The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Citizen”s Charter

  • Mr Major’s Comments on a Nation at Ease With Itself – 9 February 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on his phrase of a nation at ease with itself, made in an interview on 9th February 1992.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked to explain what he meant by the phrase a nation at ease with itself].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    What I mean by that is to make sure that everybody has the same opportunities whichever part of the country they come from, to achieve whatever it is they wish to achieve.

    That people have the right to self respect, they have the right to dignity, they have the right to good service, and of course much of that, to take one part of it, much of it is reflected in what we’re trying to do in the Citizen’s Charter; to make sure that people, when they’re dealing with public services, are treated as individuals and offered the quality of service, and individual service to which I believe they’re entitled.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked how that objective could be achieved during a recession].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    But if, if I may say so, that is the time when it is most important to have a nation that is at ease with itself. But of course it is important, whatever stage of the economic cycle you’re in, clearly at the moment as we come out of the recession, I think we’re beginning to show signs of doing that, as we come out of the recession it will be easier to make some of the policy changes that are necessary. But that it is important that people have those opportunities, those individual choices, I believe is undoubted.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if he could comment on Neil Kinnock’s claim that as Prime Minister he has presided over a deep recession].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well, Mr Kinnock has many virtues but I’m not entirely sure that a deep understanding of the economy is amongst them. We have economic difficulties in this country, that is certainly true, and I have never made any secret of that, that is why we have worked so hard to get inflation down from 11%, down to just over 4%. Mr Kinnock of course said it would go up above 11%. That is why we joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism to stabilise Sterling.

  • PMQT – 28 January 1992

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 28th January 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Ronnie Campbell : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 28 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. Campbell : Is the Prime Minister aware that people in my constituency of Blyth Valley eagerly await the RECHAR money? As there is a split in his Cabinet will he get off his backside, stop swanning around that desert island and have the money paid?

    The Prime Minister : I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the RECHAR money has been paid by Britain into the European Community and that we should have it back. I hope that Commissioner Millan will release it speedily.

    Sir William Shelton : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that we already see benefits flowing from the citizens charter? I refer, for instance, to shorter hospital waiting lists and to school performance league tables. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what future benefits–proven benefits–the people of this country will see flowing from the citizens charter?

    The Prime Minister : I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are determined to get the best possible value for the enormous amount of public money that is available at present. In addition to the improved information and guidance systems that we have already set up, there will be much more flexible opening hours in the case of tax offices, benefits offices and employment service offices, and a much more detailed and personal service for the taxpayer, who has the cost of those services compulsorily extracted in taxes from his or her pocket.

    Mr. Kinnock : Will the Prime Minister now give a categoric assurance that he will not impose any increase in VAT? Will he please answer yes or no?

    The Prime Minister : We have no plans to increase value added tax.

    Mr. Kinnock : Why cannot the Prime Minister give a straight answer to a straight question? Is he aware that the words he has just used are exactly the same as those that were used by his predecessor just before her Government increased VAT? Why cannot he tell us now what his plans are? Or is he trying to forget that the Government have increased VAT five times in 13 years? Is not that why everyone has good reason to know that Tory Governments mean higher VAT?

    The Prime Minister : There will be no VAT increase. Unlike the Labour party, we have published our spending plans and there is no need for us to raise VAT to meet them. So that the right hon. Gentleman is in no doubt, I tell him that I have no plans to raise the top rate of tax or the level of national insurance contributions.

    Mr. Kinnock : It is time that the Prime Minister came clean with the country. In view of the record of Conservative Governments in always putting up VAT and in view of the Prime Minister’s promises on other aspects of policy, how can he pretend that his intention is not to put up VAT? Do not a Tory Government make VAT rises a certainty?

    The Prime Minister : Before the right hon. Gentleman carries that fib any further, does he recall a further and earlier prediction about value added tax? I quote :

    “Labour foresees 60 per cent. VAT. VAT could rise to 60 per cent. if radical tax changes are introduced by a new Tory Government.” The right hon. Gentleman may recall that prediction by his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) before the previous election. That was also the time when the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook claimed that Labour would win by a landslide in the 1987 election. He was wrong on both points then and he is wrong now.

    Mr. Gerald Bowden : Does my right hon. Friend agree–

    [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order. I ask the House to settle down.

    Mr. Bowden : Does my right hon. Friend agree– [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order.

    Mr. Bowden : Does my right hon. Friend agree that a party’s commitment to public services is best judged by its record in government? Will my right hon. Friend consult our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to ascertain who controls the 20 authorities that have the highest community charge, the highest rent arrears and more vacant properties than any other authorities? Does my borough of Southwark feature among them?

    The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend makes a sound and fair point. All too often, Labour-controlled councils provide shoddy services at far too high a cost. I well recall the Opposition saying, “If you wish to see what a Labour Government would be like, look at Labour local government.”

    Mr. Ashdown : On the subject of predictions, and while the Prime Minister reflects today on the gloomy report by the Confederation of British Industry, does he recall on new year’s day this year saying on Radio 4 that in retrospect, we would look back and say that the economic recovery had already started? In retrospect, does the Prime Minister agree that he might spend less time talking up false economic dawns and more time taking action for economic recovery?

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Gentleman is becoming a professional gloom monger. When we look back to the present, it will be perfectly clear that in many sectors of the economy, the recovery has indeed started.

    Mr. Onslow : Does my right hon. Friend remember that when the investment income surcharge was abolished in 1984, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer described it as an unfair and anomalous tax on savings and on the rewards of personal enterprise? What would he say today to anyone who was stupid enough to recommit himself to reintroducing it, as Labour has done?

    The Prime Minister : I would certainly find that extraordinary. I would find it even more extraordinary from a party that claims to care about investment, yet clearly has no understanding that investment comes from savings.

     

    Q2. Mr. Livingstone : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.

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

    Mr. Livingstone : Given the commitment in the citizen’s charter to parental choice in education, will the Prime Minister agree to meet a small delegation of parents from William Gladstone school which has an excellent academic record and an expanding roll but which faces closure as Brent council wishes to sell the school because of its site value?

    The Prime Minister : I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will be happy to see the hon. Member concerned.

    Mr. Michael Morris : Is my right hon. Friend aware that the greatest service he can continue to do for the British public is to keep inflation below 5 per cent? Is he further aware that the public remembers that inflation under Labour was 15 per cent., 20 per cent. and 25 per cent? In order to keep the level of inflation down, will he have a look at what is happening with the six major grocery chains, the increased share of the margins that they are getting and the fact that their margins are now twice the level found in the major grocery chains throughout Europe?

    The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend says, inflation is low and we are determined that it will stay low. He will recall that inflation never fell below 7.4 per cent., and that for only a very brief period, while the Labour party was in Government.

    I will certainly look at the point that my hon. Friend has mentioned.

     

    Q3. Ms Hoey : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.

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

    Ms Hoey : Before the Prime Minister retires to his desert island, taking with him his Trollope and a very large section of my constituency– without my permission–will he give a clear and simple statement about what he will offer to pensioners so that they can retire with some luxury? Will he match Labour’s commitment to pensions?

    The Prime Minister : A commitment to pensions means nothing if it is not matched by a commitment to low inflation.

    Mr. Devlin rose–[Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order. The hon. Member has not asked a question of the Prime Minister for many months, and not in this Session, unlike some other hon. Members, now shouting “Marginal seat.”

    Mr. Devlin : Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to look at the study in The Financial Times on 6 January which pointed to the fact that the northern region has very much benefited from the economic restructuring of the 1980s and is now coming out of recession faster than any other part of the country, due to the success of the regeneration programmes that the Government have put in place in the region?

    The Prime Minister : I have seen that myself in visits to the north. There is no doubt that the north has seen the start of many good things in this country and I am certain that it will be the same again with the economic recovery.

     

    Q4. Mr. McKelvey : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.

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

    Mr. McKelvey : Can the Prime Minister confirm that last Wednesday he had lunch with Lord Rothermere? Did he take the opportunity on that occasion to co-ordinate the campaign of lies and vilification that the Rothermere press has been conducting against the Labour party?

    The Prime Minister : I took the opportunity to enjoy an excellent luncheon. [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order.

    Sir John Farr : As my right hon. Friend prepares himself for the important meeting with President Yeltsin later this week in London, will he take the opportunity of seeing what can be done to deal with the massive threat which still exists from all the different independent Russian states?

    The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend says, this will be an important opportunity to discuss with President Yeltsin both the international difficulties posed by the break-up of the old Soviet Union and the extent to which the west might usefully help the Russian Republic in the difficulties that it faces at present. I anticipate that both those matters will be on our agenda.

     

    Q5. Mr. Bernie Grant : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.

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

    Mr. Grant : Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating Labour-controlled Haringey council and the children, teachers and parents of Haringey on the fact that our schools came joint top in English, maths and science in the level 3 standard assessment test and top in the individual subject of science? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is a remarkable achievement, bearing in mind the fact that Haringey is an inner-London borough and has all the associated problems? Is not he ashamed at the remarks of his predecessor and of his ministerial colleagues who have constantly criticised Haringey’s education policy and have cut its revenue support grant? Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that Haringey receives an increase in its revenue support grant and standard spending assessment as a result of its excellent work in educating the children at its schools?

    The Prime Minister : I am delighted to hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I am especially pleased to hear that he now supports the tests introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I can tell from what he said that he is a strong supporter of the parents charter, without which those results might not have been fully known.

    Mr. Conway : Will my right hon. Friend take time to congratulate British industry on the fact that it has achieved record exports in the past quarter, that 27 of the top 50 European companies are British and that Britain exports more of its national product than Japan? Are not those successful British companies sick and tired of being talked down by the doom-monger Labour party?

    The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend is right. Yesterday’s trade figures showed clearly that export volumes were at record levels even in a worldwide economic downturn. My hon. Friend was also right about some Opposition Members talking down the economy. The Leader of the Opposition said in his letter to supporters at the beginning of this year that Britain had a £20 billion trade deficit, when the truth was that the deficit fell by a half and the right hon. Gentleman’s figures were wholly wrong. Perhaps he will now write again to his supporters and correct his error.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Economist Conference on the Citizen’s Charter – 27 January 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech made to The Economist Conference on the Streamlining of the Public Sector on Monday 27th January 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    PUBLIC SERVICES ON THE MOVE: THE CITIZEN’S CHARTER

    Mr Chairman, four years ago, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I was the guardian of the public purse. I spoke then about the importance of high quality public services. Some people were surprised at such a speech from a Minister with responsibility for public expenditure. But it was right. And the fact that so many people running great enterprises, public and private, are here this morning shows that we are right to insist that people deserve better value for money and more accountable management standards in our public services.

    The Citizen’s Charter is a blueprint to deliver higher standards. Some services – like the National Health Service and social security – cross the nation. Others are the prerogative of Town Halls and local authorities.

    But wherever they may be, there is excuse for accepting second-rate performance. It’s economically wasteful. It’s socially unacceptable. And it’s a poor use of the many talented people who work in the public sector.

    The Citizen’s Charter reflects a determination to improve public service. For me, that was not a new concept. It arose from experience – as a user of public services, as a provider of them in local Government, and, finally, as a Minister.

    My views have not changed on substance over the years. Nor have my convictions. I believed then and I believe now that too often providers of public service fail to understand, or ignore, the interests and concerns of the public they are there to serve.

    Let me give you an example. Too often the public are treated as if they were the lucky recipients of a free service. But they are not. They’re paying for it with their own money compulsorily taken from them in taxes. They are entitled to be treated as credit-worthy customers who’ve paid in advance.

    Mr Chairman, the Citizen’s Charter came about because I was consistently receiving the same strong message. That it was high time to raise standards of performance in our public services. That was the demand of the consumer. And it was also the wish of those who work in the public sector themselves. They had the skills, the dedication, and the enthusiasm to do it. All they needed was the freedom and the encouragement to try out new ideas. The Citizen’s Charter gives them the chance.

    CITIZEN’S CHARTER PRINCIPLES

    What the Charter does is to underline the need for:

    – published standards

    – consulting users and customers

    – increased openness

    – more and better information

    – more and better choice

    – greater accessibility and

    – greater responsiveness when things go wrong.

    These are things we want to see underpinning not some – but all of our public services.

    THE CHARTER’S POLICY MEASURES

    But our White Paper is more than a set of principles. It is an ambitious programme of action to raise the standard of service right across the public sector. It includes some huge commitments:

    The privatisation of British Rail and British Coal. The deregulation and privatisation of London Buses. These will be priorities in the next Parliament. But the main thrust of the Charter is to empower the individual.

    – So it includes also laws to let the public see league tables comparing the standards of service of their local authority with that of others.

    – And, for the first time ever, reforms that will bring about the regular independent inspection of all Britain’s schools.

    – It contains radical reforms which will limit the monopoly of the Post Office.

    – It proposes new powers for citizens to challenge unlawful strikes in the public sector. When the next Parliament is formed, they, too will become law.

    Last July I made it clear that a programme on this scale would take time to deliver. But we must deliver it – and we will. The Citizen’s Charter will be at the heart of this Government’s policy making throughout the 1990s.

    Sometimes people find it hard to relate great policy ideas to everyday life. There is a tendency to be shy of new concepts. People were shy of privatisation. Yet they should remember privatisation has created a nation of shareholders and put telephone kiosks that work in every high street in Britain. Deregulation has opened up the motorways to long-distance coach travel.

    But those benefits were not always seen at first. Indeed, they were bitterly resisted. It is always less trouble to stick to the status quo. But today those ideas are not only accepted, they are imitated right across the world. It will be the same with the Citizen’s Charter. There’s always resistance to good ideas. Wherever we find it, we will beat it. And I have no doubt that the ideas in the Charter will be imitated in other countries too. They are already catching the fancy of policy makers not least in the United States.

