That we will become followers and not leaders.

    That is no place for nations with a history as rich and as proud as our own.

    We need to be side by side with our neighbours on the Continent – not face to face in confrontation.

    The Government continues to use deeply insensitive language in its pursuit of Brexit.

    The Bill that was introduced on Tuesday, with the sole purpose of allowing our Sovereign Parliament to take back control – which, as I recall, was one of the central planks of the Vote Leave campaign – has now been, quite shamefully, re-branded by the Prime Minister as the “Surrender Bill”.

    The irony of this is breathtaking. Nor is it true.

    What is true is that a hard Brexit will most surely “surrender” advantages the UK has worked so hard to gain – over very many years.

    This week, Westminster has flexed its muscles, and done what every democratic Parliament has a duty to do: call the Government to account.

    Over recent days, some Conservative Members have put their conscience above all else – at tremendous personal cost.

    It is time for others – of all Parties – to dig deep into their souls and answer one question: am I here to serve the interests of my Party, or the wellbeing of my country?

    Upon their answer, all our futures depend.

  • John Major’s Speech to the 1996 CBI Conference – 21 May 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech made to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in London on Tuesday 21st May 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Brian – quiet relaxed day – well relatively, yes I suppose, relatively. I look along this top table here and I see this splendid collection of European tulips. I am delighted to see the CBI supporting European industry, and I look forward to European industry supporting the British beef industry – of which more later.

    Over this excellent dinner, the President and I were talking about how times change. And when we were talking, in the fashion that sometimes happens, a mental image came into my mind, an old piece of flickering black and white film came in front of my eyes as a memory aid. And it was Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister, landing at Heathrow Airport and walking down the steps of the plane with Mr Selwyn Lloyd, who was then the Foreign Secretary. And he walked down to the bottom of the steps, and there at the bottom was one single television camera and reporter. And the reporter leaned forward with his microphone to greet the Prime Minister on his return from abroad. “Welcome home, Sir”, he said.

    “I am from the BBC. Do you have anything to say to the BBC?” And this was a tough question. And Mr Macmillan turned around to Mr Selwyn Lloyd and he said: “Do we have anything to say to the BBC?”. And Mr Selwyn Lloyd said: “No”. And Mr Macmillan said: “No, I have nothing to say to the BBC”. And the reporter leaned forward with his microphone and he said: “Thank you, Sir”.

    Not precisely that way today. So times have changed, and that is one of the themes that I want to talk about a little tonight – that theme and the British economy, how it stands, where it is going, and the choices that we face. Because the economy has changed as well in the last couple of generations. Smoke stack industries have given way to high-tech companies; public ownership to private enterprise; the global market place has become a reality; and at home industrial relations and working practices have been transformed.

    All that has happened and is behind us. But what is more important is what lies in front of us and the changes that must still come. We have, as a government, a clear economic ambition, an enterprise economy with the lowest possible taxes and with the least possible burden on business, an economy ready to compete and ready to prosper as the Enterprise Centre of Europe. A full-blooded economy cannot be built by business alone. Government must weld together policies on economic management, on tax, on education, on training, on infrastructure and a great deal else besides.

    And all these of course have a direct bearing on the business environment and on the prospects for enterprise. And it is for that reason that we have put competitiveness right at the top of the agenda. Every single area of government policy, even those which don’t immediately strike people as having something to do with industry, can help make Britain competitive and we must make sure they do.

    And tonight I would like to conduct something of a snap audit on how we are getting on. At the root of an Enterprise Economy is a stable economic climate. I believe that is now well in place. We are growing faster than any European economy at present and inflation is law, and staying low, and has remained lower for longer than I think anyone in this particular room can remember.

    There are some people who hold out the belief that a little inflation is no bad thing. And I guess what they mean is that inflation can make people feel a little more prosperous for a while, wages rise, house prices rise, pensions seem to go up. But it is of course a mirage and it is a mirage that is no good for business. But Britain has learned that lesson the hard way. How many times in the last 50 years since the war have governments lost their economic bearing when the economy slowed? How many times have they been panicked into premature re-inflationary measures that sowed the seeds of much worse problems once the immediate economic difficulties were over? Far too frequently, as everyone in this room well knows.

    When the recession of the early ‘90s hit Britain, we were determined not to fall into that trap. So we took tough action on inflation and on borrowing. It was not popular, it did hurt in the short-term, but it has worked. We have emerged from the recession in better economic shape, firstly than our competitors; and secondly more competitive as an industrial nation than we have been for very many years.

    Now of course, being open-minded businessmen and businesswomen, you may be thinking well he would say that, wouldn’t he? And maybe so. But the facts speak for themselves: low inflation enjoying perhaps its best run for almost 50 years; low interest rates so you can afford to invest in a secure climate; low taxes, though I would like to see them lower yet, low taxes to leave people with more of their money, to make it worth their while taking the risk of running a business; falling unemployment, still too high of course, but the lowest of any major country in Europe. These results are the proof of the pudding, they are the benefits of working for the long term. Other long term policies taken throughout the last 17 years are playing their own individual part in building our national competitiveness.

    Let me touch, for example, on privatisation. Do you remember what was said about each successive privatisation? Morally wrong, wouldn’t work, prices would rise, standards would fall, competition impractical. And we are now seeing how wrong all that was.

    Who feels nostalgic now for the day to day failures of the old state-owned industries? When did you last sit – I will ask Colin – on a British Airways flight and think, if only this was still a nationalised industry? Yet we were told that privatising British Airways would make it the pantomime horse of capitalism, and some pantomime horse it has turned out to be. What a nonsense that criticism was. And when did you last open your gas bill – prices down again – and wish yourselves back in the old days? Or get sentimental about the days when a quarter of pay phones didn’t work?

    It is results like that, the practical proof of the policy, that have won the argument. Private enterprise and competition motivate people. It gives them an incentive to cut prices, attract customers and improve services.

    Now of course those policies are controversial, inevitably so. Every privatisation has been categorised by many people as a privatisation too far. But they have worked, they have worked, and that is what matters, and enterprise and the British economy as a whole have benefited.

    Rail is the latest example. “Couldn’t be done”, the critics said, but it has been. And as of yesterday Railtrack is in the private sector with over 650,000 private investors applying for shares in the company. If Sid was in hiding, he came out again the other day in spectacular fashion. 80 percent of the passenger railway now either sold or on the market; 5 franchises, almost one-third of the passenger railway, already running in the private sector, and by the end of the month that should be up to 40 percent and that number is going to go on rising through the year as the programme rolls on.

    And look at what that means for the passenger? New rolling stock on the Gatwick Express and on lines where passengers have been complaining for years, like the Kent Coast and the London/Tilbury and Southend line. New services in the Midlands and south London where the new franchises have spotted gaps in the market. And where the new passenger, charter commitments. All this at a falling cost to the taxpayer and with a guarantee of keeping fares down that the passenger has never known at any stage before in the history of British Rail. That simply would not, could not have happened; would not and could not have been affordable under public ownership.

    Of course these changes are controversial; they are too disruptive to be otherwise. They are something governments do because they believe it is in the long term interests of the economy, because they believe that harnessing the innovation and energy of private enterprise gives us better public services, better infrastructure and helps build a competitive economy. And that is the point, that is what we are about. Spending the taxpayers’ money efficiently and effectively is central to all this.

    The biggest budget in Whitehall is social security. If we would like a low tax economy, and we would, and I suspect you would as well, we have to get a grip of benefit spending while still being fair to the people who need help. Let no-one assume that we are unconcerned about those who genuinely need help, we are and we will remain concerned about them. But to cut down that budget fairly we need practical detailed changes. You can’t get that just by waving a magic wand. You need to encourage independence, self-provision. You need mechanisms to get back into work where they don’t need help and social benefits. You need to carry difficult, very often contentious, legislation. And that is what we have been doing, not always popular, but it is what we thought was right.

    The new incapacity benefit, job seekers allowance, child support, changing the pension age – these I can promise you tend not to provide short term positive headlines for the government of the day. But they add up, they add up, they are the small ends of the candle that Gladstone referred to that build a whole candle at the end of the week. They add up in saving public spending and helping the enterprise economy by keeping tax low.

    Social security has been growing at an average of 5 percent a year ever since the war. Thanks to the reforms that we have carried through, expected growth is now down from 5 percent a year to 1.25 percent a year in real terms. For the first time in generations, benefit growth will be less than GDP growth, so benefits will take a smaller share of the national cake in the years that lie ahead, and that is something that no government since the war has achieved or been able to look forward to.

    And why does that matter for you? It matters for you because it helps to build a huge competitive advantage for British business. Our competitors in Europe still have to tackle their spiralling welfare bill, and their businesses may well have to pick up the tab. But we have planned ahead over many years. Britain has more invested in private pensions than the rest of the European Union added together. Ours is a system we can afford today and into the next century, and we intend to keep it that way in the future.

    But what of the other things, the things that any government serious about an enterprise economy has got to do to secure those ambitions? Well first and foremost, we have to listen to what it is that business says in the wider sense, and they ask for things way beyond the obvious tax and spend elements of economic management. And first and foremost, we have to complete the task we have set ourselves of getting the education system right.

    There is a great deal to be proud of. Higher education in particular has expanded beyond imagination in the last few years. Higher education is now a reality for 1 in 3 of our young people. At the start of the 1980s, that was 1 in 8 of our young people. So you can see the scale of the changes.

    Our new vocational qualifications, because we believe, I passionately believe, that so-called blue collar qualifications are every bit as valuable to the economy as white collar qualifications, and we need those blue collar qualifications if we are to have the right sort of industrial society that we need to compete not just with Europe but with Asia, the United States and Japan in the years that lie ahead. That is why we looked more towards vocational qualifications, that is why our new vocational qualifications are taking root and winning support, not least if I may say so, to Brian Nicholson’s pioneering work over the last few years which is immensely valuable not just in the short term but in the long term, and I am delighted to express my thanks to him for that this evening.

    And our schools are changing. They are now among the world leaders in the use of information technology. And I would like to keep them there to develop those skills and the advantage they give those children in their future when they leave school, and the advantage that they will give you, as employers, having youngsters coming out of school with a secure basic knowledge of the information technology that is here to stay, whether people like it or not. We either embrace information technology and play our part in leading the world economy, or we push it to one side and we watch other people forge ahead. And that is why Ian Taylor and his colleagues in government are seeking to do all they can to embrace the advantages of information technology.

    No-one knows better than the audience gathered here in this room this evening, the importance of having young people come out of schools with the basic skills in place. Our young people today are your workforce and your successor’s workforce tomorrow. If they are allowed to go through schools with literacy problems and numeracy problems, no amount of training later will compensate. It will not compensate for their quality of life, and it will not compensate for the workforce that you need.

    Tackling that problem is a long haul: the national curriculum, tests and league tables to measure schools’ performances. I personally believe that they are essential and I will tell you why, it is a perfectly common sense reason.

    If you wish to teach a child well, you need to know what it is that the child may not have understood. That is why you need tests. If you can identify what they have not understood, then you can correct the weaknesses and teach them it again until they do understand it but if you never find that out, those children will find themselves hobbled as they move on to higher and more difficult areas of learning. That is why we are seeking to change the culture of education, to bring back methods that work, to turn our back on fashionable theories that I believe have failed a generation or more of our schoolchildren.

    We now have a school inspectorate to punch home that message. Gillian Shephard has made it clear that she will give OFSTED – the Office of Standards in Education – more powers of inspection if they need them to tackle problems and drive up standards still further. Standards – standards – standards. It is time we were unashamed to use the word “excellence” when we set out what we wish to achieve in education. That must be our watchword and I believe in that we would have the support of every employer in the country.

    The fact is, Mr. President, that business and Government must work together to address the challenges of the future, that is essential. Neither of us, neither Government nor you in business, whatever great captain of industry you may be, none of you will achieve what you want entirely on your own.

    Let me give you an example, transport, roads, something I know of great concern to the CBI, that Brian and Adair come to talk to me about every other day, so I know the concern you have about it. Many people recognise the reality of how tightly we have to control public spending and in that climate we simply can’t rely on spending ever more taxpayers’ money on any matter, even one as important as roads. Instead, we have to get the best possible value out of every pound that is spent and that is why the emergence – now out of its chrysalis stage but not in full flower I think – of the Private Finance Initiative is so important, helping us to get what we want for public money, driving the hard bargains in road-building that you would drive in your own commercial enterprises, harnessing skills and ideas and starting projects that otherwise without PFI might never have got off the ground. Over £1 billion of privately-financed roads are now either awarded or in the pipeline, 37 separate schemes in all. There is the Channel Tunnel rail link, a £3 billion project, where the private sector is making a huge contribution in terms of management and money.

    It is not just transport but health too, also vitally important for employers. You want the minimum amount of sickness amongst your workforce and increasingly the days that people are taking off sick are falling year after year as health care and diet increasingly improve but health too is being transformed: five major hospital projects with capital values of over £10 million have reached an advanced stage in the last six months compared with only one a year for the past ten years.

    Just last week, an exciting new £200 million investment was announced for a social security card that will modernise our benefit payment system and crack down on taxpayer fraud.

    Of course it will take time to change the culture as we are seeking to do but we are slowly but steadily doing that and we welcome your help in pointing out what needs to be done and where we can improve the way that PFI works.

    Let me say a word about our relationship with the European Union and the importance of it:

    We must fight together, business and Government, for the things that matter to you in Europe: extending the single market in the areas that still have to be opened up such as energy and pension funds and completing the process in telecommunications. Never forget that the single market, vital and important though it is, is not yet completed. Making sure that others observe the rules that they have signed up to; we invariably do – our law officers insist upon it – and we must make sure that everyone else does as well, wherever we can, using whatever allies we can – and we do have allies on this issue – to stem the flow of new regulations and taking a cool-headed view of what will really serve the interests of British business in the long term.

    We have our own distinctive, British view of how the European Union should develop and in many important ways it is different from the views of many of our European partners but nobody should misunderstand the significance of that difference but if they do, let me make it clear that Britain is in the European Union, it is going to stay in the European Union and it is going to fight in the European Union for the sort of business environment that is right for business prospects in this country and to try and build the sort of European Union with which the British nation are comfortable.

    No-one regards our friends in other European countries as anti-European when they fight for what they believe is the right sort of development for the European Union. Well, I propose to say something very controversial! I think I have exactly the same right to fight in the European Union for the sort of European Union that we wish to develop for the future but no-one should doubt that we will be in there pitching for that particular development.

    We work together with our European Union partners where we can but that does make it, to my mind, doubly important that when agreements are made those agreements are held to. At Maastricht, I obtained an opt-out from what became known as the “social chapter” and I did it for this reason: because I believed it would add to the cost of business, reverse trade union and other reforms we put in place over the last 17 years and would push up unemployment. I have no intention of losing the benefits of that opt-out from the social chapter and let me tell you something about it.

    I do not believe it is right for politicians to seek popularity across Europe by laying benefits upon people in work at the expense of employers with the absolute certainty that it will make it more likely that those people still out of work will remain out of work because it will be too expensive to employ them in the future. There are 20 million European adults out of work. In this country unemployment, thank goodness, has been falling for two and a half years and is lower than any of our partners in Europe of any significant comparable size to the United Kingdom but that is not true across Europe and I do not see it as a moral position for governments to add costs to employment in the certainty that that will mean that the people who are out of work today may stay out of work for many years in the future. It is not just industrially “bonkers”, I believe it is morally wrong and we will not sign the social chapter.

    Let me, however, add another point. At Maastricht our European partners agreed that we would not be part of the social chapter but today there is a threat to that opt-Out: the health and safety articles of the treaty were agreed in 1985 to deal with genuine matters of health and safety but recent attempts to use them as a basis for imposing the working time directive on Britain go beyond what we agreed to and not only that, the breach the understanding I reached at Maastricht when I negotiated our opt-out from the social chapter. I have said to our European partners in unmistakable terms that we must change the health and safety provisions so that they reflect the more limited scope that was originally intended and that the British Parliament originally agreed to and I take this very seriously. We cannot be expected to have confidence in European agreements if they are subsequently undermined by shifts in interpretation. I do not wish to be misunderstood about this. If old agreements are to be broken, I do not see how we can reach new agreements so before there could be any agreement of any sort in the forthcoming inter-governmental conference we have to ensure that agreement on the social chapter and our opt-out is, secure and cannot be undermined.

    Mr. President, the most urgent issue facing us in Europe as we meet this evening is the crisis in the beef industry across the Continent and the export ban on British beef and on British products. We are taking every necessary step to tackle the problem of BSE in Britain and we are doing that in the interest of the British beef industry. We wish to eradicate BSE in our own interest, not under pressure from our European partners but in the interest of our own beef industry.

    The incidence of BSE has already come down radically, with the measures we have taken it will be eradicated slowly but certainly. The new measures we have taken to ensure the public is safe are costly measures, many are also painful for the farmers and difficult to implement speedily but we are absolutely determined to do everything necessary to ensure there is no risk to the consumer and that is why we have found so frustrating the lack of progress in persuading our European partners to agree on a strategy to lift the ban.

    The European Commission, President Santer and Commissioner Fischler have been very helpful. A majority of member states supported the latest Commission proposal to lift the ban on some beef derivatives as a first step but others ignored the scientific evidence, and did not support lifting that ban. The result is that so far we have no tangible progress in the European Union.

    As I told the House of Commons earlier today, this can no longer be tolerated. If some of our partners are unwilling to extend goodwill to us we shall have to withhold our own. As long as there is no agreement on a process leading to a progressive lifting of the ban, we shall not be able to cooperate where others need our agreement in the European Union. We shall also actively pursue our legal case against the ban.

    I do not embark upon such a course lightly but the scientific evidence so clearly on Britain’s side is being set aside. Progress on lifting the ban to help the British beef industry has to be at the forefront of our efforts in Europe but cooperation must be a two-way street, Business as normal is impossible in present circumstances and that includes the inter-governmental conference so let me be clear:

    This is not an “empty chair” policy. We will be there arguing our corner at every meeting, arguing it as hard as ever but we will not agree to measures where our agreement is needed. This is by no means the way in which I wish to do business in Europe but I see no alternative.

    I now seek a rapid agreement through negotiation with the Commission and with our partners. I will do everything I reasonably can to make this possible. We can then return to normal business and nobody wishes to see that more than I do but mercifully, Mr. President, there is more to life than Europe and beef. Although half of our trade is with the European Union, the other half is not and the opportunities here are immense. If I had one wish for our European partners, it would be that the whole of the European Union would lift its eyes, look beyond competition between France and Germany and Portugal and Britain and look at the competition in the Pacific Basin, in the United States, in Japan and in growing ways in Latin America.

    The opportunities for we British in those markets are immense. We have fantastic advantages in overseas markets: a strong economic base at home, the great plus of the English language – the business language of the world and increasingly the language in which the whole world communicates – historic links right the way around the world; this is not nostalgia, these are opportunities for British industry and commerce. We are much more heavily involved in overseas investment activities than any other country except the United States; we have far more investment for example in the United States than the Japanese do, we are just sensible enough not to buy their golf courses and their mountains and it is not controversial — and relative to GDP the United Kingdom is the number one investor among the G7 just as we lead the field in inward investment.

    As we dine together this evening, Michael Heseltine I am reliably told is in China. No difficult votes, he is in China! – with 270 businessmen and women, leading Britain’s largest ever trade mission there. I have led similar missions myself most recently to India, to South Africa and Israel; Ian Lang is back from Japan and he is off to Russia next week and that is just the tip of the iceberg; over the last year, there have been 80 ministerially-led trade missions taking thousands of businessmen all over the globe and generating business worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

    We have already done – you and I – much of the hard work to guarantee a bright future but now we must make sure that we build on it and do not throw it away. There can be no question of letting up on inflation, no question of loosening the purse strings, no question of taking the more insidious route – the smile, the handshake and the signature on the social chapter – that signs away British jobs and nor can we let our education system fall victim to wrongheaded fashion again. Any or all of those would be to betray the hard work that we and you have done to build up the prospects that we now enjoy.

    We live in the most competitive world economy we have ever known. Some people may find that threatening, I don’t. The future will bring new challenges but we can face then with the policies and the principles that are steering this country to a better economic future, we have never sought to duck change or to hide from challenge, we know that change can be turned to our advantage and that is what we have sought to do.

    We are ahead of the game with many of tomorrow’s challenges precisely because we have tackled problems that have beset the British economy for decades. Our competitors know that but perhaps we as a nation should acknowledge it more often because if we fail to recognise our own achievement we may not secure and build upon the opportunities that they present.

    My ambitions for the future are rooted in the policies and principles that have delivered results. We have policies that have brought low inflation, let us build on them and get inflation lower still; we have policies that have brought us falling unemployment, let us build on that and get it lower still; we have policies that have brought taxes down, let us build on that and get them lower still.

    I want this country to have the self-confidence it should have with its own achievements, I want it to lift its eyes and to capitalise upon the strong economic base that we now have. Let us not set limits on what we can achieve. Let us look firstly to protect our achievements and then to build on them to deliver the increasing prosperity that is now within our grasp. Government can’t do that alone, neither, I believe, can industry but together we can. Here in this room, if I may say so, are many of the engines of growth in the British economy. The opportunities there – I know and you know – are more real and more within our grasp than they have been for very many years past. All I would have to say to you is quite simply this; those opportunities are there, let us take them, grasp them and build on them. For the British economy much has been achieved but with our work and our help the best is yet to come!

  • PMQT – 25 January 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 25th January 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Sheerman: Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who said today:

    “It is blindingly obvious that we must develop a framework”–

    Madam Speaker: Order. There should be no quoting during questions.

    Mr. Sheerman: The director general said that we must develop a framework for involving employees at every level–dare I say it, a stakeholder economy. If it is blindingly obvious to the director general of the CBI, why is it not blindingly obvious to the Prime Minister that the reason why his Government are so deeply unpopular is that they have failed to give the British people a proper stake in their own country?

    The Prime Minister: If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, he should be cautious about quoting the CBI at me. The CBI opposes the social chapter, the minimum wage and most of the policies advocated by the Opposition. When we and the director general of the CBI talk about stakeholders, we do not mean what the hon. Gentleman means. We know who Labour’s stakeholders are. We know who owns 50 per cent. of the votes at the Labour party conference. We know who pays 50 per cent. of the money that the Labour party gets. We know what has been said by senior trade unionists. They have made it clear. While they continue to fund the party they will have a say. It is simple–no say, no pay. They are Labour’s stakeholders.