    The Charter builds on and takes forward our privatisation and contracting out plans. The White Paper on Competing for Quality, will lead to more buying in of outside skills and a bigger role for the private sector. I want to see much more market testing in the years ahead. In central Government as well as in services outside. And. we are making the way easier for private firms to bid for business. Whitehall has been told to be open to their ideas.

    But the Charter is not only about big policy developments. It also addresses directly some of the smaller things that cause so much irritation in everyday life. Again, an example makes the point. Take fixed appointment times for the man from the gas board or the electricity board. When we were working on the Charter we were told these were unthinkable. Fixed appointment times? Over the years consumers have learned to be grateful if they ever came? Were we mad? The public didn’t want them, they said. The unions wouldn’t like it. These latter day Mr Bumbles were shocked at the consumer demanding more. Whatever next Oliver? A proper service? Now, East Midlands Electricity has shown that it is perfectly possible to get the electricity man to call at a specific time of day, if that’s what the customer wants.

    And take another frustration of everyday life: motorway cones. Sometimes one could be forgiven for believing they had taken over the roads and were marching on the towns.

    So we listened and acted. As a result, £70 million worth of motorists’ time has already been saved by using lane rental. So we must do more of it. And there are other things we can do. A recent piece of work on the M1, with traditional methods, would have taken over 5 days to complete, and cost £25,000. Using rolling lane closure, the work was done in 3 hours and cost just £5,000. We are looking to the Department of Transport to press on fast with all the Citizen’s Charter’s new ideas for handling roadworks better.

    PROGRESS : HEALTH

    Then there’s the Charter’s influence on the Health Service: From this April, all hospitals will have to display publicly their local charter standards. From this April people will be given individual appointment times for out patient visits. No more turning up at 9 am and finding twenty other people there with the same appointment time. And from this April, there will be guaranteed maximum waiting times for hospital treatments. In Scotland there will be maximum waiting times for a number of specified operations. All this is spelt out in the Patient’s Charter which has gone to every home in the land. A better service. A more personal service. And more dignity, too.

    The Health Service must hit the targets that the White Paper set. And then we must go further. I can tell you today that we are launching a new research study into why patients have to wait so long between referral by their GP and seeing a consultant. The time varies considerably. Why? I want to know. And when we know we must put it right. I want to see improvements made.

    Changes like these take effort, commitment, skill, organisation. They mean a shift in approach on the part of a great many people up and down the NHS. Well, it’s happening. There’s a new mood of confidence in a Health Service that is responding to the challenges that the Citizen’s Charter has set. And there will be many more to come.

    EDUCATION

    Then consider education. In no area have the Charter’s proposals received wider public support. Parents now have a right to see governors’ annual reports, which include the exam results in their school. From July all parents will have the right to an annual report on their child’s progress; and, from this autumn, tables comparing the exam results of different schools will be published every year in the local paper. Next year, the comparative tables will include truancy figures and information on where pupils go when they leave school. National Curriculum test results will be published as soon as they become available.

    You may be surprised that it was ever thought unsafe for parents and public to know this sort of thing. Well, I think I can tell you why. It was inconvenient to some of the providers. It might expose poor performance to the criticism it deserved. But poor performance should be exposed if we are to correct it.

    It is those attitudes that the Citizen’s Charter is challenging. We are giving parents a greatly increased voice in their children’s education – a voice they should never have lost. And at the same time we are also letting employers, local business people and so on – see how effective their schools are.

    OTHER MEASURES

    There are other simple but necessary things we’re doing.

    Public services are much more human if they come with a name to them. Anonymity can be intimidating. Very shortly 35,000 Employment service local office staff will be wearing name badges. And all other parts of the public service are doing the same.

    We are going to provide more flexible opening hours in tax offices, Jobcentres, benefit offices and driving test centres. Flexible hours to provide a better service.

    We are seeing standards set in areas where people said it couldn’t be done. For example, the Kent Police will answer all 999 calls within 10 seconds and will attend all incidents that require a rapid response in no more than 20 minutes – 10 minutes in towns.

    We’re making radical changes in inspection. Not just by making sure that the standards are checked in every British school. But also by introducing outsiders – professionals, users, commonsense citizens – into other inspectorates as well. I believe it is quite wrong that professions – like police, social work, or probation – should be inspected only by the providers themselves. They must be subject to independent inspection – to reassure the public and encourage the best performance.

    Other tough targets are being bettered. In 1989 it took some 3 1/2 weeks to get a passport. Now it takes just 7 days. Document processing used to take Companies House a month on average. Last financial year this figure was cut to just one week. Huge improvements in service, not dependent on extra resources. Just good management and a willing response from staff.

    The list could go on.

    WHERE NEXT

    Mr Chairman, ten days ago, I brought a number of my colleagues together with senior officials to assess progress on the Charter. We agreed that we must develop some of the many new ideas that they put forward. And we decided to hold these top-level meetings regularly so that progress would be maintained.

    Last Friday Michael Heseltine unveiled the Tenant’s Charter. This tells council tenants what they have a right to expect from their housing authorities. That they must be kept informed of any major changes that landlords propose to make to their homes or their estates; that they have a right to carry out improvements to their homes, or to swap their homes if they wish to move house to another area.

    Today sees the launch of the Benefits Agency Charter. It lays out clearly the service that benefit claimants are entitled to expect. And it sets specific service standards for speed and accuracy of benefit delivery.

    Other initiatives will follow, including, on Wednesday publication by the Customs of a charter for travellers.

    People are being given information about services that no one has bothered to tell them before. For the future:

    We want even more, and better information. There will be:

    – a video which explains how the tax system works, so that those running small businesses can more easily manage their tax affairs;

    – and a video about the way the courts work, to help those who come once in a lifetime as jurors or witnesses to understand what goes on and to find their way around.

    – In Wales there is to be a code of good practice in planning cases for local authorities. League tables will be published so that, once more, we can put pressure on the worst authorities to catch up with the best.

    – We will soon see a new Passenger’s Charter published. This will set out clearly the standards that British Rail’s passengers are entitled to expect, and make BR account for its performance against them. And it will also improve significantly the terms of compensation they should make available to passengers who suffer worst from train delays.

    – And Charter’s principles should also help the businessman as citizen. He has to deal with many rules and regulations administered by local authorities. In some areas systems are being developed so that a business getting approval from one authority will know that it is valid for others. I want to see such systems, which are currently voluntary, extended more and more widely. Businesses simply cannot understand it when different authorities apply the same laws in different ways. It adds to business costs and detracts from competitiveness. Local authorities need to work with business in smoothing out difficulties that stop firms getting on with their main job – trading.

    – Finally, we are going to make sure that rewards in the public sector are related to performance. Increasingly, peoples’ pay must be linked to giving high quality service. Doing a job of quality must be seen to matter more than doing a job. There will be strict, but fair criteria. But those who work well should earn more than those who don’t. I intend that performance pay should apply more widely in public service – not just in Whitehall, but on the underground and the railways as well.

    THE CHARTER MARK AWARD

    I can also announce today a reward for excellence. It will be known as the Charter Mark award. It will be open to all public services that serve their customers direct. It will be challenging to achieve. In the first year some 50 Charter Marks will be awarded. Only the highest standards of performance will be considered. The winners will have to improve even more. Year on year improvement in the quality of their services. Customer satisfaction.

    And they will have to submit plans for future improvements without cost to the taxpayer.

    I hope many public sector services will apply for the Charter Mark. Not just the big ones. And not just the obvious ones. There are individual schools, hospitals, Agencies, and local authority services, which may not be well known nationally but which provide a service of which they can be proud. I want their efforts to be recognised. To be examples for others to follow.

    RESOURCES

    Mr Chairman, it is the taxpayer who meets the cost of public service – good or bad. Poor public services do not come free, any more than good ones do. And they will cost more. They mean too much time wasted, too many complaints, paying twice over to put right the mistakes made first time round.

    The best effective way to operate is to get things right first time. So let us hear no more of the phoney argument that you can only make things better by spending more money. Politeness. Keeping promises. Giving the right information. Answering letters promptly. These things don’t cost money. They are the everyday currency of decent services. And they must become universal.

    Nor do I believe that people take a proper pride in their work if they are no more than a nameless face or an illegible squiggle at the foot of the letter. With the Citizen’s Charter, public service is taking pride in its work. It now showing it is ready to take responsibility. Ready to trust the public. It’s the beginning of the end of the faceless bureaucrat.

    CHARTERLINE

    I know all too well the frustration that ordinary people feel when they find themselves up against a blank wall of bureaucracy. Passed from pillar to post when they try to get an answer to a simple question, or a problem solved. So we will soon be publishing a paper setting out some ideas for helping people in a quick and simple way, when they get caught in the system. We will also introduce, at first on a pilot basis, a new telephone helpline – the “Charterline”. It will tell people about the Citizen’s Charter, the many different measures it contains and how they can pursue questions that they have in mind.

    CONCLUSION

    The Citizen’s Charter is only six months old. It is still in its infancy. But its effects are building up fast. And people in the public sector know that it is here to stay.

    We will see to it that it works. Where we need to we will legislate. We will contract out when appropriate. We’ll toughen up inspection and further empower the regulators of public utilities where public choice is limited. We’ll set standards and publish results so that the success of every service can be measured and improved.

    And will this all make it work? Yes, certainly it will. Because the Charter ideas are right. Because the public know they are right. Because people want to make it happen. Because hundreds of thousands of people in public service have a commitment to make it happen.

    Already the Citizen’s Charter is changing public service. Step by step. But surely and certainly. More ideas will follow. With political impetus the process of change is now unstoppable.

    And I promise – the impetus will be there.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 16 December 1991

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 16th December 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Government Achievements

    Mr. Nicholls : To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the achievements of Her Majesty’s Government over the past year.

    The Prime Minister : Over the past year the Government have continued to pursue policies designed to remove barriers to choice and provide opportunities for all the people of this country, to lay a sound basis for future prosperity, to play a full part in Europe and to contribute to international peace and stability.

    Our firm financial policies, reaffirmed by our commitment to the exchange rate mechanism, have reduced inflation sharply and permitted interest rates to be substantially reduced. The conditions necessary for resumed growth have now been established.

    We have brought forward a Bill to provide for a new council tax, to replace the community charge in financing local government spending. The Budget helped businesses, large and small. We have taken initiatives to encourage innovation in industry and improve export performance. We have initiated joint action with industry to help identify and pursue export opportunities. Its first use in Kuwait in March 1991 has already led to orders worth £480 million for the United Kingdom. We have opened up telephone services to allow consumers to benefit from more competition.

    We have continued to promote wider share ownership. National Power, PowerGen and the non-nuclear electricity companies in England, Wales and Scotland, have been privatised, and a second tranche of shares in British Telecom sold to the public. One in four members of the adult population now owns shares.

    We have provided more effective training opportunities and are now offering a wider range of help than ever before to assist unemployed people in obtaining new jobs.

    We attach the highest priority to ensuring that everyone, whoever and wherever they are, will have access to high quality public services. The citizen’s charter White Paper announced a programme of radical initiatives to improve efficiency and standards in the public services and the privatised utilities. Measures to implement the charter feature strongly in our legislative programme for 1991-92, and we have published a number of charters relating to individual public services.

    In education we have taken action to raise standards and improve parental choice. The new School Teachers’ Review Body for England and Wales provides the means of improving teachers’ status. The development of the national curriculum will encourage concentration on basic skills. Our legislation to provide parents with more information about the performance of schools and to improve school inspection will give parents the basis on which to exercise the choices they are now able to make.

    We have also introduced legislation to widen access to an expanded higher education system, to abolish the distinction between universities and other higher education institutions, and to raise the status of vocational education and of further education colleges. Spending on science by the Department of Education and Science will top £1 billion for the first time next year and will rise in real terms for the remainder of the planning period.

    The Government’s health policies have led to an increase in the number of patients treated, a reduction in waiting times and lists, better quality of care and greater awareness of health promotion. The consultative document “The Health of the Nation”, setting out a comprehensive strategy for better health, has been warmly welcomed. Record levels of resources have been made available : spending on the NHS in 1992-93 will be nearly £36 billion, a 55 per cent. increase in real terms since 1978-79.

    The NHS reforms are already yielding tangible benefits for patients. Fifty seven NHS trusts have already been established and 99 more approved for start-up in 1992. The growing enthusiasm for trust status within the NHS means that many more will follow. GP fundholding is also proving a success. The patients charter has set out patients’ rights for the first time and the standards which will be set nationally and locally by the health service, including the first waiting time guarantees.

    We have maintained our determined efforts in the fight against crime. We have established a royal commission on criminal justice to examine the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in securing the convictions of those guilty of criminal offences and the acquittal of the innocent.

    In September we published “This Common Inheritance–The First Year Report” reporting progress on the whole range of environmental policies and concerns, and listing 400 separate measures taken during the year.

    We have continued to raise standards of food safety, ensure consumers are better informed, make environmental considerations central to agricultural policy, with significant extension of environmentally sensitive areas, as well as raising standards of animal welfare in Britain and taking the lead in setting higher standards throughout Europe.

    We have continued to invest record sums in the improvement of the United Kingdom’s transport infrastructure, and to encourage greater private sector involvement in the provision of transport facilities. We have introduced legislation to enable the structure of English local government to be reviewed so as better to reflect the identities and interests of local communities.

    We have continued to work for the regeneration of our cities. The city challenge initiative encourages local authorities to work with their private, voluntary sector and local community partners, to regenerate key areas of their cities.

    In the housing field, the new emphasis on quality of performance will further improve the renovation and management of council housing in England and Wales. We have introduced pilot rent-to-mortgage schemes, to extend tenants’ opportunities to buy their homes, and brought in new arrangements to ensure that tenants are actively consulted in local authorities housing plans. A special programme of hostels and permanent housing is reducing the numbers of people sleeping rough in central London.

    We have improved the position of children. We have increased child benefit, and pledged to increase it in line with inflation in the future. The Children Act, which came into effect this year, is a far reaching reform of children’s rights. The new Child Support Agency, for which legislation was passed earlier this year, will improve the assessment, collection and enforcement of child maintenance. We are continuing to enhance the opportunities for disabled people to play an independent part in society. In 1991 we enacted legislation providing for two new social security benefits for disabled people. Nineteen-ninety-one has seen momentous events internationally. The United Kingdom’s contribution to the liberation of Kuwait enhanced our standing in the world, strengthened the power of the United Nations and proved again the outstanding abilities of our armed forces. We responded rapidly to the Iraqi Government’s persecution of their own people, proposing the safe-haven initiative to provide an effective response to the plight of ordinary Iraqis. Building on the experience of this we launched the United Kingdom’s disaster relief initiative in August to provide the capacity for an immediate informed response to disasters round the world.

    The United Kingdom contributed significantly to the successful outcome of the Maastricht European Council. We have fully protected the United Kingdom’s right to take its own decision at the appropriate time on a move to the final stage of economic and monetary union. On political union, we have agreed a series of pragmatic reforms, many as a result of our proposals, which will make the Community more efficient, accountable and effective internationally. The new treaty on European union will also strengthen inter-governmental co-operation outside the framework of the Community in important areas like the fight against crime. We have continued to make steady progress towards completing the single market by the end of 1992 and to the conclusion of the GATT Uruguay round. The Government welcomed the determination confirmed at the Maastricht European Council to keep the Community open to our European neighbours who are eager for closer links and eventual membership. It was agreed that in 1992 negotiations would take place on applications from countries of the European Free Trade Area to join the Community, and, in due course, consideration would be given to the further possibility of expansion towards eastern Europe. I chaired the successful G7 economic summit in July and the historic meeting between summit leaders and President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. The Government vigorously denounced the attempted coup in the Soviet Union and supported President Yeltsin’s courageous stand against it. I have co-ordinated the G7 programme of aid for the republics of the Soviet Union.

    The Government played an important part in concluding the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe. We have continued to make a substantial contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, participating fully in adapting the alliance, and developing a stronger European defence identity in the Western European Union. We have taken steps to restructure the armed forces to reflect the changed international situation.

    We have made a determined effort to promote democracy and good government in the developing countries, as a means to improving the prospects for development and the reduction of poverty. My announcement at the Commonwealth conference in Harare in October that the United Kingdom would implement the Trinidad terms debt reduction initiative for the poorest and most indebted countries was widely and warmly welcomed. If all official creditors followed this lead, the total debt of the countries concerned would be reduced by some $17 billion. At our instigation, the European Community and the Commonwealth have taken a more positive attitude to the welcome developments in South Africa, and sporting links have now been re- established with that country.

    These policies will ensure that the United Kingdom is well placed and fully prepared to meet the challenges of the 1990s.

     

    World Memorial Day

    Mr. Flynn : To ask the Prime Minister what contribution Her Majesty’s Government intends to make to World Memorial Day on 1 January 1992.

    The Prime Minister : The Government note the inauguration of World Memorial Day on 1 January 1992 by the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief. Her Majesty’s Government will continue to do all they can to promote a safer and better world which is the stated object of the fund.

     

    Packaging

    Mr. Flynn : To ask the Prime Minister if he will make it his policy to require Her Majesty’s Stationery Office to use biodegradeable rice paper chips in place of styrofoam chips in packaging of parcels.

    The Prime Minister : This question falls within the scope of the policy announced in Cm 1263; arrangements have therefore been made for the controller and chief executive of HMSO to respond direct. Copies of the letter will be placed in the House Library and with the Public Information Office.

     

    Nuclear Weapons

    Mr. Michael Welsh : To ask the Prime Minister what evaluation has been made of which countries have the know-how for safely dismantling nuclear weapons.

    The Prime Minister : The five declared nuclear weapon states have to dismantle and reassemble their own nuclear weapons in order to maintain their stockpiles. The break-up of the Soviet Union may pose a range of problems, including the safe disposal of nuclear warheads. We are addressing these problems, in consultation with our allies and Soviet and Republic authorities.

     

    Junior Doctors

    Mr. Norris : To ask the Prime Minister if he has yet received the supplementary report from the Doctors and Dentists Review Body on pay for out-of-hours work for junior doctors.

    The Prime Minister : This report has been published today and copies are in the Vote Office. I am grateful to the review body for the work they have put into preparing it.

    The report recommends new rates of pay for out of hours working by hospital doctors and dentists in training, following the agreement reached earlier this year which introduced new working arrangements and set limits on contracted hours of duty for such staff. The recommended rates of pay are : —

    100 per cent. of the basic rate for full shift working

    70 per cent. of the basic rate for partial shift working 50 per cent. of the basic rate for on call rota working The recommendations, which arise from a major restructuring of working arrangements, are estimated to increase the paybill for hospital doctors and dentists in training by 5.8 per cent., given certain assumptions about the proportion of staff who will be contracted under each working pattern.

    The Government have decided to accept these recommendations and we shall seek to implement them as soon as possible in order to help to deliver our objective of reducing the hours of work of hospital doctors and dentists in training. The costs of the award will be met by health authorities and boards from the resources which we have made available to them this year and which we shall be making available to them in future years.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 29 November 1991

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 29th November 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Classless Society

    Mr. Winnick : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list those measures brought in since December 1990 which are aimed at bringing about a classless society.

    The Prime Minister : Government policies are designed to improve society by the removal of barriers to choice and by the provision of opportunity.

    A key element in our approach is the citizen’s charter, which is intended to ensure that everyone, whoever and wherever they are, will have access to the same high-quality public services. This approach is reflected in our legislative programme and other measures that we are taking.

    Our education policies will raise standards and improve parental choice. We have introduced legislation to provide parents with more information about the performance of schools; to improve school inspection; to widen access to an expanded higher education system; to abolish the distinction between universities and polytechnics; and to raise the status of vocational education and of further education colleges.

    Our health policies are designed to achieve a more efficient health service with higher quality of health care for all, underpinned by a new approach of setting targets for the improvement of health in key areas, as proposed in the recent consultative document “The Health of the Nation” and its Scottish and Welsh equivalents. Legislation has been introduced this Session aimed at improving the standards of local government services with increased powers for local authority auditors and provision to extend competition to a wider range of services.

    In the housing field we have introduced pilot rent-to-mortgage schemes to extend tenants’ present opportunities to buy their own homes. We are preparing a revised tenants charter for local authority tenants and a new right to repair. We have brought in new arrangements to ensure that tenants are actively consulted in local authorities’ housing plans.

    We are providing more effective training opportunities and better help for the unemployed in obtaining new jobs. Our policies continue to provide strong support for people in the inner cities, and the new initiative of city challenge announced earlier this year gives the whole community an opportunity to bring imaginative and innovative approaches to regenerating their cities.

    We attach particular significance to support for families through the provision of increased child benefit, and the establishment of the Child Support Agency, for which legislation was introduced and enacted earlier this year, to improve the enforcement and collection of child maintenance. We are continuing to improve the opportunities for disabled people to play an independent part in society. This year we enacted legislation to introduce two new social security benefits for disabled people.

    We have taken steps, through support of Opportunity 2000 and in other ways, to increase opportunities for women and people from the ethnic minorities to play their full part in public and national life.

    These policies, and many others, will contribute to the development of a society with fewer divisions, in which talent and initiatives are rewarded.

     

    Members’ Letters

    Mr. Onslow : To ask the Prime Minister what is his normal practice for dealing with mail addressed to him by right hon. and hon. Members; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister : I receive an enormous number of letters every week–currently some 5,000–from Members of Parliament and others. It is not possible for me to deal with all these letters personally and I must accordingly refer most of them to the Minister and the Department with the responsibility for the policy in question.

  • Mr Major’s Contributions During Commons Debate on the Loyal Address – 31 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s contribution during the Commons Debate on the Loyal Address, held on 31st October 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major) : I join the Leader of the Opposition in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) on their splendid speeches in moving and seconding the Loyal Address. I am also grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for his generous remarks about Alick Buchanan-Smith which will have been much appreciated by his family and by all of us on the Conservative Benches. The right hon. Gentleman’s tribute to his colleague George Buckley was moving. We share that tribute and express admiration for his courage.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester has been a distinguished Member of the House for 30 years and he was a Cabinet Minister for almost half that time. To all the posts that he held he brought not only an acute mind, but an intensely independent one. He brought genuine concern to the problems that he faced. Twenty years ago when my right hon. Friend was Secretary of State for the Environment and I was a local councillor, I saw those qualities at first hand in Lambeth and I am happy to thank him for them all these years later.

    I was intrigued by my right hon. Friend’s reference to Oliver Cromwell’s ill-treatment in Worcester and by his subsequent invitation to visit his constituency. I will reflect on that invitation and recall that Cromwell was the Member for Huntingdon and perhaps take some care.

    More recently, my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester served as Secretary of State for Wales. At the time, some thought that that appointment was surprising, but it turned out to be inspired–both for my right hon. Friend and for Wales. He developed a great affection for the Principality and found that it was reciprocated. He got to know Wales extremely well in a series of unscheduled visits. On one occasion when a startled shopkeeper said to him, “You don’t half look like Peter Walker”, my right hon. Friend replied, “A monstrous slander.”

    When I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury I learnt that Wales was the first priority of my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester. Public spending control came perhaps a narrow second during those turbulent years. It was therefore always a relief when he applied his powers of persuasion overseas to attract record levels of inward investment to the Principality. He attracted the money and then he opened the factories. He opened so many that when I visited Wales recently, I heard him referred to affectionately as “Peter the Plaque.”

    My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South ably seconded the Loyal Address and, as he said, followed a family tradition. His father, Sir William Aitken, proposed the Loyal Address 29 years ago and referred to a subject in terms that may be familiar to the House today. He referred to it as

    “a matter of controversy in the days, weeks and months to come.”–[ Official Report, 30 October 1962 ; Vol. 666, c. 11.] He was referring to Britain’s negotiations with the European Community–plus ca change, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South implied earlier. [Interruption.] Travel broadens the mind.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South is also something of a political forecaster. In his book many years ago, “The Young Meteors”, he picked as rising stars three men then aged 30 or under. They are now my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for Social Security and the Leader of the House. My hon. Friend’s percipience was very remarkable so many years ago. It says something, perhaps, of my hon. Friend’s independence of mind that, although he has sometimes taken a sceptical view of politics, he has always taken a very vigorous stand for the interests of his constituents, of this House, of Britain and of Europe. I believe that he showed that again today in his remarkable speech.

    I will refer to the substance of the Queen’s Speech in a few moments, but before I do so, I wish to respond to some of the points which the Leader of the Opposition made. He said, as he has said on a number of occasions in recent weeks, that he would like to have an election. But what is he going to tell people about his programme? Who was it who said in 1983,

    “If we were to abandon the definition of our Socialism and the policies that go with it there is no reason why anybody should vote for us”?

    It was the right hon. Gentleman. So upon that test, does he still believe, as he said then,

    “We want out of Europe”?

    There was some hilarity a few moments ago as the right hon. Gentleman tried to reconcile his past with his present on that subject. Does he still believe in what he referred to as

    “a major extension of public ownership of control”,

    or has he ditched that as well? Does he still say :

    “We do not subscribe to the effective defence of our country by the possession of nuclear weapons”?

    Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he still believes those things– that he is still an anti-European nationaliser who believes in unilateralism? If not, is there any reason why, in his own words, anybody should vote for him because of what he said earlier? We have heard today the speech from a Front Bench that is prepared to surrender any principle, abandon any commitment, and promise anything to anyone and, indeed, everything to everyone. Opposition Members can promise, but, when it comes to the election, they will not deliver. That is not our way, for we will keep to our principles and the lasting values that underpin them.

    Mr. Alexander Eadie (Midlothian) rose–

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) rose–

    Mr. Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, Central) rose–

    The Prime Minister : I shall give way a little later.

    We will keep to an enterprise economy, the power to choose and the right to own, for our philosophy has not collapsed around the world, as has the right hon. Gentleman’s socialist philosophy. Our philosophy is getting stronger while socialism disappears in the dustbin of history. Our policies emphasise our belief in personal ownership.

    Mr. Eadie rose–

    The Prime Minister : I shall give way later.

    We must give each and every person the chance to build up for themselves and for their families something of their own–their own home, their own pension, their own shares, their own stake in the future–a stake that they can pass on without fear of penal tax rates, soaring inflation or interference by the state. It is that principle which most clearly distinguishes this Government from that Opposition. The Opposition fought the right to buy and conceded defeat only grudgingly. They fought against the campaign for personal pensions and they threaten them still. They campaigned against privatisation while they bought their shares on the quiet. The right hon. Gentleman says today that he believes in choice, but he would never have given the choice to people and they would never have been able to exercise it.

    Mr. Eadie rose–

    The Prime Minister : No–[Hon. Members :- – “Give way.”] No. The Labour candidate in Hemsworth–not just any old candidate, but the candidate who was specially selected and imposed in a flying visit by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)–bought BT shares, and good for him. But why?

    Mr. Eadie rose–

    The Prime Minister : Just a moment. The hon. Gentleman can intervene when I have finished this point.