    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the continuing campaign of violence by the IRA and Sinn Fein has betrayed the peace process? Will he urge them now to accept the Mitchell report’s recommendation and cease their heinous actions immediately? Furthermore, does he agree that if peace is to continue long term in Northern Ireland, the IRA and Sinn Fein have two clear options open to them? They can either begin immediately to decommission weapons or they can agree to take part in the democratic process, as outlined by my right hon. Friend yesterday.

    The Prime Minister: Yes, of course, my hon. Friend is right in all she says. The point made by the Mitchell Commission about the decommissioning of weapons was that Sinn Fein-IRA would not decommission, not that they could not decommission. We still look forward to hearing from Sinn Fein-IRA whether they accept the other elements of the Mitchell report–whether they accept the six principles and the fact that they must condemn and stop for good punishment beatings and punishment killings. We still await a comprehensive response from them on those matters. I should like to start all-party talks as speedily as possible, but I cannot be clearer to the House than this–the impediment to all-party talks is and has been the unwillingness of Sinn Fein-IRA to begin the decommissioning of their arms. If they would begin the decommissioning of their arms, there would be no justification for any party not to attend and join in all-party talks leading to negotiations.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister agree that the test results for 11-year-olds in English and maths are appalling? May I put to him the following proposals for improvement? I propose an end to the delay in base-line assessment for five-year-olds, a reduction in class sizes for five-to-seven-year-olds, a register of national head teachers, the use of associate teachers in classrooms and a reinstatement of the reading recovery programme for primary school children which was so wrongly scrapped. Will the Prime Minister at least consider those proposals?

    The Prime Minister: Let me say first that we have looked very carefully at the test results. Those of 11-year-olds are disappointing; those of other age groups are better. The point that the right hon. Gentleman and the House need to bear in mind–I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has apparently changed his policy on this–is that, as he will recall, the Labour party opposed the introduction of the tests, and he personally voted against it. We introduced the tests precisely to throw up the shortcomings that we believed were probably in the education system. The test results are very useful: they tell us where the shortcomings are so that we may deal with them, and we shall consider a range of measures with which to deal with them.

    I do not intend to respond immediately to the ideas that the right hon. Gentleman has produced, but we established the tests so that we could identify shortcomings and then put them right. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman now acknowledges–better late than never–that we were right to introduce those tests.

    Mr. Blair: Was that not a complacent reply? Will the Prime Minister confirm that the problem does not relate merely to 11-year-olds? The GCSE results a few weeks ago also showed a decline. May I put it to the Prime Minister that, although the Secretary of State for Education and Employment may boast about the results for 14-year-olds today, those results still show an appalling level of failure in key curriculum subjects?

    May I remind Conservative Members that these are children who were born under a Conservative Government, sent to school under a Conservative Government and educated under a Conservative Government? The failure is not theirs, but the Conservative Government’s.

    The Prime Minister: If it is the Conservative Government who have failed, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could explain why some of his right hon. Friends remove their children from Labour education authorities and have them educated under Conservative education authorities. While we are on the subject of the 16 years, perhaps he would also register the fact that in 1979 fewer than a quarter of pupils obtained five GCSEs; today the figure is 43 per cent. In 1979, 14 per cent. obtained two A-levels; now the figure is twice as high. In 1979, one in eight young people went to university; now, one in three do so.

    The right hon. Gentleman referred to class sizes. I will tell him about class sizes. The Office of Standards in Education has itself recognised that the quality of teaching is the important issue. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but parents agree. I shall give him an illustration. For example, for children up to the age of 16, the average class size in secondary schools in Islington is lower than at the London Oratory. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Blair: There it is. The Government do not want to answer questions about the test results, and now we see the reason why they want to focus attention on one 11-year-old child–[Interruption.] The reason why they want to focus attention on one 11-year-old child is to conceal the damage that they have done to millions of our children.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will really have to learn to keep cool under pressure. If he casts his mind back, he may remember the episode of Jennifer’s ear before the last election, and if he wants to talk about records and standards in education, he may remember that his deputy leader said that school performance tables are “political propaganda”. Test results are “virtually worthless”, said the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor). Tests encourage “a climate of failure” said the hon. Member for Dewsbury. They say that grant-maintained schools are wrong, but they are perfectly happy to use them. The fact of the matter is that Labour Members enjoy choice themselves, but they wish to deny it to other people.

    Sir Hector Monro: Is my right hon. Friend aware, which I am sure he is, that today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns who lived the latter part of his short and remarkable life in Dumfries? [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order. I cannot hear the right hon. Gentleman, nor can the Prime Minister.

    Sir Hector Monro: Is my right hon. Friend further aware that, this year, Scotland and countries further afield will be commemorating the 200th anniversary of the great poet’s death? Will he send to Scotland, to the Burns Federation and to his drouthy cronies in the House a message of good will on his important bicentenary?

    The Prime Minister rose–[Interruption.] The deputy leader of the Opposition is heckling again. I must explain to the House that, despite occasional differences between us, the Leader of the Opposition and I have one thing in common: neither of us invites the deputy leader to meetings.

    As to the remarkable anniversary referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), he is wise to mention it. I am a great admirer of Rabbie Burns and I should like to explain why by quoting what he said. His view on the constitution, for example–to be wrecked by the Labour party, if it came to power–was clear:

    “As to Reform Principles, I look upon the British Constitution . . . to be the most glorious Constitution on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame.”

    That was Rabbie Burns’s view. The Scottish National party might remember that and so might the Leader of the Opposition and his party.

     

    Q2. Mr. Jamieson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Jamieson: During national empty homes week, in a fortnight’s time, what advice will the Prime Minister be giving to the Ministry of Defence about the 552 empty married quarters in his own Huntingdon constituency?

    The Prime Minister: At the moment, I should tell the hon. Gentleman two things. First, we shall be looking at the ways in which we can dispose of empty Ministry of Defence properties–we are determined to do that. Secondly, if the Labour-controlled authorities in London filled up their empty accommodation, they could wipe out homelessness in London at a stroke. In Southwark, Islington, Hackney and right across London, Labour-controlled authorities have an appalling record of keeping homes empty and then complaining about homelessness–as the hon. Gentleman has done. That is another illustration of Labour’s hypocrisy. They make claims about something–they have the power in their hands to put it right, but don’t.

    Mr. Sheerman: On the ropes again, John.

    The Prime Minister: I now have a definition of hope over optimism.

     

    Q3. Mr. Hendry: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Hendry: Does my right hon. Friend agree that GP fundholding has brought enormous benefits to doctors and patients alike, especially in my constituency, in which they cover some 90 per cent. of the population? Is not it typical of the say one thing, do another Labour party that, while many of them take advantage of GP fundholding for themselves and their families, at a moment’s notice, they would abolish it? Is not that typical of the hypocrisy of the modern Labour party?

    The Prime Minister: I think that there is now overwhelming evidence that fundholders are able to get a better deal for their patients from hospitals. It makes sense to build on what has been achieved and induce more and more GPs to join the system–[Interruption.] I am sorry to hear cries of objection from the Opposition Benches. Those are not my words but the words of the vice-president of the Fabian Society and former adviser to Barbara Castle.

  • PMQT – 14 March 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 14th March 1995. Tony Newton responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mrs. Liddell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is currently on an official visit to Israel, the occupied territories and Jordan. He is accompanied by a large delegation of British business people.

    Mrs. Liddell: The visit of the Prime Minister to the Gaza strip and the donation of equipment and aid are to be welcomed, but why have the Government chosen to donate police equipment when the entire community could have benefited from the excellence of British manufacturing facilities to provide clean water facilities, better health facilities and educational facilities?

    Mr. Newton: The hon. Lady clearly was not listening. I said that a large delegation of British business people was with the Prime Minister precisely to see whether we can help with the kind of opportunities to which she refers.

    Sir Anthony Grant: Does my right hon. Friend share my disgust at the blatant and continued misrepresentation by press and media of the case of the 10-year-old leukaemia sufferer? Is he aware that Cambridge health authority’s decision to refuse treatment had nothing to do with money but was taken because the overwhelming number of doctors and specialists were not prepared to inflict further suffering on that poor little girl?

    Mr. Newton: It certainly has been made clear by the health authority that funds would have been available if the view of the doctors responsible had been that treatment would have been in the best interests of the child. It is first and foremost a matter of clinical judgement. I think that, however sad, that should be acknowledged. The other thing that should be said is that the whole House will want to wish the girl well in the treatment that she is undertaking today.

    Mr. Prescott rose —

    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

    Madam Speaker: Order. That is a warm enough welcome.

    Mr. Prescott: Can the Leader of the House confirm the leaks that are emerging from the Prime Minister’s tour of the middle east that the Greenbury committee proposes to recommend absolutely nothing to curb the greed of the bosses in the privatised utilities?

    Mr. Newton: What I can confirm is that the Prime Minister and, indeed, all my right hon. Friends have made it clear that they attach importance to the work of the Greenbury committee and that they will want to study its conclusions with care and then consider whether it would be appropriate to make any legislative change.

    Mr. Prescott: Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say, is not the Prime Minister’s support for legislation against pay excesses a sham? Only yesterday the President of the Board of Trade once again defended boardroom greed. When will the Government realise that people in Britain want a fundamental shift so that power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many and not the few?

    Mr. Newton: It sounds to me as though the right hon. Gentleman will need to undertake another rewrite of clause IV before the ink on this one is dry.

    Mr. Wilshire: Last December, our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stated that Ministers would not talk to Sinn Fein-IRA before huge amounts of weapons were surrendered. This morning, I received a letter from our right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stating that talks would take place with Sinn Fein-IRA before weapons were handed in. Which is current Government policy?

    Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend has indeed received a letter from my right hon. and learned Friend today. I have a copy of it before me. It makes it absolutely clear that, before Ministers will engage in talks in the way that Sinn Fein currently seeks, there must be a clear and reliable assurance from Sinn Fein that constructive discussion, especially in achieving substantial progress on decommissioning arms, would be facilitated and accelerated by Ministers joining that dialogue. No such assurance has been received, and I think that what is being said and done is entirely consistent with what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State have said before and, indeed, with what is sensible and practicable in seeking a way forward in Northern Ireland.

     

    Q2. Ms Eagle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Lady to the reply I gave some moments ago.

    Ms Eagle: On executive pay, will the Leader of the House admit that the public know that the Greenbury committee is a con, because it is full of the very fat cats who are earning millions of pounds, who are protecting their own pay and positions? Does he not realise that asking that bunch to legislate to curb excesses of executive pay is like asking Dracula to guard the blood bank?

    Mr. Newton: The answers to the hon. Lady’s questions are no, no and no, in that order.

    Mr. Elletson: Would my right hon. Friend care to speculate on the possible reasons why the historic commitment to full employment, endorsed by generations of Labour party members, has now been abandoned by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair)?

    Mr. Newton: It is perhaps not for me to speculate about the causes of Opposition policy changes, but, if I were driven to do so, I would venture the opinion that the penny has finally dropped that their commitment to a minimum wage, a social chapter and a further renewal of trade union powers is incompatible with full employment.

     

    Q3. Mr. Callaghan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Callaghan: Will the Minister note that the former and the present Secretary of State for National Heritage have not replied to the Select Committee on National Heritage report, “Privacy and Media Intrusion”? As it is now exactly two years since the Select Committee presented its report, why have the Government have failed to respond to it? What is he afraid of, and will he apologise to the House for the delay?

    Mr. Newton: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage will seek to reply as soon as the very difficult issues involved have been thoroughly considered and studied.

    Mrs. Lait: Does my right hon. Friend agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) that the rewritten clause IV is 400 words of waffle– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. I have been very tolerant today, but I remind hon. Members that we holding the Executive to account for their policies, not for the policies or the activities of any other party. If the hon. Lady can rephrase that question, I will give her an opportunity to do so, but she must seek to bring the Government to account.

    Mrs. Lait: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if we were ever to have a clause IV, it would not contain 400 words of waffle?

    Mr. Newton: I am afraid that my hon. Friend’s question was slightly lost in Opposition Members’ baying. I am certainly aware that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has described the new clause IV as 400 hundred words of waffle. It is absolutely clear that it takes us no nearer to what we really need: some clarification of Labour’s policies.

     

    Q4. Mr. Wilson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Wilson: We can understand the reluctance of the Leader of the House to answer questions about executive pay and share options, so perhaps we can move the debate forward a little. Do the Government intend to devolve other areas of Government policy to sub-committees of millionaires appointed by the CBI? Will the recommendations of those committees be final and, if so, is that what is meant by the “smack of firm leadership” from the Government?

    Mr. Newton: I do not think that I have shown any reluctance to answer the questions–it is just that Opposition Members do not like my answers. As the main thrust of the question refers to a matter that is principally for shareholders to decide, it seems entirely correct to consult and to take the views of such a committee.

    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the news that prizes from the national lottery now amount to almost £500 million? Is it not excellent news that a substantial amount of money has been allocated to the good causes supported by the lottery?

    Mr. Newton: Indeed it is very good news. The national lottery is certainly giving pleasure to many people and it is yielding both large prizes for the winners and large amounts of additional money for the arts, sport, heritage, charities and the Millennium Commission. It has been a huge success, which is very much to the credit of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and I think that that success will continue and will grow.

     

    Q5. Mr. Fisher: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Fisher: On executive pay, will the Leader of the House answer the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and explain what the Government intend to do about it? What sort of Prime Minister says that he finds something distasteful but then says that he does not have the first idea of what he wants to do about it and simply leaves it to the CBI to tell him what Government policy should be? What sort of Government do that?

    Mr. Newton: What the Government are going to do is what I have said at least twice this afternoon and what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said on many other occasions: we will study the recommendations of the Greenbury committee with care and we will then decide what action to take, including the possibility of legislation if that seems appropriate.

    Mr. Couchman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that President Clinton’s decision to meet Mr. Adams on Thursday and to allow Mr. Adams to raise funds on behalf of Sinn Fein-IRA is a grave blow to the United States’ special relationship with this country, and indeed to the cherished links with the Republic of Ireland and the majority of the Irish people who are opposed to Mr. Adams’s violence and terrorism?

    Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made his views very clear to the President. The United States Administration are in no doubt about our views. I hope that everyone will now acknowledge that it is important to maintain pressure on Sinn Fein from all sides to engage in substantive constructive discussions along the lines that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has indicated. I hope that the need for Mr. Adams to engage in such constructive and substantive discussions will be emphasised firmly and vigorously in any meetings with the United States Administration.

     

    Q6. Mr. MacShane: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. MacShane: In view of the fact that most independent jurists do not consider the courts of Singapore to be independent of the Executive and in view of the desire for a full judicial spotlight on the Barings affair in London, will the Leader of the House assure us that every effort is being made to extradite Mr. Nick Leeson from Germany so that he can stand trial in London?

    Mr. Newton: The House will understand that I do not think it right to get drawn into commenting from the Dispatch Box on the legal position in other Commonwealth countries. The Government are determined to make every effort to ensure that the Barings events are properly and thoroughly investigated and that appropriate action is taken in the appropriate courts.

     

    Q7. Mr. David Atkinson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 March.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Atkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware of a letter of appreciation that I recently received from an Anglican clergyman in my constituency, who does not often support the Government’s policies but who greatly appreciates the education that his daughter has received as a result of the assisted places scheme? He knows of many other low-income families in his parish whose children have benefited in the same way. How shall I respond to my constituent’s request to learn whether the assisted places scheme has a future and whether it is safe?

    Mr. Newton: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right that not only his constituent but many thousands of other parents throughout the country welcome the assisted places scheme, which has provided an excellent education in independent schools to many able pupils from low-income families. It has been outstandingly successful. The assurance I can give my hon. Friend and his constituent is that the assisted places scheme is safe under us. It is certainly not safe under the Opposition.

  • PMQT – 21 February 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 21st February 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Hutton: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.

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

    Mr. Hutton: In the light of today’s announcement that the chairman of the National Westminster bank has awarded himself a 35 per cent. pay increase, and the news that the seven wise men appointed by the Confederation of British Industry to provide new guidelines on executive pay have themselves shared more than £4 million in pay and tax this year, does the Prime Minister think that it is time that he joined the British public in condemning those latest examples of executive greed in Britain’s boardrooms?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman will know, when excessive and unjustified pay increases have been agreed I have condemned them–and condemned them from the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions. Where the hon. Gentleman and I disagree is on whether, in the private sector, it is right for the Government to institute a pay policy both at the top–as the hon. Gentleman would clearly like–and with minimum pay controls at the bottom, as the Labour party would like.

     

    Q2. Mr. Evennett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.

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

    Mr. Evennett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that neighbourhood noise nuisance and noise pollution are a real and growing problem in today’s society? Will he urge our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to speed up his inquiry into the problem, and advance positive suggestions for its alleviation as soon as possible?

    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that noise pollution is a nuisance. I am sometimes inclined to think that it is a particular nuisance at 3.15 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    The Prime Minister: I have no doubt about the extent of nuisance that is caused to many people, and the Department of the Environment is examining that now. I hope that we shall have some proposals on which to negotiate in the next few weeks, and I shall be pleased to hear the views of not only my hon. Friend, but anyone else who has views to offer on the issue.

    Mr. Blair: Will the Prime Minister confirm as a matter of fact that, since the internal market reforms in the health service, the costs of its administration have risen by over £1,000 million?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will know–for the Socialist Health Association will have told him–that improved internal administration is necessary, not least because of the lack of financial control that existed before.

    Mr. Blair: Is not the problem the difference between what Ministers say about the health service and people’s experience of it? [Interruption.] Conservative Members would do well to listen to their constituents.

    Is not the problem the fact that people who see wards, and sometimes whole hospitals, facing merger or closure would prefer that £1,000 million to be spent not on more accountants and company cars but on beds, nurses and patient care?

    The Prime Minister: I am intrigued that the right hon. Gentleman has referred to what the public say. He may have seen the recent “British Social Attitudes Survey”, which makes it clear that, since our reforms, the number of people satisfied with the national health service has leapt by another 20 per cent., and that nine out of 10 people think that the national health service is satisfactory or better.

    He may also have seen the recent survey by doctors, which found that the overwhelming majority felt that health needs were being better met under the reforms than previously, and that a 2:1 ratio felt that competition among hospitals had improved service. That is the view of the public who use the service and of the doctors who run the service, both of whom have a greater and more in-depth knowledge of it than the right hon. Gentleman.

    Mr. Blair: I have just one question for the Prime Minister: if the service is so good, why did the deputy chairman of the Conservative party ask before Christmas, in the interests of the Conservative party, for zero media coverage of the health service?

    The Prime Minister: I want a lot of coverage and I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman why–so that we can refer to the 8 million patients in total who are treated each year, to the 119,000 cataract operations, to the 333 million free prescriptions, and to the growth of the national health service over the past few years. I might also remind the right hon. Gentleman not only that more people are treated and that they are better treated, but that a wider range of service is available to the NHS today than ever before. Before he and his colleagues doubt the Government’s commitment to the health service, they should consider the additional funding that we have provided, and recall that Labour were the only Government ever to cut resources to the NHS.

     

    Q3. Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.

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

    Mr. Fabricant: My right hon. Friend will know that I am a member of the Select Committee on National Heritage and that it is considering the future of the British film industry. Is my right hon. Friend aware that Mr. Ken Loach, an English director, is today premiering his new film, which champions the cause of nationalisation on behalf of Labour’s Defend Clause IV group? Is my right hon. Friend aware that that film will be a nostalgic romp, looking at the nationalised car industry and the nationalised steelyards, and that it will possibly feature a romantic look at Red Robbo? Will my right hon. Friend be nominating that film for an Oscar?

    The Prime Minister: I very much doubt that I will be nominating the film for an Oscar, but it seems to be the sort of film that deserves a wide circulation. There is no doubt that the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) is right to wish to abolish clause IV from his party’s constitution. The only matter of surprise is that so many people in the 1990s still disagree with that obvious and worthy cause. The question is whether the right hon. Gentleman will succeed, and the answer is that of course he will, because he will have the support of the unreconstructed trade unions in doing so.

    Mr. Salmond: May I offer the Prime Minister a chance actually to do something about fat cat salary increases? Some thousands of small shareholders in British Gas, supported by the staff, are going to the annual general meeting in two months’ time with a motion to cut the outrageous pay increase of Mr. Cedric Brown. Does that motion carry the Prime Minister’s support or not?

    The Prime Minister: I have made it absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman and to others that, if one puts an industry in the private sector, it must make its decisions in the private sector. That applies to British Gas, as to other companies.

     

    Q4. Mr. John Greenway: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.

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

    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the United Kingdom livestock industry leads Europe, both in terms of the quality of meat production, and in standards of animal welfare? Will his Government continue to press for higher welfare standards across Europe and, at the same time, uphold the rule of law in Britain, so that farmers and haulage firms can go about their legitimate business, free from the constant disruption of animal rights activists?

    The Prime Minister: I agree with both my hon. Friend’s propositions. There is no doubt about the need to maintain law and order, whatever the cause, where the law has been broken. As I have said, legally and practically, we need to work at Community level if we seriously want to bring the standards of animal welfare across the European Union up to the standards in this country. That is what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is seeking to do, and I hope and believe that he will be successful.

     

    Q5. Mr. Matthew Taylor: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.

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

    Mr. Taylor: What advice does the Prime Minister have for the governors of schools such as St. Agnes in my constituency which has seven teachers to cover the seven age groups in the school and who are now having to decide whether to make one of those staff redundant because of the failure to meet the teachers’ pay increase? Should the school engage in those redundancy procedures now, or should it wait a few weeks to see whether the Secretary of State for Education comes up with the goods in her argument with the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

    The Prime Minister: I think, perhaps, the first thing the governors should do is to examine whether their education authority has its priorities right in determining where the money that has been allocated to it has gone. Then, they might look at how many surplus places there might be in that education authority. I suggest then that they look at the balances in the education authority. When and if they are absolutely satisfied that the money is being spent properly, perhaps they can assure the hon. Gentleman of that. Nothing that the hon. Gentleman has said has convinced me that that is so in this case.