    But why did that Labour candidate buy shares? His minder told us why. He said :

    “He bought them when they came on offer because he has a family of four and wanted that security.”

    But what about the security of the 8 million people who have bought shares and who the Labour party will threaten with its policies at the next general election? The Labour party’s motto is clear. It is, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

    Mr. Eadie : I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Based on what he is telling the House about the confidence that he feels in his Government when he compares their policies to those announced by the Opposition, can he tell us why he decided to announce to the nation in that clandestine way that he would not hold an election in November if he is so confident about what he is telling Parliament today?

    The Prime Minister : It comes ill from a party that is now committed to fixed Parliaments to complain that we are going on–[Hon. Members :– “Answer.”] I have just answered. Let me pursue the point that I was dealing with–[Hon. Members :– “No, answer that point.”] I have, and this is germane to that point. I have here a leaflet that will help us during the campaign and– [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order. The Prime Minister.

    Hon. Members : Answer.

    The Prime Minister : I have here– [Interruption.] Perhaps in a moment the Leader of the Opposition will answer this point– [Interruption.]

    Hon. Members : They do not like it.

    The Prime Minister : The Leader of the Opposition and his right hon. and hon. Friends may not like it, but they are going to get it. I have here a leaflet that is a remarkable endorsement of Conservatism. It states :

    “Many people today are wealthier than they imagine, especially those who have been able to buy their own home.”

    I am very glad to have that endorsement of Conservative success. It comes from the Labour party. But the people of this country might feel more reassured if that same political party was not at the same time threatening to increase taxes on ordinary people–on their income, on their savings and on their wealth. The leaflet– [Interruption.] Let me just refer to the leaflet– [Interruption.] I am prepared to wait until Opposition Members will listen. The leaflet– [Interruption.]

    Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you in a position to know whether the Prime Minister is quoting from a Labour party leaflet or from some brief that he has been given by Conservative Central Office? Is he quoting or not?

    Mr. Speaker : That is not a point of order. The House should now get on and settle down. I call the Prime Minister.

    The Prime Minister : I shall show the House a leaflet explaining how legacies can help the Labour party. It states :

    “Whatever the size of your donation to the Labour Party, no inheritance tax whatsoever is payable on it.”

    Of course, what Labour does not state is that under its plans inheritance tax would be paid on smaller legacies and at a higher rate than today. So now we know ; under Conservative legislation, one can pass on one’s wealth to the Labour party–that is permitted–but under Labour plans, someone passing it on to his children would be taxed and taxed and taxed again.

    A year ago this month Britain entered the exchange rate mechanism. In the debates which followed, the shadow Chancellor made it clear that he accepted that we were right to join the ERM. He agreed with the rate at which we entered. He asked me to forecast the benefits of membership and posed two perfectly fair questions. “Was it my judgment”, he asked,

    “that the rate at which we agreed to join is sustainable?”–[ Official Report, 15 October 1990 ; Vol. 177, c. 930.]

    We now know the answer. Sterling has remained firm against other Community currencies and the mechanism has given business the exchange rate stability that it wanted.

    The right hon. and learned Gentleman also asked whether the balance of payments deficit would be progressively reduced. Yes again. Our exports to the rest of the Community have shot up. Our imports have fallen. Our trade deficit with Europe has been slashed and manufactured exports, far from declining, recently hit record levels.

    Of course, some of the right hon. and learned Gentlemen’s colleagues were less cautious. The Leader of the Opposition asserted that inflation was still rising. Wrong. I said that we would bring it down. We have done so and we will carry on doing so–down below the Community average ; down to the levels of the best in Europe. When we joined the ERM and cut the interest rate the Leader of the Opposition called it a cynical expedient. That was distinctly odd, for three days before he said that we should “cut interest rates” and

    “be negotiating entry into the ERM”.

    What changed in those three days other than that we did what he had advised us to do? What changed was the right hon. Gentleman. He may or may not have changed his mind. But he certainly changed his tune.

    Mr. Foulkes : The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a major announcement yesterday that there had been an increase–a seasonally adjusted increase–in optimism. How do the Government measure optimism and how do they seasonally adjust it?

    The Prime Minister : If the hon. Gentleman looked at the surveys from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British Industry, he would see the return of confidence that is coming and the way in which it will lead to a return of growth. During the past year our policies within the exchange rate mechanism have brought inflation down to 4 per cent., allowed eight reductions in interest rates, reduced our balance of payments deficit and kept sterling stable. That has set the basis for steady growth with low inflation in the years of Conservative government that lie ahead.

    Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) : Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister : Not at the moment.

    Getting inflation down is not easy. It is painful. But the measures are unavoidable and necessary for stable growth in the future. It is always tempting to call for interest rate cuts and the easy course, but that carries great dangers. We are not prepared to play fast and loose for some short-term gain, for we know that inflation is the tax which bears hardest on those in society least able to afford it. As inflation falls we are moving out of recession and back to stable growth. The Opposition need not just take my word for it. They should listen to British industry and what the chambers of commerce and others are saying. As the Association of British Chambers of Commerce has said :

    “The country is unmistakably experiencing a turnround in economic performance commerce and industry is on the road to recovery”.

    The Institute of Directors says the same and so does the CBI. The CBI’s latest survey shows business confidence up, more businesses expecting new orders, more businesses expecting to increase investment and more businesses intending to take on new workers. The International Monetary Fund also forecasts that our growth next year will be as good as or better than that in France, Italy and Germany.

    Mr. Bell : The House is listening with great interest to the Prime Minister on the state of the economy and our relations with Europe. If things are so good, why cannot he give us an election date?

    The Prime Minister : Things will get better and then the hon. Gentleman will get one. Britain is getting back on track again, back to the growth that provides the only way of putting people back in permanent work so that we can add to the 800,000 extra jobs that we have created since 1979.

    Mr. Bell : Jobs are being lost.

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman talks about jobs. We will turn to that. The Leader of the Opposition says that he is concerned for the unemployed. Let us test it. Let us put it into action now. He could persuade his own union, the Transport and General Workers Union, to drop its boycott on youth training, employment training and the training and enterprise councils. Will he do it? No, he will not. Let me try him on another point.

    Ms. Dawn Primarolo (Bristol, South) rose–

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Gentleman could tell the Trades Union Congress that it was wrong to boycott employment action even before the scheme had started. Will he? The right hon. Gentleman will not.

    Ms. Primarolo rose–

    The Prime Minister : Perhaps most importantly of all, the right hon. Gentleman could drop his plans for a statutory minimum wage.

    Ms. Primarolo rose–

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) says that no jobs would be lost as a result of that policy. But that is not what every independent commentator says. It is not what the CBI says. The CBI says that the first phase would cost 200,000 to 300,000 jobs. “Oh, no”, says the hon. Member for Sedgefield,

    “it will make industry more competitive”.

    There is a gem of Labour newspeak–adding to one’s costs makes one more competitive. That is Labour’s understanding of the economy.

    Ms. Primarolo rose–

    The Prime Minister : We hear a lot from Opposition Members about the supply side. When they are not lecturing the CBI or threatening to sack the Governor of the Bank of England they are keen to quote those sources. Earlier this year they were very keen to quote the CBI as saying that we were in recession. They can update that. They can tell us who said recently :

    “There is at present one economy in Western Europe where manufactured exports have been increasing faster than world trade ; where import penetration remains below that in West Germany ; where investment in skills and innovation is at record levels and still rising ; where private sector inflation is under 4 per cent. and falling.”

    Opposition Members do not like to hear such words because they can only talk the country down, but those were the words of the director-general of the CBI.

    Ms. Primarolo rose —

    Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, South) rose —

    Mr. Speaker : Order. The Prime Minister is not giving way, so the hon. Lady must resume her seat. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is anxious to participate in the debate. Let us get on with it.

    The Prime Minister : I shall give the hon. Lady her chance in just a moment. The words that I quoted were those of the director-general of the CBI and the country about which he was speaking was Britain, a country which attracts more investment from America and Japan than does the rest of Europe put together.

    Ms. Primarolo : Earlier this week the Prime Minister revealed his deeply held conviction that it is necessary to further the equality of women in our society. If that was a firm pledge, why are there no legislative proposals in the Queen’s Speech to further women’s equality, such as a proposal to introduce universal child care?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Lady should not doubt our commitment on that issue. She had better wait and see.

    The Opposition like to talk about investment. What they usually mean by investment is more public spending of taxpayers’ money.

    Mr. Cryer : Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman’s hon. Friends had the opportunity to intervene on several occasions. I invite him to wait a while.

    It is interesting that the principal paymaster of the Leader of the Opposition, the TGWU, refuses to welcome investment from Japan, especially in Scotland and Wales. What do they call it? [Interruption.] What do they call investment from Japan? They call it “alien”. That is what Japanese investment in Scotland and Wales is called. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell us : does he personally think that Japanese investment in Scotland and Wales is alien? Does he want to see the £4 billion that Japanese investment adds to our trade balance, and the 400,000 new jobs that it could bring to this country, or not? Which does he back : the TGWU–his paymasters–or Japanese investment? Let him tell us.

    Mr. Kinnock : I had the great good fortune to have the first Japanese-owned factory in Wales, Takiron, opened in my constituency back in 1973. Since then, as the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and others know, I have worked assiduously to secure such inward investment. I am delighted to say that Aiwa is flourishing in my constituency. I should like the Prime Minister to introduce policies on retraining, transport, technology, research and development, and science that would make our country more attractive not only to Japanese investment but to British investment.

    The Prime Minister : It is under our policies that that investment has come here. I assume that the right hon. Gentleman now condemns the TGWU motion.

    The House and the country face a clear choice on the supply side. The Opposition propose new levies, new regulations and new quangos. We believe in lightening the burden on new business. The Opposition want to extend new powers to the unions–enforced recognition and complete immunity from dismissal for strikers. Those are powers which even the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) dared not introduce in the 1970s. In contrast, we believe in giving managers the right to manage and in giving the unions back to their members. The Opposition propose a new tax on savings. We know that savings are the fuel for the very investment that they claim this country needs. They propose higher taxes on earnings. We accept that that would enrich industries and laboratories, but it certainly would not enrich them in this country. It would just send scientific and managerial talent abroad.

    The Opposition still believe in nationalisation–the only party east or west of the old iron curtain that still does. We know where that policy ends. The private sector of industry would be the bit that the Government controlled and the nationalised sector would be the bit that nobody controlled.

    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister : Not at the moment.

    In the months ahead we have a full programme for a Session of Parliament. Within it, we intend to carry forward the citizens charter, to extend parental choice, to raise education standards and to establish a stable and lasting relationship between local and central Government.

    First, the citizen’s charter. The best guarantor of effective service to the consumer is competition. That is why we have already extended competition in telecommunications and why we are taking powers to end the monopoly in gas and we are increasing competition in the water industry. The legislation will also bring the powers of all the utility regulators up to the level of the strongest, so that they can set guaranteed service standards and secure compensation, if those standards are not met. The legislation will also include enabling powers to resolve disputes between the utilities and individual customers about the accuracy of bills.

    The legislation will put more power in the hands of the individual. That is the essence. That is central to the citizen’s charter. The charter applies not just to the privatised utilities, but throughout the public services. We do not intend public service to mean second-best service.

    Several Hon. Members rose —

    The Prime Minister : I have given way amply.

    As well as making the big utilities more responsive to their customers, we shall give parents a greater say in their children’s schools and make local councils provide a better service to their electors.

    This Session we can put to the test the Opposition claim to care about public services.

    Mr. Frank Cook : Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister : I have said to the hon. Gentleman, who appears not to understand, that I do not propose to give way to him now. We will wait with interest to see how the Labour party votes. Will it vote with us for the charter and for the public or against us, as usual, and for the trade unions and the second rate?

    We shall introduce three Bills on education this Session. We will require the publication of local league tables on exam results, staying-on rates and truancy rates for all schools. Parents have a right to that information and they will get it. They also have a right to short, clear reports on their child’s school prepared by independent inspection teams, and they will get that, too. [Interruption.] I must say, Mr. Speaker, that if the public at large could see the behaviour on the Opposition Benches, they would know why Labour Members are unfit for government. [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order. I ask the Opposition not to point across the Chamber. It is very bad behaviour indeed.

    Mr. Skinner : The Prime Minister has sent the hon. and learned Member for Colchester, North (Sir A. Buck) off to sleep.

    The Prime Minister : This coming year we will begin to introduce national vocational qualifications to schools, bringing in the high calibre technical qualifications that have been missing in education for so long– [Interruption.] Opposition Members may not regard further and higher education as importantly as we do–[Hon. Members : — “Hurrah.”] Perhaps they could cheer this. We will give further education colleges and sixth form colleges the same freedom from town hall control as we gave to the polytechnics. [Hon. Members :– “Hurrah.”]

    I wish that we could get the support of the Opposition for those policies, but I doubt that we can. The Opposition voted against the teachers’ pay review body and in favour of strikes. They voted to take schools out of the hands of head teachers and governors and to put them back in the hands of NALGO officials. They voted against the national curriculum and against simple tests. There is no doubt that they will vote against parents getting reports on their child’s school. For the Opposition, parental ignorance is bliss. They simply do not trust parents to have the interest in their children that we believe parents should have.

    In the national health service we will put patients first. The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) may care to listen as he professes such an interest in the NHS. The Opposition fight our reforms because they believe that compassion and efficiency are incompatible. In that they are wrong. Compassion without efficiency is mere sentimentality. Compassion with efficiency delivers more and better health care. That is not a new principle ; it is an old principle. It was understood very well 140 years ago by Florence Nightingale, but if the Labour party had been around then, it would undoubtedly have opposed her reforms with the same vehemence as it opposes ours.

    Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North West) rose —

    The Prime Minister : For our part, we will continue with our reform of the NHS because only by doing so will patients get the best possible care from the resources that we devote to the NHS. No one can honestly doubt the Government’s commitment to the NHS. It is a commitment to the 1 million patients who use the service each day. It is a commitment that is re-emphasised in the patients’ charter, published only yesterday. It is a commitment reinforced by our determination to modernise the service. We are modernising the service and have no intention of abandoning it. Labour Members know that modernisation is necessary, but they have no policy whatever to achieve that.

    Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) : Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister : Not at the moment.

    As a result, the Opposition trot out the old canard about privatising the NHS.

    We have seen that sort of trick before previous elections. Colleagues may recall the scare that we would reintroduce conscription, that no roads would be built in Britain and that we would stop raising pensions in line with inflation. Then in 1983 from Labour’s health spokesman came a real scare–that if the Conservatives were re-elected we would, within five years of 1983, end the NHS. Well, it is now 1991, and the health service is going strong, with £32,000 million worth of resources from the Conservative Government. If the right hon. Gentleman does not have the grace to admit that Labour were wrong before, does he have the grace to accept it now when I say that there will be no charges for hospital treatment or for visits to the doctor and that there will be no privatisation of health care in whole or in part? Does the right hon. Gentleman have the grace to accept that?

    Mr. Kinnock : Will the Prime Minister at last acknowledge that where there were once free services, and those free services are no longer available, so that people are obliged to purchase, because of the pressures of the system, he is privatising the health service and will continue to privatise it?

    The Prime Minister : Were the Labour Government privatising in 1951 when they introduced charges? The right hon. Gentleman knows that there is no privatisation actual or intended in the national health service and that he is deliberately trying to scare people again and again.

    The right hon. Gentleman’s retreat on privatisation has been matched only by his creeping retreat on funding. Last month the Labour health spokesman affirmed that party’s commitment to restore fully what he called the

    “underfunding of the past decade”–

    an amount that Labour has not identified and cannot identify. They have slithered back from that. Now the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) says :

    “We very much hope to”

    and

    “we will seek to”.

    Even that is too much for Labour Treasury spokesmen, who say that only “some” of the alleged underfunding could be put right. What weasel words.

    Even that game of grandmother’s footsteps came to an end when the hon. Member for Livingston admitted :

    “We shall do it next time because we did it last time”.– [Official Report, 21 October 1991 ; Vol. 196, c. 673.]

    What did Labour do last time? They put up waiting lists, cut nurses’ and doctors’ pay and slashed the hospital building programme.

    The Conservative party has increased the share of the nation’s wealth given to the NHS. I give the House this further pledge now : in each and every year the NHS will, under us, get a real increase in its resources for patient care. That is what a Conservative Government can promise. Labour cannot promise, for their record shows that they cannot.

    Mr. Allen rose–

    The Prime Minister : I have given way enough already.

    Our local government legislation will put the council tax in place. That system will reflect ability to pay and ensure that most people contribute something to council services. It will be certain and fair. It will be in place from 1993 and bills will be restrained. When we introduce the council tax my only regret will be that my former colleague Richard Holt, who played such a part in helping us to frame so many of the proposals, will not be here to see them carried through. We shall all miss him very much.

    We shall extend competition into more council services and give new powers to the Audit Commission so that it can name names, authority by authority and service by service, so as to spread best practice and root out incompetence. We shall reform the structure of local government to give people councils with which they can identify, to which they can feel loyalty, and which deliver good services at a reasonable cost.

    Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : Will the Prime Minister tell us whether the council tax legislation will include the existing provision in the poll tax legislation for the imprisonment of non-payers? Is he aware that of the 84 people who have so far served a prison sentence, many have been pensioners? The oldest such person is Richard Northover, who, at 80 years old, was sentenced to 30 days in Her Majesty’s prison in Dorchester, although he had paid his poll tax. He was the first person, at 80 years of age, to be sent to prison for not having filled in the registration form two years earlier.

    As the Prime Minister voted to abolish imprisonment for debt under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, will he now give a commitment to transfer that measure to England and Wales and stop this medieval barbarity?

    The Prime Minister : That question comes ill from the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist), who has played such an ignoble role in encouraging people to get into debt and not to pay their bills. Much though we may sympathise with the hon. Gentleman at the way in which his Front-Bench colleagues have treated him, he should not give such a bad example while he sits in this House as a law-maker by encouraging people to be law-breakers. The law is set and it must be obeyed or the penalty paid.

    The Opposition like to pretend that services do not have to be paid for– the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East is living proof of that. However, too many of the Opposition and their councillors do not pay. Even as those councillors were setting inflated bills for others, they would not pay–but not any more. We propose to stop that abuse and to do so in this Session– if they can’t pay, they won’t vote. That will happen this year.

    Recent years have brought home to people the simple truth that high bills do not always mean better services, usually the reverse. Some councils are excellent, but too often standards are unacceptable. Shoddy service comes with the ready-made excuse, “We have special problems”. Let us look at two services that the social composition of a borough does not affect.

    Mr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister : No, not even to a friend.

    Why does it cost nearly three times as much in Labour Camden to empty the bins as it does in Conservative Wandsworth?

    Ms. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

    Mr. Speaker : I have heard nothing that is out of order. What is the point of order?

    Ms. Gordon : I want to check whether I heard the Prime Minister say, “If they can’t pay, they won’t vote.” I want to make sure that Hansard does not alter that.

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Lady knows exactly what the policy is ; if people won’t pay–

    Mr. Nellist : The right hon. Gentleman said “can’t”.

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman has set a standard of stupidity in this House that is rarely excelled. He knows what the policy is. He should not try to follow the lead of the Leader of the Opposition in another area and try to pervert what that policy is. Why does it cost seven times more in Lambeth to issue a library book than in the most efficient councils?

    Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

    Mr. Speaker : I have heard nothing out of order. Is it a matter with which I can deal?

    Mr. Wilson : It is a genuine point of order arising from the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon). The House is not interested–nor, I am sure, are you, Mr. Speaker- -in what the Prime Minister meant to say. What we and the Hansard writers are interested in is what the Prime Minister did say. There is no doubt that he said “can’t pay, won’t vote”.

    The Prime Minister : Let me make this quite clear to the hon. Gentleman so that he will not find himself in the position of being able to scare people over this matter. The policy applies to councillors. That is perfectly clear and it is well known to the House. I am happy to reiterate that now. If, by a slip of the tongue, I said otherwise, I am happy to correct it in the interests of ensuring that the Opposition do not, as has been their habit elsewhere, seek to scare people with what is expressly not Government policy. Let me make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that we are referring to councillors. We are also referring to people who are in a position to pay, but do not. There is a full range of rebates in the scheme we propose.

    Mr. Allen : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way–on rebates?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman will not tempt me. The Opposition are clearly determined, if they can, to disrupt as much as they can. I think that that will be evident to anyone listening to this debate.

    In the Labour party’s own words, it says that Labour councils “demonstrate as far as the public is concerned what a Labour Government would be like”.

    There can be no more awful warning for people as we come to the next general election.

    On developments in the European Community–

    Mr. Haynes : Will the right hon. Gentleman give me further consideration?

    The Prime Minister : Tempting though the hon. Gentleman is, I wish to discuss the European Community and Britain’s place in forthcoming developments.

    Britain belongs to the mainstream of Europe and must remain at the heart of the Community. In the past 20 years, despite many frustrations, we have gained enormously from our membership–

    Mr. Frank Cook rose–

    Mr. Speaker : Order. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that he puts his place on the list in jeopardy if he continues to interrupt in this way.

    Mr. Cook : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With the deepest respect for you and for your position in the Chair, I remind you that the Prime Minister said that he had no intention of giving way to me at the moment. He said nothing about giving way later. He said that at 4.19pm.

    The Prime Minister : I believe that it is within the knowledge of the House that I have given way rather more often than the Leader of the Opposition did. I now wish to consider something that I believe is of acute importance to every Member of the House and to millions of people beyond it –the negotiations in which we are currently engaged on the intergovernmental conferences.

    In the past 20 years we have gained enormously from our membership of the Community. I believe that the Community has gained also from our membership because Britain has determined its direction in so many ways–on budget reform, on reform of the common agricultural policy, on the single market, on free competition within Europe and on free trade with the rest of the world. Too often we overlook the extent to which Britain leads the Community and too frequently we recall the difficulties we sometimes face in it.

    Mr. Frank Cook : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister : I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman at the moment; not in this speech.

    I do not doubt that over the next 20 years the Community’s evolution will be as marked as it has been in the nearly 20 years since we joined. We cannot dictate what our children will make of the Community, but we must leave them in a position where they can effectively influence the shape of Europe, and that Europe must be one in which we retain our distinct national identity.

    The intergovernmental conferences now under way raise vital issues for the future of this country. They involve hard judgments of where our best interests lie. In our approach to those negotiations, we have been guided by the views expressed in debates in the House. We have made progress in a number of areas. We are working to achieve an agreement at Maastricht in December, but it must be an agreement that I could make in the confident expectation that I could commend it to the House.

    On economic and monetary union, it would be irresponsible for any Government to ask the people of Britain to decide now that we should adopt, at a future date, a single European currency which will have far-reaching implications for the conduct of monetary and economic union. A move to a single currency that was not backed by convergence between the two economies of the member states of the Community would be a recipe for economic disaster. That is not in the interests of this country, or of our partners in Europe.

    This country is in the first rank of the European Community and will remain so. But I am not prepared to commit our country to a single currency. We must be able to judge nearer the time–Parliament must judge nearer the time–whether a single currency is in the interests of Britain. We should not achieve what is best for Britain or the Community by giving up now our right to independent judgment then.

    There is still some way to go before we have an agreement on economic and monetary union, but the discussions so far have shown that it is possible to thrash out a sensible position in negotiations. It is our aim to do the same on the draft treaty on political union. The issues raised are more diverse and just as difficult. They include the conduct of defence and foreign policy, and the powers of the European Parliament, the Commission and the European Court. We have to satisfy ourselves that, if we reach an agreement, it is an agreement in the overall British interest. It must be in Britain’s interest to work more closely with like-minded European countries on foreign policy, defence and security.

    Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister : I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.

    It would not be in our interests to set up new defence structures that would undermine the role of NATO in safeguarding our defence.

    Mr. Ashdown : As the Prime Minister has been commenting on changes in policy, I congratulate him and the Government on having moved so far on Europe since the summer. On the subject of defence, may I remind him that less than a month ago he signed an agreement containing the following words :

    “Political union implies a common foreign and security policy and stronger European defence identity with the longer term perspective of a common defence policy”?

    The Prime Minister said that on 5 October this year. Will he confirm that it remains the Government’s objective?

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Gentleman is taking that statement out of context and is not listening to what I am saying. I shall be explicit in a moment and then again later on these points. It makes sense to co-operate with other European countries on judicial, police and immigration matters; but at a time when more and more member states are concerned about illegal immigration, the spread of drugs and the threat of terrorism it makes no sense to agree to measures that would weaken the unique and effective controls in this island. It makes sense to recognise that the European Parliament, directly elected, will have an increasing say in the conduct of European business, but it would not make sense to give the European Parliament powers of decision-making equal to those of the Council of Ministers. The European Parliament should have a larger role in curbing the undemocratic powers of the Commission. Commissioners are answerable to the Commission, not to the Governments who appointed them. The Commission is effectively answerable to no one. It must be answerable to an elected body and that body can only be the European Parliament. The European Parliament must be able to make its influence felt, but it must be the Council that decides on the Community’s policies for the future. At Maastricht the issues may not be laid out in black and white ; there will he hard judgments to be made. The crucial judgment for the Government will be to determine what is in the best interests of Britain and acceptable to this House. That is why we are arranging a two-day debate on 20 and 21 November. I and my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out in detail the issues at stake and where Britain’s interests lie. This will be a vital opportunity for Members to set out their views. It will also be an opportunity for the Opposition to let the people of Britain know where they stand, if anywhere, on issues vital to the future of our country.

    The Labour party has consistently sold Britain short in Europe. Out of Government, its members opposed membership ; in Government, they bungled the negotiations on fair terms for our country. Now the Opposition have gone to the other extreme–“If it’s made in Brussels, it’s good enough for the Labour party.” No money back and no questions asked.

    Nowadays the Opposition try to pass themselves off as modern and moderate. They say that they now accept the agenda which we set through the 1980s and which we will continue to set through the 1990s–but who can believe them? Who could trust them? Are they political chameleons or political turncoats?

    We know that what this country needs is sound money, competitive industries, accountable public services, the extension of ownership and choice, and strong defences–and everyone knows who can be trusted to provide these things : not the half-hearted, reluctant converts among the Opposition, but a Government who genuinely believe in these things, a Government who will do what is right for this country without flinching, this year, next year and for years to come. That Government will remain on the Government side of the House after the election.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 14 October 1991

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 14th October 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Citizen’s Charter

    Dr. Cunningham : To ask the Prime Minister what is the total amount of planned expenditure funded by the Exchequer for the promotion and advertising of “The Citizen’s Charter” White Paper.

    The Prime Minister : The estimated cost is likely to be in the order of £916,000. This includes the costs of producing, advertising and distributing the popular version of the White Paper. The costs for printing, publishing and distributing the White Paper–Cm 1599–were met by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, which aims to recover its costs from sales revenue.

    Mr. Andrew Bowden : To ask the Prime Minister when he proposes to complete the appointment of a panel of advisers on the citizen’s charter initiative; and if he will list the individuals who have so far agreed to serve on that panel.