    Sir James Kilfedder: Is it not manifestly unfair and totally undemocratic that I was not consulted, briefed or spoken to at any stage during the drawing up of the draft document? Does not the Prime Minister feel that, in view of the involvement through Dublin of the Social Democratic and Labour party in the drafting of the document and in view of the fact that Her Majesty’s Government, through their representatives, have been talking to the political wing of the terrorists, that this is a contemptuous way to deal with Unionist Members of Parliament? Surely, when the Prime Minister speaks directly to the people of Northern Ireland, they will remember this.

    The Prime Minister: There has been widespread consultation. It is not the case that other parties have been involved in the drafting of the document that is to be produced. As my hon. Friend will know, the document is for consultation and consideration with my hon. Friend, with representatives from all the political parties in the House and with people right across Northern Ireland. What we are seeking to do, as we were asked to do by the political parties, is to set down some ideas for consideration, discussion and negotiation between the political parties. When and if they are able to reach agreement, we will carry the matter forward. The objective that I have is the same as that which I know my hon. Friend has and that is to ensure that what has been thus far a ceasefire is able to be turned into a permanent peace for the well-being of all the people in Northern Ireland, including my hon. Friend’s constituents, whom he represents so well.

    Mr. Maginnis: Does the Prime Minister agree that a well-directed and well-planned approach towards a practical solution to Northern Ireland’s problems would be better than a never-ending debate about some sort of theoretical process–the sort of debate that has gone on for 10 years since the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement–which did not deliver peace, stability and reconciliation? Will the Prime Minister undertake to read and to study my party’s document entitled “A Practical Approach to Problem Solving in Northern Ireland”, with a view to arriving at a solution and not continuing this theoretical and futile debate for yet another 10 years?

    The Prime Minister: I share with the hon. Gentleman the wish not to have a futile debate. The way to ensure a constructive debate is to come together and discuss the ideas that are about and that are on the table. Ideas have been produced at the request of the political parties. As it happens, I received the document in the hon. Gentleman’s hands last evening, and I have read it this morning. I have no doubt that other documents will be produced. One has already been provided by the leader of the Democratic Unionist party. Further documents may be prepared.

    What is necessary; what the obligation owed, I believe, to the people in Northern Ireland who want a permanent peace, is for all of us–the Government, the hon. Gentleman, other hon. Members and the people of Northern Ireland–to make sure that those matters are examined, discussed, considered, and decisions reached that will enable us to move forward into a permanent peace. That is what I wish to seek, and my mind is open to the right mechanism to ensure that we achieve it. But what I am determined is that we do seek to move forward to try and ensure that the chance that is in our hands–we may not be able to hold it–that the chance of peace that is in our hands should not slip away because we are not prepared to examine the matter, to talk about the matter, to consider the matter, and to reach the conclusions that the hon. Gentleman wishes to see reached.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the CBI Investment Conference – 30 November 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the CBI Investment Conference on Pakistan, held on Wednesday 30th November 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Prime Minister, Mr Chairman, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. It was a very great pleasure earlier this week to welcome the Prime Minister back to the United Kingdom that she knows so well. While we had been standing there over the last few moments, she and the President of the Board of Trade have been discussing days at Oxford, commenting upon the Cambridge members of the Cabinet – almost entirely favourably I should tell you, and clearly they have a great deal in common on those particular matters. But then we have a great deal in common with Pakistan on many matters. The Prime Minister and I met and had a discussion at the Commonwealth Conference in Limassol a year or so ago and on that occasion we discussed the prospect of having just such an occasion as this and from what I can see standing here, it looks to me as though this morning has been outstandingly successful and I am delighted that it has proved to be so.

    Of course Prime Minister, you have a huge number of friends in this country and I think it is self-evidently the case that you have a huge number of friends in this audience as well. We had the opportunity at Downing Street on Monday to discuss a very wide range of matters. There was certainly no shortage of things to talk about. Bilateral matters, trade and commercial matters of course and at some length. Regional matters and matters of joint interest across the Commonwealth of which both Britain and now thankfully, once again, Pakistan are prominent members. I found it extremely useful to have the opportunity to discuss so many issues in such depth and the Prime Minister and I, although time limited on that occasion, could undoubtedly have talked on for many hours about the matters of interest to us.

    But those talks in no sense ended at Downing Street. They sparked off a series of detailed discussions that the Prime Minister has subsequently had with other members of the Government, both as I recall from Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, over the last day or so. The Prime Minister has seen the Speaker and other leading Parliamentary figures. And discussed key aspects of the United Kingdom and Pakistani relationship with the Foreign Secretary, with the Defence Secretary, with the President of the Board of Trade, with the Minister of Overseas Development. In fact looking at your programme Prime Minister, it seems to me that thus far at least this week you have seen more of my Cabinet than I have. I shall consider in privacy whether that is desirable or not.

    When we discussed the idea in Cyprus of having this Investment Conference we decided to remit it to be taken forward and I’d like to express my thanks to the CBI for their role in this but above all my thanks to all of you for being here and turning what seemed to the Prime Minister and I to be an excellent idea into a living reality that is likely I believe, to lead to a substantial increase in trade and investment between our two countries. I strongly support the development of this relationship, strongly support the Conference that we’re having here this morning because there is beyond a shadow of doubt a very large potential to build on in our commercial and other relationships.

    Britain and Pakistan are not new friends. We’ve had a friendship. Occasionally an odd edge of friction, as is so often the case amongst even good friends in the Commonwealth, has emerged in our relationship. But it’s a lengthy relationship and it is a very deep relationship across a very wide range of issues. Even before this morning of course, before the signing of a £1 billion of new welcome business between our two countries, there was a great deal of business done between Britain and Pakistan. Our trade last year was almost entirely in balance. British exports to Pakistan went up significantly by around 8 1/2 per cent and we are the fourth largest exporter to that country and we are of course also the second largest foreign investor in Pakistan and I very much hope to see an acceleration of our investment there. I would like to see us do better and I think we can do a good deal better in this bilateral relationship. There hasn’t been a better time for British exports and British exporters, as our trade figures show, at any time in our long history and that record in overseas investment of British companies placing their confidence in overseas countries including Pakistan. Our record in external investment is truly remarkable and I think that is a very great strength for British industry and for the British future.

    The Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement which the Prime Minister and signed this morning will help to reinforce those economic links. Not create them, but reinforce them. Provide another element upon which we can build a larger and better relationship and it was, if I may say so, a particular pleasure to have the opportunity of signing it before an audience that has a great relationship already between Pakistan and the United Kingdom and an audience that represents much of the best of industry and commerce from both of our two countries. In Pakistan Prime Minister, you are in the midst of building a modern Muslim state. Easy to say. Less easy to do. It takes a great deal of political courage to undertake many of the changes that the Prime Minister is seeking to bring about in Pakistan. It is easy to set the objective. That is never a difficulty. What is more difficult is to determine how you reach that objective step by step, difficult decision by difficult decision, overcoming obstacle by obstacle and yet that is the task in which the Prime Minister and her government are engaged in Pakistan at the moment.

    Much has been done. Much that is remarkable has been done. You have introduced bold and important economic changes, restructuring, liberalisation, privatisation – I’m not sure yet whether you have privatised the Post Office, but I recommend it. A little chat with an Oxford colleague will tell you all the advantages of privatising the Post Office. Advantages that I wholeheartedly endorse and look forward to the day when they are wholeheartedly endorsed by a large number of other people as well. Some of those changes Prime Minister are inevitably painful and difficult, but they are necessary and the fact that you are seeking to bring them about, their introduction I believe is remarkably enhancing Pakistan’s image amongst overseas investors and trading partners and I think if I may say so, the evidence for my assertion is sitting in front of you, businessmen, British businessmen, a fairly hard-headed bunch in my experience. Charming of course, wise of course, the epitome of all the virtues of course but hard-headed. And yet they have formed their judgement of the changes that are being made in Pakistan and it is a favourable judgement and I believe as a result of that there has rightly, in my view, been a sea change in British companies perception of Pakistan, of their role in Pakistan and of the extent of the business and commercial relationship that can exist between our two countries. So our economic ties are growing and I think beyond a shred of doubt they will grow further. The agreements that we’ve just witnessed covering areas from hydro-electricity to tourist infrastructure testifies very eloquently to that and I hope that the Investment, Promotion and Protection Agreement will foster that growth and I hope too, that areas in which I believe Britain has unrivalled expertise could also be put to good use in Pakistan. We certainly have unrivalled expertise in all the mechanisms of privatisation and I know that is an area of great interest to Pakistan and one where I believe the United Kingdom can offer a great deal of advice and assistance as your programme rolls ahead.

    I know, Prime Minister from our discussions in Limassol and elsewhere, that you share my belief, Britain’s belief, in free trade. The United Kingdom has fought hard for free trade within the European Union. And I have to tell you from time to time we have to fight hard for free trade in the European Union. You and I Prime Minister have both argued exactly the same case concerning GATT at the Commonwealth Conference and together Britain and Pakistan, you and I, our respective Ministers, are committed to working for greater trade liberalisation around the world and I think the very strong support for the GATT/Uruguay Round by both Pakistan and the United Kingdom illustrated that very clearly.

    As we meet here on this occasion, Pakistan offers a favourable and an open environment for foreign investment. Many British companies have already recognised this. Many more in the future I am sure will come to recognise this and I am sure that today’s Conference and your very welcome visit here, will encourage many others to do so.

    So let me just conclude by saying this. That I wish you a very successful Conference, not just a successful Conference, but a Conference that plays its own part in identifying trading and investment opportunities between our two countries. There is no doubt, no doubt whatever, that those trading and investment opportunities exist. What we need to do, the Government, but above all businessmen in both countries, what they need to do is to root out and develop those opportunities and then bring them about. I’m here this morning Prime Minister and you’re here this morning because we both share the wish that that is precisely what will happen. That the trade we have seen will not just be sustained but will grow and flourish in the future. I look forward to a future Conference on another occasion with the same cast list once again assembled, but perhaps in a much larger venue with a much larger cast list, when we can report a much larger trade and investment flow between our two countries. That this will happen I have no doubt and when it does happen we may be able to look back on this occasion and on this Conference as the catalyst for bringing it about. Thank you for being here this morning.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the CBI – 28 September 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the CBI on Tuesday 28th September 1993 in London.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Madsen, thank you for that stimulating series of suggestions. I was wondering what we would be doing over the next seven years! [Laughter] I now have a fairly clear agenda and I am grateful to you for that. I am sure all my colleagues who are present this evening will have taken very careful note.

    I noticed when I came in that I committed one of the gravest sins in the Madsen Pirie Lexicon by not having changed my tie before I arrived. I apologise for that but I think the direction of Madsen’s proposals of policy give a clear indication of the direction that I feel the general thrust of thought should go both now and in the future.

    I am pleased to be here not just because of the convivial company but also because of the work that Madsen and his five colleagues – the Magnificent Six – have done in terms of policy promotion over the last few years and policy promotion for the next few years.