    The Prime Minister : I have appointed six members to the citizens charter advisory panel to serve under the chairmanship of Sir James Blyth. They are Mr. Christopher Bland, Dr. Nancy Lane, Dr. Madsen Pirie, Mr. Christopher Swan, Mr. Stan Webster and Lady Judith Wilcox.

    Mr. Spearing : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list those proposals in the citizens charter for which new legislation will be necessary.

    The Prime Minister : Legislation will be needed to extend the powers of the Audit Commission and require local authorities to respond to auditors’ reports; to extend compulsory competitive tendering; to require regular independent inspection of schools and the publication of information about the performance of all schools; to require lay members independent of local education authorities to be appointed to appeals tribunals; to give the citizen a right to challenge unlawful industrial action affecting public services; to extend delegation in the civil service and deal with the problems relating to technical redundancy; to privatise British Rail; to deregulate London buses; to change arrangements for the provision of motorway service areas; to limit the Post Office monopoly, establish a new regulator for postal services and give the Secretary of State powers to set standards and targets; to bring the powers to set and ensure service standards of the regulators of the privatised utilities up to the standards of the strongest; and to make other smaller changes to the law, for example allowing juries considering their verdict to go home overnight.

     

    Global Warming

    Mr. Simon Hughes : To ask the Prime Minister what action he has taken to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to combat global warming.

    The Prime Minister : I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) on 22 July, at column 375. The “First Year Report on the Environment White Paper”–Cm 1655–which shows how our first set of measures to limit the United Kingdom’s carbon dioxide emissions are being put into practice, was published on Wednesday 25 September.

     

    EC Heads of Government Meeting

    Mr. Spearing : To ask the Prime Minister when he placed in the Library a copy of the communique issued after the meeting of Heads of Governments of member states of the European Community held on 13 September.

    The Prime Minister : No communique was issued, because the European Council planned for 13 September did not take place.

     

    Learning Difficulties

    Mr. Alfred Morris : To ask the Prime Minister what representations he has received from the National Campaign With People Who Have Learning Difficulties; what reply he is sending; if there is any action he will be taking; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister : I have received a letter from the director setting out his organisation’s concerns about the future development of services for people with learning disabilities. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Health has responsibility for these services and will be replying on my behalf; a copy of his reply will be sent to the right hon. Member.

     

    Citizens Advice Bureaux

    Mr. Wray : To ask the Prime Minister what support Her Majesty’s Government are giving to the citizens advice bureaux throughout the United Kingdom.

    The Prime Minister : The Department of Trade and Industry funds the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux–NACAB–and Citizens Advice Scotland–CAS–which provide the central support services for the local bureaux in England, Wales and Scotland. Similarly, the Northern Ireland Office funds the Northern Ireland Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux– NIACAB. Total grant-in-aid to NACAB, CAS and NIACAB for 1990-91 was £11.74 million. Grant-in-aid for the current financial year will be more than £12 million.

    Although the Government do not fund individual citizens advice bureaux, directly, the money provided to the central organisations includes a provision to develop the local network through partnership agreements on a time limited basis.

     

    Animals Charter

    Mr. Mudd : To ask the Prime Minister if it is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to prepare and publish an animals charter.

    The Prime Minister : The Government place a high priority on ensuring proper safeguards for animal welfare, and have already made clear their policy for making progress on a wide range of animal welfare issues. In relation to farm animals, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is pressing in particular for measures to improve welfare standards throughout the European Community.

  • Mr Major’s 1991 Conservative Party Conference Speech – 11 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s 1991 Conservative Party Conference Speech, made on the 11th October 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Earlier this week this Conference welcomed Mrs Thatcher. You gave her the most tumultuous reception. She deserved it. She led our country for over 11 years, our Party for over 15. We owe Margaret a great debt.

    The Britain she left us is immeasurably stronger than the Britain she found. Above all, she helped others to believe in us and us to believe in ourselves. And on those foundations she laid three great Election victories.

    It’s good to applaud; it’s grand to cheer. But the greatest tribute we can pay her is to do as she did. To win, and win, and win again. At this Conference – and what a successful Conference it’s been – you have heard how the next Conservative Government will secure the best future for Britain.

    We’ve heard some cracking speeches this week. From the right team. A young team – in fact the youngest Cabinet this century. A professional team.

    Just think for a moment. When the going gets rough in international affairs, who would be the first person you would send for? Gerald Kaufman? No. He would be the second person. The first person would be anyone but Gerald Kaufman. But far and away the best person would be Douglas Hurd, one of the finest Foreign Secretaries this country has ever had.

    Of course, Labour’s Captain tries to talk up his team. “A winning team” he calls them. After three election defeats? Well, it goes to show that there must be more than one way to look at history. Take waterloo. You thought Wellington won Waterloo? No, Waterloo was a smash hit for Napoleon. But we can help Labour to win one thing – the record for the longest run of election defeats. Played four. Lost four. And a probable vacancy for team captain.

    Last week at Brighton we had speech after speech about a fairy-tale future for the British people. In Labour’s Never-Mind-the-Cost-Never-Never Land. Then there was singalongaleader. It was all good fun if you like that sort of thing.

    But while this was happening out front, there was something thoroughly nasty seeping from under the platform. I refer, of course, to what Labour pretends to believe are the Government’s plans for the National Health Service. There’s only one way to deal with a lie: nail it to the wall of truth, as William Waldegrave so conclusively did yesterday. We have all been brought up with the Health Service. We use it. We cherish it. We are proud of it.

    I know that for millions of people in this country the National Health Service means security. I understand that. Because I am – and always have been – one of those people. I know that even when you’re fit and well, it brings peace of mind – just to know it’s there. It is unthinkable that I, of all people, would try to take that security away. A genuine belief I can respect, even when I profoundly disagree with it. But deliberate lies – repeated, repeated and repeated – merely diminishes its authors.

    The Health Service has been in existence for over 40 years. And who has been in Government for most of that period? We have. For 29 of those years it has been a Conservative Government. It has been under Conservative Governments that the National Health Service has been built up, enlarged and improved. And our reforms will carry that right through into the 1990s. So let me say now, once and for all, and without qualifications – under this Government the National Health Service will continue, to offer free hospital treatment to everyone.

    And so that no-one can misunderstand the position – and I hope the whole country is listening – let me make it even clearer. There will be no charges for hospital treatment, no charges for visits to the doctor, no privatisation of health care, neither piecemeal, not in part, nor as a whole. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not after the next election. Not ever while I’m Prime Minister.

    And if, after all I have said, there are still those who set out to frighten the vulnerable, the weak, and the old, with carefully calculated smears, then the public will know where to find them – in the gutters of public debate. Such people are not friends of the Health Service. They are the parasites that live on its back.

    No Conservative need be defensive about the Health Service. On the contrary, every Conservative has the right to share my disgust at what is said. Go to your local hospital. What do you find? You’ll find Conservatives. In the hospital shop. Serving with the League of Friends. Working on the wards. They are not just friends of the Health Service. They are part of the Health Service.

    The National Health Service doesn’t belong to the Labour Party. As its name makes clear, it belongs to the Nation. And – in both senses of the phrase – Labour isn’t going to get away with it. The Health Service is not a political football to be kicked around in the hope that, somehow or other, it will reopen the door of Downing Street to a Labour Government. It won’t. Neither by hook or by Cook.

    This is the first Conference I have addressed as Leader of the Conservative Party. It is hard to explain how I feel about that. It is a long road from Coldharbour Lane to Downing Street. It is a tribute to the Conservative Party that that road can be travelled.

    Perhaps at the back of this hall today there is another young man or woman who stands where I did 30 years ago. Who knows few people here. Who feels it is a long road to this platform, too.

    They should remember the last two leaders were a builder’s son from Broadstairs and a grocer’s daughter from Grantham. We don’t need lectures in the Conservative Party about opportunity. We are the Party of opportunity.

    This Party is open to all. And to all those who may be watching, wherever you come from, whatever your background, I say simply this, “Come and join us”. There are no barriers in our Party, just as there will be no barriers in the Britain we are building together.

    Some people ask whether we will have a different sort of Conservatism in future. Of course we will. We all bring our own beliefs, our own instincts, and our own experiences to politics. And I am no exception.

    But the fundamental beliefs of the Conservative Party, those beliefs that brought me into this Party, are the beliefs that Chris Patten expressed so brilliantly on Tuesday. They remain as strong today as ever. Old though our Party is, the values behind it are older still. They are rooted in the instincts of every individual. And it is through our policies that we make them come alive.

    What is it that we offer? A strong Britain, confident of its position; secure in its defences, firm in its respect for the law. A strong economy, free from the threat of inflation, in which taxes can fall, savings can grow, and independence is assured.

    I want to give individuals greater control over their own lives.

    – Every mother, every father, a say over their child’s education.

    – Every schoolchild, a choice of routes to the world of work.

    – Every patient, the confidence that their doctors can secure the best treatment for them.

    – Every business, every worker, freedom from the destructive dictatorship of union militants.

    – Every family, the right to have and to hold their own private corner of life; their own home, their own savings, their own security for their future – and for their children’s future.

    Building the self-respect that comes from ownership. Showing the responsibility that follows from self-respect. That is our programme for the 90s. I will put it in a single phrase: the power to choose – and the right to own.

    Do you know what Labour believes? That choice is something for them. They just can’t accept that choice is something most of us can be trusted with. You might make mistakes, they say. What arrogance. As if the State have never made mistakes, in our name, with our money. Try telling that the tenants of the crumbling tower blocks that disfigures our cities.

    And tell that to the citizens of Eastern Europe, who have risked their very lives for these freedoms, for the right to own, and for the power to choose. Ordinary values – for which ordinary people have, in our time, fought an extraordinary fight.

    During the summer I did quite a bit of travelling – Headingley, Edgbaston, Trent Bridge, Lord’s, the Oval. Also Moscow, Peking, Hong Kong and Kennebunkport. Wherever I went abroad, I found the same story. Britain is respected again. We don’t always realise the admiration and affection for Britain abroad.

    We’ve earned it, because when others have hesitated, we have always stood firm and given a lead. As we did again this year. In defence of freedom in Kuwait. We didn’t want that war, its waste, its suffering, its grief. But to achieve greater security in the world, we had to reverse the annexation of Kuwait. And to keep that security we must destroy Iraq’s nuclear weapons capacity. They are still trying to cling to it, still cheating, still lying.

    They cannot be permitted to succeed. One way or another that nuclear capacity must go. I hope it will go peacefully. If not, it must go by force. But go it will. In January I flew by helicopter over our army in the Gulf. I can still see the scene below me. A great convoy of troops and heavy equipment moving forward across the sands. For mile after mile. You could only marvel at the organisation and planning involved.

    But down on the ground, I had a different impression. Dug into position each unit seemed almost alone. Young men – mostly very young – thousands of miles from home in the wastes of the desert. Let me tell you what was in my mind when I met them. What would they think? Here was a new Prime Minister, unknown to them, untried, asking them to prepare for battle, perhaps not to return. How would they respond to that? And would they understand the reasons why they were there?

    Whatever doubts I had soon disappeared. They knew why there were there. They knew the cause was right. And they knew that they could do the job. They asked only to be allowed to get on with it. And, when they did, my goodness, how they proved their point. They really were the best of British.

    I learned something else from that extraordinary war and especially from that precision bombing that amazed the world. It’s this. If our troops are to do the job we ask, it is absolutely vital that their equipment and their training are the best.

    That is why in the last few weeks we have bought the new anti-submarine helicopter from Westland – the best. Why we are moving ahead with the new Challenger tank from Vickers – the best. And that’s why we will keep our own independent nuclear deterrent, Trident. The best security for Britain.

    And we will take with just a little pinch of salt the conversion of those who campaigned for CND for the past thirty years – and then suddenly let their principles ….what was the word? … lapse? What principles? First, peace at any price. Then power at any price. I know what this country will say to that. Never at any price. For a man who with no fixed view on the defence of Britain, there can be no fixed abode in Downing Street.

    As we saw again in the aftermath of war, a confident Britain is a force for good in a troubled world. If we had not created those safe havens in Iraq, hundreds and thousands of Kurdish people would have died last winter in bitter, freezing mountains. We spoke out strongly for human rights in Peking and spoke out first against the return of tyranny in Moscow.

    Alone among all the nations of the world we stand at the hub of three great interlocking alliances. Of NATO, which is and must remain the core of our defence. Of the European Community. And of the Commonwealth, which meets in conference next week. There we must persuade 50 nations, some – frankly – with a chequered political history, to a formal commitment to democracy and human rights.

    And in the 1990s I hope to see one former member of the Commonwealth once more take its rightful place. We have always fought for an end to apartheid. But we have worked just as consistently for the long-term goal of a fully free and prosperous South Africa. I believe that both goals are now in sight. And when they are reached I want to see South Africa back where she belongs – as a fully-fledged member of our Commonwealth of nations.

    A great debate is now underway in Europe. One in which the Conservative Party can speak with authority. Harold Macmillan first sought to take Britain into the Community, Ted Heath finally led us there, and Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act – with its vision of ever closer union between states. Closer union between states. Not a federal merger of states. That is still our policy.

    I believe strongly in partnership in Europe. Britain, as a great European power, has gained from our membership of the Community. That is the verdict of those people in our country who live by business, banking and trade, the very people on whom our prosperity and jobs depend. But it must be the right Europe. Let me set out for you the objectives that I have in mind, the principles that I will fight for, and the propositions I will resist.

    First we want a Community that will in time embrace the new democracies of the East. We have the chance to heal the scar that divided and disfigured Europe for two generations. The nations of Eastern Europe – Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States – need to know now that when their economies are ready for the Community, the Community will be ready for them.