    It is immensely invaluable to have someone galloping ahead of the pack with ideas that it is worth examining that will change the face of what is happening at present. We couldn’t have had a more powerful advocate for liberalisation and privatisation than the Adam Smith Institute; it has been an immense boost to have their support for – if I can say this in the secrecy and discretion of this room before somebody starts a tape recorder running! [Laughter] – I have to tell you that privatisation has not always been universally popular in every quarter and there have been moments when it hasn’t wholly carried even the hearts and souls of every single member of the Conservative Party but it is right and it is working and I think if people were just to look back at ten years ago and ask themselves, for example, what the tax level might be if we were still subsidising all those former industries in the public sector that are now profit-making in the private sector, they may begin to contemplate whether they were right when they criticised privatisation or whether those who privatised were right.

    But there is more to be done. British Rail, perhaps not the most popular Bill at present, is undoubtedly right. I have, I must tell you, not a shred of apology about the policy to privatise British Rail and when I occasionally see opinion polls saying 87% of people are opposed to the privatisation of British Rail, I think they should ask people how many people are satisfied with the service they get from the present nationalised railway and I suspect the figure would be a deal less than 87%.

    A great deal has been done with privatisation and with liberalisation and I think there is a good deal more to be done. I think there is not only more to be done directly in those policies. I think the introduction of private capital, first cousin perhaps to privatisation, into a whole range of endeavours – the infrastructure of course but way beyond it – is something else that I think we need to promote as much as we can over the period of the next few years.

    What we surely seek, what I surely seek, is the minimum size of public sector and the maximum size of private ownership. That must be the right way ahead for us; it must be the right way for a whole range of reasons that I have no need to set out to this particular audience and the outriders in that argument have consistently been the Adam Smith Institute – for that I am deeply grateful. I am equally certain that they will remain the outriders for a whole series of ideas in the years immediately ahead.

    Where Madsen, I am sure, is right is that people as yet have not begun to sense the underlying change that I believe is taking place in the economy and will become apparent over the next two years or so. Undoubtedly we are clear out of recession; we are back in growth when the rest of Europe isn’t; we are back in growth with the prospect of low inflation and continued growth for quite a period; we are hugely competitive, not just because of the changed exchange rate of sterling but also for other good practical reasons, productivity and unit cost improvement for example being first amongst them; the increasing capacity of employers to resist unreasonable wage demands and be sensible about containing their costs. All these are practical reasons making up a steadily more competitive nation.

    I have to say to you that in the last week you may conceivably have noticed that I was in Japan and Malaysia; it possible it was brought to your attention and I have to say to you if anybody doubted the attractiveness of this country as a trading partner for a country to invest in, they should have been with me in Japan and Malaysia and seen the perspective that they had there of what is happening here for I have to say to you it was immensely encouraging. They recognise the opportunities that exist. Not only do they recognise them, I don’t have a shred of doubt that they are going to take those opportunities and I very much wish to see them do so.

    So I think our prospects are a good deal brighter than many people would imagine. We propose to build on those prospects in the next few months and the next few years and I know as we do so we will be constantly prodded – perhaps where necessary with a pitchfork – by Madsen and his colleagues to make sure we head in the direction that I believe we should go, the direction that maximises private ownership, minimises public ownership, maximises the capacity of people to spend their own money in their own way on their own families – for they will spend it a good deal better than even the most benevolent state will – and maximises the opportunity for people to become, in Madsen’ s phrase, a nation of entrepreneurs. I think there is no doubt that that is the right way for this country to go, no doubt that that is the way that offers the greatest possible prosperity in the future and no doubt at all, I hope, that that is the way the Conservative Party, united perhaps as never before on an issue, will be able to carry policy forward in the next few years and I look forward to coming back at the end of those seven years, Madsen [Laughter] to hear what you have in store for us in the first decade of the new Millennium. [Applause].

  • PMQT – 20 July 1993

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 20th July 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Simon Coombs : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 July.

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

    Mr. Coombs : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that today’s report from the Confederation of British Industry, showing the fastest increase in retail sales for three years, is clear evidence of the recovery that is taking place in our economy? Are not those figures the results of an economic policy that is based on low inflation, low interest rates and falling unemployment?

    The Prime Minister : It is a very encouraging report, and the sixth successive increase that retailers have reported. In the past week, we have seen inflation down, unemployment down, manufacturing up and now retail sales up. We have an excellent opportunity to build the lasting recovery that we all wish to see. I do not propose to put that at risk by burdening business with the extra costs that we have spent the past 14 years getting rid of.

    Mr. John Smith : Does the Prime Minister accept the opinion expressed by the great constitutional expert, Professor Dicey– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. These interruptions use very valuable time.

    Mr. Smith : I had thought that at least some of the hon. Gentleman and hon. Ladies on the Conservative Benches might have heard of him. Does the Prime Minister accept his opinion that

    “the one essential principle of the constitution is obedience by all persons to the deliberately expressed will of House of Commons”?

    The Prime Minister : By some time this evening, the European Communities (Amendment) Bill will have passed the Lords and Commons and will have Royal Assent. That is clearly the will of the House. Why is the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeking to obstruct it? Mr. Smith rose– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. The House will come to order. There is a great deal of nonsense going on. [Interruption.] I shall remove some hon. Gentleman.

    Mr. Smith : The right hon. Gentleman has answered a question that was not asked. It is a simple principle : does the Prime Minister accept the will of the House of Commons on whatever subject it is expressed? Can he say yes or no?

    The Prime Minister : I might equally ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman–as I just did–exactly the same question, because the clearest possible way to express the will of the House is to pass an Act of Parliament, which will have been done with the Queen’s Assent ratified by the close of business today. I repeat to the right hon. and learned Gentleman : after that Act has received Royal Assent, why is he seeking to obstruct it?

    Mr. Smith : Does the Prime Minister not understand that the question before the House on Thursday night is required by the very Bill to which he has referred? Will he tell us whether the Government will accept the decision of the House whatever it is?

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the House does not support the social chapter. The House genuinely wants the treaty that I signed, and I expect the House to reflect its genuine will in Thursday’s debate.

    Mr. John Marshall : Is my right hon. Friend aware that Hendon school in my constituency was one of the first schools to become grant maintained? Is he further aware that it is now heavily oversubscribed, and does he agree that what is good for Hendon is good for the country?

    The Prime Minister : I think that up and down the country people have indicated that they are in favour of the principle of grant-maintained schools, which have shown that they are very successful. We believe that that choice should be available.

    Mr. Ashdown : I understand why the Prime Minister will want time to study in full the Sheehy report on the police, but will he at least dispose of one of its recommendations now? Does he really believe that the battle against crime will be assisted by cutting our already undermanned police force by a further 3,000 as Sheehy recommends?

    The Prime Minister : With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he has misread the report. Sheehy does not recommend that. The Sheehy report is independent. We are examining it, and when we have examined it and consulted on it, we will reach conclusions.

    Mr. Burns : Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Ministry of Defence on placing more than 90 per cent. of its defence procurement requirements with British companies to protect British jobs and British expertise? Will he please use his considerable negotiating skills to impress on the American Department of Defence that it is unacceptable that British companies are stopped by Acts of Congress from competing in the American market for the supply of items such as image intensifiers which are produced in Chelmsford, thus causing unemployment in a company whose product is the best in the country?

    The Prime Minister : We believe in free trade and an open market in this as in other things.

     

    Q2. Mr. Roy Hughes : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 July.

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

    Mr. Hughes : Does the Prime Minister recall his aim of a nation at ease with itself? His Government are imposing 17.5 per cent. VAT on domestic fuel and attacking those who are on invalidity benefit, and now there is a cloud over state pensions. How does he reconcile that contradiction, as a nation can never be at ease with itself when there are such attacks on the underprivileged in society? I suggest that it might have something to do with his family’s circus background– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. This is Prime Minister’s Question Time.

    Mr. Hughes : I suggest that at an early age the Prime Minister was taught to stand on his head– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. As I have said, this is Prime Minister’s Question Time ; it is not an Adjournment debate.

    The Prime Minister : I am afraid that I did not hear the concluding words of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I heard the early part of it. He clearly neglected to mention that last week it was perfectly clear that VAT on fuel was also the policy of the official Opposition and the Liberal party. The official Opposition are still canvassing that. He also neglected in his catalogue many measures that have been taken to help people who are disadvantaged and to reduce tax levels for people on low incomes. Perhaps he should take a more rounded view.

     

    Q3. Sir Roger Moate : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 July.

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

    Sir Roger Moate : Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are very much opposed to the Maastricht treaty, but still believe that he scored a great personal and national triumph when he secured the opt-outs from the single currency and from the social chapter so beloved of the Labour party? Quite apart from the costs to industry and the loss of jobs, does he agree that the social chapter would reintroduce the corporatism that did such damage to Britain in the 1970s and before? Will he confirm that he has no intention of ratifying a treaty which contains the social chapter?

    The Prime Minister : I am well aware of my hon. Friend’s long- standing views on the European Community and his disapproval of much of the Maastricht treaty. While I do not share his views, I respect the strength and consistency of his feelings. I entirely agree with him about the damage done by the social chapter. It is an unemployment charter which will destroy our future prosperity. It will prevent the creation of jobs. It is a socialist charter and we want nothing of it.

    Mr. Hume : In the light of the clear evidence that Lord Tebbit publicly encourages terrorism, which emerged yesterday when he spoke on television advising loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast that if they wanted to achieve their objectives they should bomb Dublin, and when last evening those same paramilitaries bombed the homes of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Dr. Hendron) and two leading members of our party, will the Prime Minister now ask the Home Secretary to implement Government policy, issue an exclusion order against Lord Tebbit and send him to Northern Ireland?

    The Prime Minister : I think that the whole House knows my right hon. and noble Friend very well. He has suffered violently at the hands of terrorists. All his political life he has been a vigorous opponent of terrorism. I may not share his every view, but I believe passionately that he is one of the strongest opponents of terrorism this House has seen now or at any stage in the past.

    Mr. Wells : Will my right hon. Friend take some time to read the leader in the Evening Standard last week which ascribed to his leadership the low inflation, low interest rates and low unit wage costs which are leading Britain out of unemployment and into prosperity?

    The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend knows, I believe that our prosperity must be based on a low-inflation economy. It has not been easy to achieve ; there have been many sacrifices made by many people and I repeatedly acknowledge that, but we have the lowest inflation rate for 29 years. We need to sustain it and build growth on that low inflation.

     

    Q4. Mr. Jon Owen Jones : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 July.

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

    Mr. Jones : Did the Prime Minister find time to see last night’s “Panorama” programme? If he did, he will have seen disturbing evidence suggesting that dental equipment can transmit the AIDS virus and that in America strong evidence suggests that it has already done so in some cases, and perhaps in many. As The Lancet states that more than 75 per cent. of all dentists in Britain do not routinely autoclave their equipment between patients, is it not time that we regulated and inspected our dentists in order to protect our dental reputation and our citizens when they go to the dentist?

    The Prime Minister : The straightforward answer is no, I did not see the “Panorama” programme last night ; nor has the hon. Gentleman’s point been put to me previously. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will have heard about the programme and will be examining its findings.

     

    Common Agricultural Policy

    Q5. Sir Teddy Taylor : To ask the Prime Minister if he will raise at the next meeting of the European Council the impact of the 1993 reforms of the common agricultural policy.

    The Prime Minister : I have no plans to do so.

    Sir Teddy Taylor : As Sir Simon Gourlay, the former head of the National Farmers Union, has condemned the common agricultural policy reforms as

    “terminal insanity with staggering costs and red tape”, as common agricultural policy spending next year will be £29 billion instead of the £23 billion last year, as the mountain of cereals has broken all previous records, and as the average family is now spending an extra £20 a week on their food, might it be a possible compromise in a difficult week if the Government were to decide to postpone further transfers of sovereignty to Brussels until the common agricultural policy was scrapped or until individual member states could be excluded from it?

    The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend is a great expert on the European Community, he will know that breaking up the common agricultural policy would be incompatible with the treaty of Rome and with the completion of the single market. But the Government do believe that the common agricultural policy should reflect to a greater extent than at present the needs of the market, the interests of the taxpayer and the dual role of farmers as food producers and custodians of the countryside. In pursuing those objectives, of course we will listen to what Sir Simon Gourlay and many others have to say.

     

    Engagements

    Q6. Mr. Lewis : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 20 July.

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

    Mr. Lewis : Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to reinforce statements that he has made in the past that he will not introduce VAT on children’s shoes and clothing and other zero-rated essentials?

    The Prime Minister : When the Leader of the Opposition was asked about his tax proposals some time ago, he said very clearly : “Most Chancellors won’t tell you that. If you ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what will be the range and bands … in his tax Budget he will say, Wait until the Budget’.”

    That was the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s advice–the only wise advice that he has ever given the House.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on the Maastricht Treaty (III) – 19 May 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the Maastricht Treaty, made during an interview held on 19th May 1993.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked whether the Maastricht Treaty would progress quickly following the Danish referendum result].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am certainly pleased the Danes have cleared that uncertainty up, it has been a very debilitating, very difficult period both in Denmark, right across the Community, and certainly in the United Kingdom as well. We have the third reading of the bill in the Commons on Thursday, I hope and expect it will be passed then. The bill will then move to the House of Lords and thereafter we will be able to have Royal Assent and ratify the bill.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if he could get the bill through Parliament given the divisions in the Conservative Party and whether he would agree to the social chapter].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is a very decisive issue, Europe, it has been a very divisive issue in this country ever since we first joined it, and that remains the case. To take the particular points you raised, the social chapter firstly. I was speaking last night to a large number of employers at the CBI, they are absolutely clear that without the social chapter we are in a much better position. People think the social chapter offers all sorts of social benefits. I think it really more aptly ought to be called an employment destructive chapter, and that is emphatically not what we want in the United Kingdom, I want to put people back to work, not raise impediments to them getting work, and I believe that is what the social chapter would do.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked about Edward Heath supporting the social chapter].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Ted is a very enthusiastic supporter of European development, I do not believe the social chapter is in our interests, I do believe it is very much in the British interest, in the British national interest, our own cold, hard self-interest to be right at the centre of the European Community. And I do not just say that for idealistic reasons. The European Community is where our exports go to, it is where most of our jobs over the last 10 years effectively were created from, because of our growth in trade where was a huge growth of small businesses and firms. We need that growth in trade, we need those jobs. I know of no-one, no-one, who has a practical alternative to Britain being at the centre of Europe using her influence. There are only three alternatives really: leave the European Community, hardly anyone is proposing that; stay in it without influence and be dragged along by the French and Germans, that is not attractive; or get in the middle of the Community, form alliances with our partners, different alliances on different issues, and try and wield real British influence in the European Community, and that is where I stand.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if there would be increasing pressure on Britain to rejoin the ERM and join the social chapter and whether he would fight or give in].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I do not think it is quite as straightforward as that either way. For every member of the Community, throughout the lifetime of the Community, there have been pressures. When you have 12 nations, soon to be 16, working together always there are going to be pressures and difficulties. In order to win your way in the Community you need alliances, you need to be taken seriously, you certainly do not want to be sidelined with the rest of the Community ganging up on you, as has happened so often to this country in the past.

    What we are seeing at the moment is a fairly dramatic move towards the sort of European Community that we in Britain have always wanted and feel comfortable with, a wider Community, because of the agreements at Edinburgh the EFTAN nations will soon be joining. They will firstly be net contributors to the budget, which will save us money, and secondly they will be free traders. We have different governments across Europe, more inclined to the British point of view. We are at the moment in a better position than we have been, I believe, at any stage in our membership to start influencing the Community to go in the direction that we the British would like to see it moving.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the CBI Annual Dinner – 18 May 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Conference in London, held on Tuesday 18th May 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen. Before I turn in a few moments to other matters, I would just like to say a word or two about the referendum today in Denmark. Although counting is still going on, it is now clear that there is a very large majority in favouring the Maastricht Treaty. Seven out of the eight political parties were in favour, business opinion was in favour and the result of that is evident in the votes cast today.

    Before today’s result, a large question mark hung over the treaty. The Danes, initially less cautious than us, agreed to the treaty without the opt-outs that we negotiated. As you will recall, their electorate rejected that position and they needed to come back to their Community partners. We were always clear in this country that Maastricht needed the consent of all Twelve members, eleven would not do. At Edinburgh we helped Denmark secure new agreements, agreements similar to those we had obtained in the original negotiation. Today, in the referendum, this new position has been overwhelmingly approved.

    Across Europe nine nations have now ratified. Denmark and Germany can be expected to do so shortly. Only in Britain where our process has been a little protracted is substantive approval for ratification still being sought.

    Mr President, business has warned government often enough of the danger that we in Britain could sideline ourselves from Europe. And away from the sound and fury of Westminster, away from the interminable, incomprehensible procedural wrangles over the Maastricht Treaty, away from all that the issue is stark and simple, the issue is British jobs, British sales, Britain’s future.

    So we will be moving on with our parliamentary process as soon as possible. I hope we will obtain approval in the Commons at third reading on Thursday of this week. We need now to put the Parliamentary wrangles behind us and get on with doing business for Britain in Europe, developing our sort of Europe, an open Europe, a wider Europe, a Europe that liberates the talents of its businesses and its peoples, emphatically, Mr President, not a federal Europe.

    We want a competitive Community, that is why we objected to the Social Chapter, it is why we opted out of it, Maastricht without the Social Chapter, influence without handicap. Mr President, business knows that that is what this country needs, I hope, Mr President, that business will speak out and say that that is what this country needs. And the sooner we put this debilitating period behind us, the better it will be for British business and for British prosperity.

    Mr President, success, business success, your success, that is the theme that I want to concentrate on this evening, that theme and the new partnership that is emerging between government and industry. It is private enterprise that creates wealth, government’s job is to help you get the orders, not to give you the orders. We must create the climate for business to flourish, low inflation, low interest rates, low tax rates.

    In the late 1980s the economy was allowed to overheat and the government then had to cool things down. And that is the best response when there has been a mistake, to correct it and then to make sure that it never happens again. Three years ago inflation was in double figures and rising, that would have halved the value of money in just seven years. Mr President, it had to be tackled. If inflation runs on unchecked, ruin is certain. If inflation is confronted and beaten, prosperity can then be re-built.

    So that hard grind of recession had to be endured. I know that it was painful, I know that recession has left its scars. Too many businesses had to close down altogether and many others shed many jobs. We have all learned the hard lessons of those years and we must never let inflation drive Britain off its course again.

    As we speak this evening, retail price inflation is now under 2 percent, interest rates are down to 6 percent, the process of recovery has begun. We now know that recovery began slowly, cautiously, in a timid fashion perhaps in the course of last year. And now the ripples are widening through industry and along the High Street. House building and car sales are up. Your own surveys show a new level of confidence and after today’s independent poll, dare I say it, confidence is galloping.

    Now that is cause for cheer but it is not cause for complacency. Tonight we need to look to the future. So be in no doubt, I am in no doubt whatsoever, it is going to be a highly competitive decade. The economy has been picking up here in the United Kingdom but in much of continental Europe it is slowing down, trading is tough, the horizon is crowded with new challenges, new competitors, new markets, new technology.

    If we are going to look competition in the eye, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror. Our objectives must be clear. We need to broaden our recovery, widen our manufacturing base, build on our strength and remedy our weaknesses.

    So I want to pick up a theme expounded at your last CBI Conference, the theme of competitiveness. First, manufacturing matters. I want to congratulate you, Mr President, on setting up the National Manufacturing Council, a very welcome initiative, a strong single voice for Britain’ s manufacturers, very welcome, I wish it had happened years ago.

    And let me say something else about manufacturing that I personally feel passionately. I do not believe we have any reason to be defeatist about manufacturing in Britain. In the 1980s productivity in British manufacturing rose faster than in the United States, faster than in any other major European economy, more than twice as fast as in West Germany. We have increased productivity over 7 percent in the last year and we have cut our costs as well and that is the key to success, keeping quality high and costs low. And those hard won productivity gains were especially valuable, they protected Britain’s manufacturing from the worst of the recession.

    But it is true, yes, our manufacturing output fell, but much less than in the previous recession, and indeed, to put it in context, much less than it has fallen in West Germany in just the past year. But let me give you an even longer perspective than that. Look back to 1981, the bottom of the previous European recession. Since then France has increased its manufacturing output by a creditable 7 percent. West Germany has done rather better – an increase of 13 percent. But Britain, Britain so often derided for its manufacturing performance, Britain has increased manufacturing output by over 24 percent.

    Mr President, they are outstanding figures. Of course we need to do better still, much better, but my point is simply this. In the 1980s we turned the tide, in the 1990s we can catch the flood and that must be the aim for all our manufacturing industries. I believe that we can do it. There is a new mood in British industry, a new culture, a new ambition stimulated by the transformation you went through in the 1980s, industry is not just leaner these days, it is keener, it is fitter, it is more prepared to go out and fight for its markets and keep its markets, it is less inclined just to look to a home base, it knows it has to fight around the world for the markets it needs.

    And you can illustrate that perhaps in a number of ways. Last autumn you illustrated it very vividly. Last autumn you turned the spotlight on yourselves, on your own performance, you applied a critical self-analysis to the competitiveness of British industry, asking the difficult questions, facing up to the quality of the competition. Those are the actions of the confident, not the cautious. You have assessed where British industry is ahead and where it is behind. It is for each company to determine what it must do to stay ahead or to catch up.

    We have world class companies in this country, world class companies making state of the art equipment, winning in the toughest of market places around the world – pharmaceuticals, aerospace, chemicals, biotechnology, power generation, the water industry, international construction – a very long list, Mr President, but not long enough. You create the world class companies but in a thousand ways the decisions that we take in government can help you or can hinder you, so we too, the government, we are part of Britain’s competitiveness.

    Let me say this about that. All our policies, not just our economic policy, need to be focused on the future strength of the British economy. I believe that industry and government are coming to a new understanding, a new partnership. Your leadership has represented your views very clearly and equally clearly we have responded.

    In March, against a difficult background for public finances, we still managed to cut industry’s tax bill by around 1 billion pounds, and that of course is on top of the help we gave industry in the autumn statement. But I believe that the government’s side of this partnership goes much wider than simply budget changes. We, government, we must bend our energies right across the whole field of government o the pursuit of enterprise and growth and prosperity, backing Britain’s exporters, making the single market work for us in the United Kingdom, fighting for free trade, rolling back excessive red tape, rolling up our sleeves together with industry to give this country the infrastructure it needs, getting better value for taxpayers’ money, raising standards across all our schools, putting training on the fast track and harnessing our scientific genius to industry’s needs. That is an agenda right across government so that harnessed together government and business can build a new prosperity for our nation.