    Second, I want a genuine single market, open for business right across the Community. It must have common rules. And these rules must be obeyed. When we sign up to something, we put words into actions. Some of our partners, I fear, are keener on making new rules than on keeping them. We need a system that can deal effectively with those who call themselves good Europeans, but who hijack lorries or hold up free trade.

    We are now negotiating new Treaties on political and economic union. I am always ready to listen to new ideas. But they must be workable ideas. Ideas that make sense for Europe, and for Britain. There are vital issues at stake. They involve hard judgments of where our true interests lie. The idea of a single European currency is one with enormous ramifications, both practical and political. At best it is an uncertain prospect. And treaty must provide for a separate decision to be taken – not now – but at a future date by the British Government and the British Parliament. It’s our decision. A single currency cannot be imposed upon us. And I would not accept, on behalf of Britain, any treaty which sought to impose a single currency – at however distant a date.

    We already work closely with our European partners in financial affairs. So, too, in foreign policy and defence. When national interest and Community interest coincide, then common action is only common sense. But in no circumstances – not now, not at Maastricht – will a Conservative Government give up the right, our national right, to take the crucial decisions about our security, our foreign policy and our defence.

    We are working to reach an agreement at Maastricht in December. But I cannot guarantee that our negotiations will succeed. For it is no easy task to get 12 nations to agree. And for my part, I shall put the interests of our country before any agreement. Not any agreement before the interests of our country.

    I hope we can reach agreement. If we do, I will submit that agreement to parliament. For it is here in Britain that the crucial decisions must be taken. Not in the European Parliament. Not in the Council of Ministers. Not in the Commission – certainly not in the Commission. It will be for Parliament to decide on behalf of the people of Britain who elected it.

    So far I have spoken of alliances. Of how much we can achieve if we work with other nations. But when it comes to the search for new markets, even our closest allies remain our competitors. I have never accepted the craven argument that Britain can’t compete with Germany or Japan. And I have contempt for the defeatists who run down our country and write of its future.

    Those who said we couldn’t compete in Europe when we led Britain into the Exchange-Rate Mechanism.

    Those who said that we would have to push up interest rates. And that our inflation was bound to stay far higher than the rest of the Continent.

    All that was just a year ago this week. And look what has really happened since.

    We have cut interests rates – eight times.

    Our exports to the rest of the Community have shot up. Our imports have fallen. Our trade deficit with Europe has been almost wiped out. And in case you haven’t heard this morning’s news, our inflation rate has fallen to just 4.1%. For the first time in a generation we have brought inflation down to German levels.

    They said we couldn’t do it. We did it. And in just one year. Let me remind the sell Britain short brigade of just a few facts. We attract more American investment than any other European country, and twice as much investment from Japan.

    Only two years ago, this country had a 17,000 million pound deficit on manufactured trade. This summer, we had a surplus. Our manufacturers sold more abroad than ever before. They didn’t sell Britain short. They sold for Britain. And they had to fight for their markets when the going was hard.

    I know times have been tough. Unemployment has risen. Many people have faced great difficulties. I know how they feel – what it’s like for a family when a business collapses. What it’s like when you’re unemployed and when you have to search for the next job.

    I have not forgotten – and I never will.

    It is because of that that I will never play fast and loose with the economy. Many have pressed us to do so this past year – siren voices, urging us on to the rocks of inflation, and off the course to recovery. The Chancellor and I ignored those voices. And, as he told you, we can now see the way ahead out of recession, to the recovery that will bring investment. To the investment that will bring jobs.

    And the clearer the signs of recovery, the louder the Labour Party complains.

    Look how they rounded on the Governor of the Bank of England. All because he dared to confirm what everyone else was saying. That recovery is on the way. When he said there was a recession – they cheered him. When he said it was coming to an end – they called for his head. What are they going to do with those hundreds of businessmen telling the CBI exactly the same thing? Will Labour threaten to sack them too? All of them?

    Do Labour realise what their policies would do to business?

    – Stab it in the back just when it’s winning the battle for trade

    – Impose new levies

    – Pile on new costs

    – Bring back union power.

    It may be true that a Labour Prime Minister would no longer get his marching orders over beer and sandwiches at No 10. In these days of designer socialism, he’d get them over a G&T – down at the Old T&G.

    A minimum wage would create the very unemployment they claim to care about. New burdens would drive business out of markets. Higher taxes would drive business talent abroad. Above all, inflation would drive our economy out of the future and back to the past.

    Remember who suffers from inflation.

    – Infant businesses

    – People on fixed incomes

    – Pensioners

    Inflation is a tax paid by those least able to protect themselves. It is Labour’s invisible tax. It wouldn’t come through the letter box, though there are plenty that would.

    They have eight new taxes lined up already.

    Well, that’s not surprising. We’ve costed Labour’s spending promises. 35 billion pounds extra and still rising. Of course, they say there would be hardly any more tax for hardly anyone. But that’s hardly credible.

    The next Labour Manifesto will be the biggest tax demand in history. They love nationalisation. High taxes nationalise choice. It won’t be a case of ‘you pays your money, you takes your choice’. It will be – they take your money, they take your choice.

    High taxes would enrich the businesses, the laboratories, the the universities of American and the rest of Europe at the expense of the businesses and universities of Britain. We’d be back with something we haven’t heard of for twelve years – the brain drain. Our low tax policies have built up a brain bank for Britain.

    Our Party has always kept personal tax rates down. And in the next Parliament we will go on doing so.

    Lower taxes don’t just mean richer people. They mean a richer life. A life with wider horizons, in which people can develop their interests. Support their favourite charity, pursue their hobbies. Go fishing or to a football match, the theatre or the cinema, or just save up for a holiday.

    But lower taxes give people more powerful choices, too. The chance to save for the long-term, to invest in the future. Building up a pension. Starting a business. Giving their children a good start in life – and passing on to them the fruits of a lifetime’s work.

    In the 1980s we began a great revolution. Our aim was a life enriched by ownership, in which homes, shares and pensions were not something for others, but something for everyone.

    We can now see the lifeblood of ownership – of wealth – running through the veins of the country. Nearly four million more families now own homes. And eight million people more own shares. And four and a half million people now have personal pensions.

    But this revolution is still not complete. In the 1990s we must carry it further. We must extend savings and ownership in every form. And we now have the chance to make enduring change. For people in their middle years are inheriting homes, businesses, farms on a scale never before seen. The pioneers of the property-owning democracy are the parents of the capital-owning democracy to come.

    We Conservatives have always passed our values from generation to generation. I believe that personal prosperity should follow the same course. I want to see wealth cascading down the generations. We do not see each generation starting out anew, with the past cut off and the future ignored.

    So, in the next Parliament, I believe that we must go much further in encouraging every family to save and to own. To extend every family’s ability to pass on something to their children, to build up something of their own – for their own.

    Labour have their eyes on the money stored in the homes in which millions of people now live – and in the businesses they have created. But I believe that what people have worked to build up in life, the State should never destroy.

    As Harold Macmillan once memorably put it, people walk in public gardens, but they tend their own. I want to build a pride in our common inheritance of town and city, coast and countryside. In the very fabric of our nation.

    I want to foster ownership in its widest sense. In making people feel that public property belongs to them. Giving them more say – at the local level – in how things are run. Giving them a choice. Putting them in control.

    That’s the idea behind our Citizen’s Charter – about which Francis Maude spoke so well yesterday. It will be a centrepiece of our policies for the 1990s. I want to see public services in which the passenger, the patient, the parent can have confidence. And in which public servants can have pride.

    I see that Labour are now trying to copy my ideas. I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised at that. Even the Labour Party has to have some good ideas amongst all the bad. It’s just that they filch the good ideas from us. The bad ones of course they think up for themselves. They don’t even hide it when they steal some of my clothes. Did you see how many of them were wearing grey suits last week? Have they no shame?

    The test for Labour will come in the next session of Parliament. We will be legislating on the Citizen’s Charter. We shall be giving parents a greater say in schools. Making the big utilities more responsive to customers. And as Michael Heseltine promised us yesterday, exposing incompetence in the council chamber.

    And how do you imagine Labour will vote? With us? For the charter? And for the consumer? Or against us? For the trade unions? For the old ways? For the past? But it’s not just a matter of changing the way we run things. It’s a matter of breaking down the false and futile divisions, based on class and envy, that have been around for generations. They are wholly artificial. Labour fosters those divisions. It thrives on them. Our task is to end them for good.

    I spoke of a classless society. I don’t shrink from that phrase. I don’t mean a society in which everyone is the same, or thinks the same, or earns the same. But a tapestry of talents in which everyone from child to adult respects achievement; where every promotion, every certificate is respected, and each person’s contribution is valued.

    And where the greatest respect is reserved for the law. There can be no harmony in a lawless society. The recent outbreaks of violence in some of our council estates involved a brutal disrespect for other people and their property. Such behaviour cannot be excused and will not be tolerated. In the face of such violence, I know that this Party will give the police the support that we always have. We admire the bravery and the professionalism of those young policeman and women who have been the front line against violent attacks. This Conference must leave no shred of doubt. Rioting is a crime – a serious crime. And it will be dealt with as such.

    But dealing with crime is not just something for other people – the police, or the courts, of the Government. It’s a challenge to everyone. And the way to fight crime is to change the attitudes that lie behind crime.

    The attitudes of people who say that theft of vandalism are somehow less serious. They call it property crime. Property crime? Tell that to the widow who has been robbed of treasured mementoes of her past life. That’s not a property crime. It’s a personal wound which can never be healed.

    This Government is going to crack down on crime, as Ken Baker made clear this week. Let me give you an example. What the irresponsible call joy-riding, we know as simple theft; dangerous driving, a disregard for human life, and the destruction of other people’s property. Some of these people are too young for a licence. We will ensure that when they reach driving age they can be banned from the road.

    As for those parents who stand by and watch while their children commit crimes, they are going to be held responsible for their children’s actions. Those in authority – parents and teachers as well – should use their authority to teach a sense of respect for others, for their rights, not just your own; for their opinions, their welfare and their possessions. Without respect for others, there can be no proper respect for the law.

    We don’t help our children by excusing bad behaviour, we betray them. And we lead them into worse behaviour. Sometimes it’s right to say no.

    A great deal has been written about my education. Never has so much been written about so little. Perhaps that’s why I am so keen on the subject. I believe that Ken Clarke’s programme of reform is a turning-point in education. It will mean that parents and pupils come first, that the key subjects are studied properly, and that the status of teachers is restored.

    Some have said that Ken Clarke and I are wrong to insist on simple pencil and paper tests for children in schools. Well, I’ll tell you what marks I would give to people like those. Nought out of ten for concern. Nought out of ten for interest in our children. Nought out of ten for commonsense. And, so long as there is a Conservative Government, they’ll get nought out of ten for influence in our schools.

    What Labour Governments did, and what all too many Labour Councils are still doing, is unforgivable – the years of levelling down; the destruction of good schools; the harassment of good teachers; the kicking away of the ladder of opportunity by those who climbed up it themselves; the setting of the union rule book above all other text books; the neglect even of spelling. That is where the long march of the Left in education has led us. Well, we are now rooting these ideas out. We are giving parents more influence in schools. If we want them to exercise responsibility for their children, we must give them a say in the education of their children.

    I will fight for my belief in a return to basics in education. The progressive theorists have had their say. And they’ve had their day.

    In the last twelve months we have seen the Socialist philosophy collapsing in ruins. Who will ever forget those days of high drama in the Soviet Union last August? Or the three young men in Moscow who gave their lives for reform.

    When I visited the place where they died, I was struck by the number of young people who pressed in around me. They had copied Western fashions, wore Western gear. For decades they and their parents had been taught that Socialism was the destiny of their future. That the Soviet Union would bury the West. But it wasn’t the West that the Socialist system had buried, it was the hopes and dreams of their own people.

    Socialism has gone in Czechoslovakia, gone in Poland, gone in Hungary, gone even in Sweden. And here in Britain, I’ll tell you what you’ll see over the next few months. You’ll see the Red Flag dying here. It’s going. Going. Gone. Suddenly, it’s just so old fashioned, so irrelevant, so out of date.

    What I owe to this country and to its people is difficult to put into words. My greatest wish now is to give back something of what I have been given.

    I want to work for a Britain that is the best educated and the best governed.

    Where schools and universities are the finest and accessible to all. Where inner cities don’t mean deprivation, but communities that bind and belong. And where no-one has to go in fear at night.

    I should like to live in a world where opportunity is for everyone, where peace is truly universal, and where freedom is secure.

    If that is what you believe in, then go back to your constituencies. Tell them what we stand for. Tell them what we care for. And ask them to choose.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Nursing Standard / BUPA Nursing Awards – 17 September 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Nursing Standard/BUPA Nursing Awards dinner, held at the Marriott Hotel in London on 17th September 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Madam President, I am delighted to be with you this evening. These awards are very important. Important because they are the result of joint enterprise between the RCN, BUPA and Nursing Standard. There is scope for much more joint enterprise in many areas of health policy. And I hope and expect to see more.

    But important also because they recognise the service ethos which is at the heart of health care. I know already that the award winners all have one thing in common. They are all nurses, midwives or health visitors who are engaged in clinical practice. They have all been nominated for their work in improving the quality of care which they deliver to their patients.

    The delivery of care to patients is at the heart of nursing practice: and nursing practice is at the heart of our Health Service. The NHS is the largest employer in the country. And within it, nurses, midwives and health visitors form the largest professional group. So this is a good occasion for me to set out some objectives for the Service.

    In our country, the National Health Service is almost universally respected. The NHS offers peace of mind to millions of people. I am determined that it will thrive and grow as a truly National Service available to all our citizens. That is what it has done for the past twelve years.