    Mr. President, let me say just a little more about each of those goals and I will turn first, if I may, to that crucial question of trade. We are traders in this country. We live by trade. Exports make up a third of our national income. We know above all that we need to win in the world’s market-place. Our trade deficit is substantial. Imports have risen and the recovery has only just begun. Time after time in the past, expansion at home has brought a further surge in imports whilst business has turned its back on the export challenge. Mr. President, in all our interests, that of the country, that of the shareholders, that of the businessmen, that of the future, we simply must not let that happen again and it is partly because of our concern about that that the Chancellor increased export cover by 1,300 million pounds in the Autumn Statement and the Budget. It is why we have cut the cost of export cover. It is why in this country we have got to have the best export services in the world. You, business, generously lent Michael Heseltine some of your best people to sharpen up the Department of Trade & Industry’ s export work here at home. I am grateful for that and every overseas embassy must put you at the top of their priorities and I promise you this – every embassy around the world now knows they have to put British business at the top of their priorities.

    But Mr. President, where are our export markets? They are of course all around the world but our main export market is Europe or rather perhaps it is now our home market. We have heard all about Britain selling televisions to Germany and lace to Brussels but traditional French suits to Paris, pizzas to Italy? Why not? As the old song says: “Anything you can do we can do better!” and across this country those are the sort of exports that enterprising British manufacturers are now sending abroad.

    And, of course, those opportunities are vital for us. We recognised that right from the moment we joined the European Community. That is why, whatever the difficulties, whatever sometimes the extreme difficulties, we have fought for a competitive Europe, one in which every country in the community is forced to obey the rules right across the Community and that is also why we fought to keep those rules to a minimum. It was why I was so determined to keep Britain free of the Social Chapter. The Single Market is the opportunity of a business lifetime. I don’t intend to let Brussels spoil it for Britain because our prosperity depends upon taking those opportunities.

    Of course, Mr. President, some of our European competitors complain. They don’t want Britain to become a magnet for investment, a seed-bed for growth, a haven for jobs but the answer is simple – Europe as a whole needs to keep its costs down and sharpen its competitive edge.

    Mr. President, I spoke of free trade. The need for free trade doesn’t just apply in Europe’s Single Market – it applies throughout the world – and yet for seven long years governments have been promising to complete a crucial round of negotiations to liberalise world trade. Each year, pledges have been published, each year the deadline has been allowed to slip. Mr. President, that simply cannot go on! We are past the eleventh hour and the strains are showing. Europe and the United States have twice in the past year come close to a damaging exchange of hostile protectionism that could easily escalate into a full-blown trade war. Twice, good sense and good negotiation have prevailed but only just prevailed.

    I welcome without a shred of reservation President Clinton’s commitment to completing the Uruguay Round. I believe in Leon Brittan we have the best possible negotiator. I hope Japanese Government will engage fully in the effort to secure a breakthrough on tariffs at the Tokyo summit this summer.

    Let me speak quite bluntly and frankly about this position: the test of good intentions can no longer be delayed. We need progress, not words; agreement, not dissent; decisions, not delay; we need a conclusion to the Uruguay Round and we need it this year.

    Mr. President, we need it for a raft of reasons. We need it not least of course because our manufacturers’ markets are at stake. There are huge potential gains in the GATT Round for our service industries as well but that of course is the bright side; that is the side of getting an agreement.

    There is a dark side too, the dark side of no agreement, and on the dark side the threat to our industries from so-called “managed trade”, the threat to competition from back-room deals between governments, the protectionist threat to our freedom and prosperity. All can and must be resisted until we get that agreement.

    Mr. President, I spoke of the partnership between Government and business. Sometimes, the best service Government can do for industry is not to do something but to undo something. Take regulation or rather, perhaps better, take it away! Now there is an idea for a Government service – a takeaway service, deregulation by another name.

    How many times do you hear people say: “It shouldn’t be allowed! The Government ought to put a stop to it!“ and how many times when the public presses Government to respond is the final result another form to fill, another reel of red tape, another restriction on trade and enterprise? Mr. President, business and Government must join together to fight the bias against regulation.

    So we have changed policy sharply, clearly and distinctly. In future, every time Whitehall prepares a nice little parliamentary Bill, it is going to have to tell us what the bill will be for you, what it is going to cost business to comply with the new rules proposed. The rule for Government in future is a simple one: “No Bill without the true bill!” and that I believe will help us cut down on regulation.

    But that is weed control for the future. We need to go a good deal further than that. We need to uproot the weeds that are already there choking enterprise. Michael Heseltine’s task forces of industrialists under the leadership of John Sainsbury are digging away already. We plan to legislate in the next session of Parliament to cut red tape. That means that you, business, must act fast to tell us where regulation is putting you at a competitive disadvantage, where it is excessive, where good intentions have turned into bad results but if you need it changed, tell us now and if I may be blunt again, there is no point in coming to tell me after we have presented the parliamentary Bill. I need to know soon so that we can draft changes in the Bill and make the changes that business believes are necessary.

    Mr. President, there are other ways in which we are seeking to change the old habits of Government. You often press us. Every time I see you, you rush up with Howard and grip me warmly by the throat. You often press us for further investment in infrastructure. But then you also press us to restrain public spending and borrowing. I agree. You are right, on both counts.

    Government needs to subject its services to the same severe tests you face. It is essential to keep public expenditure under control. This summer we are vigorously assessing our spending priorities. Like you, we cannot afford waste. Like you, we are market-testing our activities. Like you – in this year’s unified Budget – we are separating our capital programmes from our current spending. Like you, we must constantly be looking to see where money can be saved – where more can be done for less. And where less should be done by Government – more by the individual and the private sector.

    So let me make this request of you. As we will support you in your drive for efficiency, so we will look for your support in ours. But we can do more than back each other up. We can work together. That’s why I do not believe that the provision of infrastructure has to be restricted to the public sector. Now is your chance – in partnership – to get the infrastructure that you, the private sector, feel is important.

    Consider our history! Many of the great infrastructure projects were designed, built and funded by entrepreneurs. It was the private sector that built our canals, that laid the foundations of our railway system. More recently, it was the private sector that built the new Dartford bridge on time, on budget and very well too. It is the private sector that is behind the Birmingham northern relief road, the first privately-funded major road this century.

    We want to see the private sector fully involved in London’s Cross-rail project. We are determined to make sure the project is carried out as cost-effectively as possible and let me confirm tonight for those who may have had doubts that London Transport’s parliamentary Bill is going ahead in Parliament next month.

    Some people say that private finance won’t make a noticeable difference to our capital programmes. The City say differently. The City say that there already is something in excess of a billion pounds worth of private money available to support Crossrail and as President Reagan once memorably said: “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’ re talking real money!”. The Chief Secretary says something similar from time to time! Almost every time I see him, as I recall!

    Mr. President, it isn’t just physical capital that is important. Human capital is vital too. Tomorrow’s school-leavers will not be up to the jobs you are creating if they cannot read, write, calculate or spell. Government in Britain spends a higher share of our national wealth on education than either Germany or Japan and yet a third of those going into further education still need remedial help with English to get through their courses. Forty percent need help with numbers. Poor basic skills in literacy and numeracy cost you, business almost £5 billion a year. That, frankly, is a handicap Britain cannot afford. Schools cannot be a no-go zone for accountability and they cannot be a no-go zone for testing either in the future we are building.

    We British are a common sense people. We know that tests in schools are a necessary preparation for the tests that we all face in life. Britain is tested day by day in every market around the world and I want to see British workers top of the league tables of the world and that means the right education from the very first day each and every one of our children goes to school. And beyond school as well, because I know and you know that we can only do that by training our workforce throughout their lives. Education never again will stop at the school gate on the day the pupil leaves.

    Again, we need to set the right framework for the future turning the tattered patchwork quilt of vocational qualifications into a proper banner of progress, getting the best training for the best jobs and that is what tests and training credits are intended to do but I recognise that Government’s training effort can only be a fraction of industry’s own effort. Good businesses invest in their people, train them, develop them and as a result of that, they keep them as valuable employees for a very long time.

    I would like to pay my own tribute to the CBI who played a key role in the “Investors in People” initiative and I know that many of you here this evening are among the 3,000 organisations working to meet its demanding standards, organisations that include the public sector right up to its core in Whitehall and I expect more and more to take on that particular challenge. With Brian Wolfson spearheading the drive, we are now on track to meet our target for this initiative and tonight I am delighted that Bass Taverns represented by Charles Derby this evening have become the 250th investor in people. I hope we will soon increase that number many times over.

    Mr. President, right across industry we need to turn best practice into common practice. The best help smaller arms to grow, nurture their suppliers, even pay their bills on time! They adopt partnership-sourcing. You can always tell how many small firms are in the audience! They work together to offer the best possible deal for their customers and the best possible future for British industry as a whole.

    Innovation isn’t just about technology or about science but it depends on them and our scientists today are every bit as worthy in their own particular fields as were their great predecessors like Faraday or Fleming. They can’t be trammelled to think the state decree like some intellectual short-order cook but within our science base there is a cornucopia of ideas, of invention, of ingenuity just waiting to strengthen Britain’s competitiveness. Our job as Government is to help bring the best ideas out of the laboratory and into industry and William Waldegrave who is here this evening will shortly publish a White Paper on science and technology and his aim in that White Paper is quite clear, to help maintain and improve scientific and engineering skills and then to engage them in the creation of this nation’s wealth.

    We want all those changes that I have set out this evening and others besides that time has not permitted me to mention for one overwhelming, over-riding reason: I want to see this country hungry for excellence and thirsty for achievement. Those aren’t slogans to be discarded as recovery fades the economy out of the daily news headlines; they are imperative for all our futures. We must have the confidence to compare and to compete and beat our competitors around the world and we won’t do that – we shouldn’t do it – by asking where our competitors are today or where we were yesterday. Let them ask that about us! We should ask where we want to be by the turn of the century and some of our aims are clear. We should lift our eyes beyond the immediate horizon of next week, next month, next year to look at what is going to happen during the rest of this hugely competitive decade.

    The search for high and rising productivity must be continuous. Firm control of costs is needed; a well-educated workforce ready for high-quality training is essential; an economic environment of low inflation and hence low interest rates; a wealth-creating economy, free from the burdens of over-regulation and high taxation.

    Mr. President, not one of our competitors is standing still, not one of our competitors will stand back for us. It is up to us, the people here in this room and your colleagues in business from one end of the country to the other, it is up to us, all of us in partnership, to help Britain get that step ahead and keep that step ahead and if we do it, if we can achieve it, if we can develop this new culture that you can sense happening in British industry and commerce day after day, then the prospects for our country, our future, this generation and the next are very bright indeed. We must set as our ambition to enter the new millennium at the forefront of achievement, a nation respected for what it contributes, admired for its standards and emulated for its practices. That must be the aim to which all of us must dedicate ourselves.

    Mr. President, today we are laying secure foundations for sustained recovery. Tomorrow, we must build on them as we face this hugely competitive future.