    The facts speak for themselves. More patients have been treated. New treatments have been developed. More staff have been available. Since 1979 expenditure on the NHS has grown at 3 per cent a year over and above inflation: a cumulative increase of 50 per cent in real resources devoted to health care.

    But money is not everything. It is how we use that money that is so important. None of that progress in patient care could have been achieved without the commitment of the skilled professionals who work in the health service. Each and every day there are hundreds of thousands of cases of professional, dedicated, and successful health care.

    Of course, things go wrong from time to time. But everyone here, all of us, are committed to preventing and to solving those problems. The more we work together the more successful we will be. The purpose of tonight’s awards is to recognise individual effort to provide better care. Such effort epitomises all that is best in the National Health Service.

    I have good reason to be personally committed to the NHS. When I was seriously injured it was the NHS that treated me. When my parents were in their final illness, it was the NHS that cared for them. When my children were born it was the NHS that delivered them. In this I share the experience of millions.

    This government is quite clear about its health policy and the future of the NHS. That policy is founded on ten important principles.

    First, the needs of the patient must be paramount in running the NHS.

    Second, health care is free at the point of use in hospitals and in doctors’ surgeries. And it will remain so.

    Third, we will continue to offer free prescription charges, so that only those who can afford to do so will make a contribution to the cost of medicines.

    Fourth, the Government’s priority will be to see the NHS is not just maintained, but improved. Extra resources will continue to be provided for the NHS year after year within the limits the economy can afford.

    Fifth, all money – and I do mean all the money – that is saved by increased efficiency in hospitals will be ploughed back into patient care and not handed back to the Treasury.

    Sixth, the reforms we have introduced in the Health Service will continue to be directed towards improving care for patients, and ensuring that more responsibility for health care is handed down to local levels. That is why we created NHS Trusts and GP Fundholders. To give more responsibility to hospitals and GPs in deciding how best to meet local needs. And let me stress a fundamental truth about NHS Trusts. They are, and will remain an integral part of the National Health Service available to all. None will be privatised now or in the future.

    Seventh, as we have underlined in our Citizen’s Charter, every patient must be treated with proper respect and dignity at all times. And they must receive proper information about all aspects of their illness, treatments and care.

    Eighth, not only must the treatment offered by the NHS be clinically good. The NHS must offer patients certainty about the maximum time they may have to wait for inpatient or out-patient treatment.

    Ninth, families have the right to make private provision if they choose. Doctors and nurses have the right to practise privately. No free society should try to deny either right. As the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe begin to hope and plan for private health care, it is inconceivable that anyone in the UK should still oppose it. And, as it grows, there should be more constructive co-operation between the private and public sectors in health.

    Finally – and I place particular importance on this – nurses, doctors and all the staff who work so hard and with such skill deserve our support. I can assure you that they can count on mine and the wholehearted backing of this Government in the years ahead.

    Those ten principles will guide the way ahead for our policies on health. There will be many challenges. There may be setbacks. Meeting the ever-growing demand for health care is a daunting task, not only for Britain, but for every other country as well.

    But let us be clear why we face such challenges. They are the challenges of success. They came about because:

    – More people live longer.

    – Technical advance makes new treatments possible.

    – New techniques have been developed by professionals in health care.

    – New discoveries have been made by scientists involved in pharmaceutical and diagnostic research.

    Of course, it is reasonable to point to the case for growing resources. That is a legitimate matter for debate, though I regret it is all too often turned into a political football. But the growing pressure for more resources comes not because health care is failing, but because it is advancing – at a greater pace than ever before. And is advancing because of the success of the Service.

    In Britain we now spend over 30 billion pounds a year on the health service. More than on Defence. More than on Education. And as a Government we have a duty to ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent effectively. That is true for all public services. But what really matters for NHS spending is getting the best service from the resources available – for the patients and for the community as a whole. And that is what our reforms in the NHS are intended to bring about.

    I know that carrying through these changes has meant some heart-searching, much hard work, and has needed lasting commitment from all those involved. But the benefits are increasingly to be seen. With the principal reforms now in place we can lift our sights to the common goal of all these changes – a better Health Service.

    For I am quite clear where the NHS reforms are taking us.

    – We will see further improvements in the health of the nation – some of them quite dramatic, like the vastly improved prospects for children with leukaemia and reduction in measles, mumps and rubella. In 1990 there was not one death from acute measles – the first year without a death since records began.

    – We will see costs brought down and waste reduced within the NHS. And waste reduced means funds gained for the Service. I say again that every penny saved will stay in the NHS to provide more and better care.

    – We will see people working in the NHS with more confidence in the services they are delivering.

    – And we will see the public at large placing even more value on the NHS. Not just out of affectionate habit, but because it is getting better and better and is responding more directly to their needs.

    Madam President, in July, I launched our Citizen’s Charter. want that Charter and its principles to be a driving force in every part of the public service in the 1990s. The Citizen’s Charter’s key theme is to make public services more responsive to the needs and the wishes of their users and to raise further overall quality. Nowhere are these objectives more important than in health.

    The NHS reforms are already taking us a good way towards achieving the improvements set out in the Citizen’s Charter. In future those responsible for spending public money will be able to set new and demanding standards for those providing services to patients.

    We will be building on the reforms when we publish the Patient’s Charter soon. The Charter will set out in detail what people can expect of the NHS. It will also spell out what Health Authorities and providers are expected to do to ensure that these expectations are met. And what people can do to secure redress if they are not met.

    For example:

    – you can expect your District Health Authority to publish details of all the services it provides, together with an indication of the standards of quality it expects to maintain;

    – as soon as you are put on a waiting list, the hospital will write to let you know how their guaranteed waiting times affect you;

    – you can expect a named nurse or midwife to be responsible for your care from start to finish;

    – if things go wrong, the Patient’s Charter will tell you how to register a complaint about GP or hospital treatment.

    I am delighted to find from your manifesto for health that the Royal College of Nursing is thinking on very similar lines.

    You have argued for:

    – the right for all citizens to have access to good quality services;

    – the need for services to be matched more clearly to need;

    – the need to empower consumers, for example by providing information on the range of services available locally in language people can understand;

    – the need to inform patients about their diagnosis and to secure their consent to treatment and participation in research programmes;

    – the need for patients to be informed of the likely waiting time for treatment and given a guarantee that their wait will not exceed a stated maximum.

    It gives me great confidence to know that the driving force for delivery of service in the NHS does not need persuasion of the merits of the Charter approach. It is already your approach. This makes it much more likely that things will happen.

    It is, at last, becoming properly recognised that nursing as a profession is a key complement to medicine. Highly trained nurses are now the deliverers of care to cancer patients, to diabetics and to many others. In a number of areas nurses are running their own clinics. Nursing is becoming more specialised as nurses develop and extend their roles in both physical and psychological care. All these changes must make for the more effective use both of their skills – and those of doctors. Most important of all, it benefits patients and improves the choice available to them. I thoroughly welcome such developments and look forward to seeing them grow.

    Previous winners of these awards have provided us with examples of how nurses have pushed further their traditional role. They were innovators who had developed, for example:

    – new skills in counselling and support;

    – a programme of higher quality care for elderly patients with mental illness problems;

    – new arrangements for parent support and communications; and

    – a highly effective nurse-led service for those suffering from leg ulcers.

    Just a few examples of nurses carving out a new, improved and distinct role for themselves and raising the quality of care which patients receive. I know that when we hear the achievements of tonight’s winners there will be more excellent examples.

    For its part, the Government has reaffirmed its commitment to the development of nursing practice. William Waldegrave announced at the RCN Congress in May that he was making £3.2m available over the next five years for the development of Nursing Development Units and the concept of patient centred nursing care. I know that Ann Poole here is working closely with the Kings Fund, the NHS and professional organisations to develop this initiative.

    Madam President, Christine Hancock was kind enough to attend my seminar at Chequers where we discussed the then proposed health strategy. As all of you will know, we published the consultative document “The Health of the Nation” in June.

    That document was widely welcomed. The strategy seeks to strike a much better balance between prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. By setting national and local targets, I am confident the strategy will help tackle some of the main health problems of our time, for example reducing the amount of heart disease and cancers.

    But if the strategy is to succeed we need your help. The initiative is directed towards improving health in the widest sense. Not just through better diagnosis and treatments in doctors surgeries and in hospitals, but through preventive measures and more effective rehabilitation. Nurses, midwives and health visitors are also uniquely well-placed to get these messages across. That is why you must be involved in the planning of the strategy. The Department of Health is consulting widely on this initiative until the end of October. I hope that each of you will make your views known.

    So far, I have spoken mainly of the National Health Service of which we are all rightly proud. However, we must not overlook the important contribution which the independent health care sector makes in giving people a choice about how their health care needs are met. Moreover, in recent years we have seen many examples of co-operation and collaboration between the sectors, including some in the field of nurse education. These initiatives flourish through joint commitment. I am delighted with your achievements to date and urge you to continue your efforts.

    I believe that there is much more scope for collaborative ventures between the private health sector and the NHS. Although it is not a new development, the reforms will make this easier. For example, for some time the private sector has been an important supplier of elderly care to the NHS. Such developments provide choice to those buying services, and help to sustain standards. They ensure that we get the best possible value for every pound of taxpayers money spent on health care.

    Madam President, this evening we must thank BUPA and the Nursing Standard for sponsoring and organising these nursing awards. The Nursing Standard is not only run by nurses, it is owned by them through the Royal College.

    I understand that the College is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. I congratulate you, your predecessors, and officers and members of the College, on the many successes which the organisation has had through the past 75 years. You have an enviable reputation as a College and I have no doubt that will grow further in the future.

    This evening I have touched on a wide range of nursing issues in my remarks. But the main theme has been that nurses, midwives and health visitors are at the very heart of health care. They have more direct contact with patients and with their families than any other health profession. Their responsibility for the well-being of the patient and family is critical. Their role in health care is quite unique. No one forgets the nurse who looked after them in hospital; the midwife who delivered their first child; the health visitor who checked mother and child thereafter. I would like to say thank you to all who work so hard and with such skill in the NHS and private sector. I wish you well for the future.

  • Mr Major’s Party Political Broadcast – 24 July 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s radio party political broadcast, transmitted on 24th July 1991.

    PRESENTER:

    On Monday this week, John Major launched the Citizen’s Charter. ‘Citizen’s’ because it is on your side. The idea for it was born many years ago. John Major.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    Twenty years ago, I was a local councillor. I became convinced then that our public services could be more sensitive to the people who use them, who depend on them and who pay for them.

    PRESENTER:

    In 1979, the Conservatives took power and started on a programme of reforms, rolling back the power of the state, helping council tenants to the dignity of home ownership and privatising those industries government ran so badly. Much has been done since 1979 but the Citizen’s Charter sets out much more that is still to be done. We all know the annoyances: long hold ups on motorways because one lane has been coned off for miles, even though there’s no sign of any work being done; the train you were depending upon suddenly being cancelled; and the way hospital administrators fail to value the patient’s time. How many people have had hospital experiences like this?

    [Sound effects]

    WOMAN:

    And I’m not exaggerating. There were dozens of us there. And all with an appointment at the same time – ten forty – with the same doctor. Oh, I can’t tell you. It was awful. It’s bad enough being pregnant without this sort of thing happening. Talk about being in the club.

    PRESENTER:

    Here’s another example that too many council tenants will recognise. The scene is a council estate. And here come two council workmen.

    [Sound effects – doorbell – door opening]

    WORKMAN:

    Afternoon lady. Come about your old rotting window.

    WOMAN:

    Oh, you’d best come in.

    WORKMAN:

    Ta. Oh, nasty that. Yeah, it’ll need a glazier. Have to send in a requisition.

    PRESENTER:

    Well. What’s your bet? Next time?

    [Sound effects – doorbell]

    PRESENTER:

    Someone to fix it? Or?

    [Sound effects – door opening]

    WORKMAN:

    Oh, morning. We’re from the council. Apparently one of your windows is playing up a bit.

    WOMAN:

    Yes, come in.

    WORKMAN:

    Oh, that is cracked. That is definitely cracked. It’ll need some glass. Look.

    WOMAN:

    Well, I know that. I told the council six months ago.

    WORKMAN:

    All right. All right. I’ll order some glass.

    [Sound effects – workman whistling]

    PRESENTER:

    Another annoyance: having to stay around all day for someone from the public utilities to turn up. But now, thanks to the Citizen’s Charter, waiting for the gas man will no longer be part of the English language.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    I want to put the pride back in public services. There is no joy in giving bad service; and too little recognition of good service. So we will introduce more choice and competition on the one hand and reward care and commitment on the other.

    PRESENTER:

    What have the papers had to say?

    The Today Newspaper. Britain’s gas men, post men, train drivers and council workers will never again be able to take us for granted.

    The Daily Mail. John Major knows about bus queues, crowded tubes and hospital waiting rooms, so he wants to provide you with the information you can really use to practical advantage: how your child is doing in class; how local schools compare; what is the name behind the unhelpful voice at the other end of the phone; how you can complain and to whom.

    The Daily Express. John Major’s Citizen’s Charter amounts to the biggest shake-up Britain has seen in its public services.

    Almost everybody has greeted the new Citizen’s Charter with enthusiasm. Almost everybody.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    So who, you might ask, could possibly disagree with the aims of the Charter? Well, I’ll tell you. People who are comfortable about low standards. People who expect you to put up without asking questions. And people who always want to spend more money, more of your money, rather than try and use it better. Then there are the people who know how to work the system for themselves. They’re all right, Jack. But what about everybody else? I don’t want anybody to feel like a second class citizen. I want everyone to have better public services. That’s what the Citizen’s Charter is all about. That’s what it will aim to deliver – for everyone.