The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Commonwealth

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on the Andrew Marr Show – 5 February 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, broadcast live on 5th February 2012.

    ANDREW MARR:

    We were looking at that extraordinary Irish visit there. And of course the process began when you were Prime Minister, although Tony Blair picked it up and went further forward with it. How conscious were you when you were doing that, that this might be difficult for the Royal Family? They’d lost Lord Mountbatten, they’d seen these terrible scenes of carnage not very far from Buckingham Palace in the old days.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well of course when we began it in the early 1990s with Albert Reynolds, who was then the Irish Prime Minister, of course I discussed it with the Queen at our private meetings. I have no intention of telling you how it went, but of course the Queen was aware of what we were doing. And we had two objectives, both of which I think the Queen approved of. The first was to stop the slaughter that we were seeing in Northern Ireland, the indiscriminate murder that had gone on for far too long; and, secondly, to normalise relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland and North and South within Ireland. And I think the Queen approved of both of those. And the visit she made to Ireland, I think set the final seal on a relationship that has wholly changed in the last twenty years. Ireland are our nearest neighbour, they should be a close and enduring friend, and I think that is the circumstance we now have.

    ANDREW MARR:

    One of the things that certainly I came across a lot was people talking about the Queen’s religious side of her character, and therefore forgiveness being absolutely central to what she is for.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The Queen’s a wise lady. She understands different views. She’s never been perturbed by people who’ve had different views to her. She understands them, she has her own clear view, so certainly she would have understood that point very well. And I think the fact she is Head of the Church in the United Kingdom, she would fully understand other people’s convictions in a different church. That wouldn’t phase her in the slightest.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So she understood and in fact she was encouraging those very, very difficult early talks with the IRA?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’ve no intention of telling you what was said privately. Let me simply say the Queen was fully informed and you have seen from the visit and what others have said how she feels about the outcome.

    ANDREW MARR:

    A lot of people are very interested about not what is said during those meetings, but are they really useful to Prime Ministers? David Cameron said that you know it was a chance during the week to really ask himself what he was up to in a sense because he was just in front of one person.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    They’re very useful. I mean where else can you talk to one person in total certainty that it’s entirely secret; that nobody is going to talk to anybody else about what is said? So they’re very free, they’re very frank, they’re very useful. And of course the Queen has been there for sixty years, her first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill. Most of the present cabinet weren’t born when the Queen became monarch. So there’s very little she hasn’t seen and very little she doesn’t understand, and anyone who doesn’t listen to her view and consult her where necessary is missing a huge opportunity.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Well we’re allowed just a little clip of you with the Queen. I think you’ve just come back from Russia at this moment. Let’s look at that.

    [Clip from Elizabeth R shown which was broadcast in the 1990s]

    ANDREW MARR:

    A nice little clip there. So these things are terribly important. You know she’s obviously very interested in her constitutional role, so that’s the Irish side. What about Scotland now because you know we’re at the edge of some difficult decisions about Scotland? I mean whatever happens, she will be Queen of Scots. I just wondered what you thought of Alex Salmond’s kind of comment that the United Kingdom would carry on because the union of crowns would carry on?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I’ve no intention of mixing the Queen and politics and I think you know that, but I think I heard Alex Salmond say last week that whatever may happen in Scotland – and I have my clear views about what should happen, that whatever may happen in Scotland, the Queen would remain Queen as far as the Scots are concerned, and I think that is absolutely the view of, I would imagine, the vast majority of Scots.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Unlike any other country, we have someone therefore at the apex of the system who’s been there for sixty years. Does she have a sort of reasonable recall of the previous crises, all the ups and downs? I mean she’s been through the Cold War, she’s seen all this you know.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Andrew, you don’t forget crises, believe you me. You don’t forget crises and neither does the Queen.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Yes.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    She remembers them very well. And in some cases within the Commonwealth, I mean she has this special affinity for the Commonwealth, and I think for two reasons. Firstly because King George VI, her father, to whom she was evidently very close indeed, was significant in setting up the Commonwealth in the first place. And, secondly, because she has grown up with the Commonwealth. When it began, it had eight members. It now has fifty-four. So she’s very close to it. And often when we discussed, she would not only know something about the country in the Commonwealth we were talking about or the head of state, but their father or their mother and often there were occasions where background information was extremely useful.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Yes. We saw Prince William in that quote, in that clip earlier on there, speaking very, very eloquently about the Queen and Ireland. He’s of course now down in the Falklands in his helicopter. But you’ve in some respects watched him grow up because you were involved when he was younger. Just give us your sense of how he’s evolving in the role that he’s got now.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Oh I think if you travel abroad, you can see a different perspective and you can see that the Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess are becoming iconic around the world. I think they’re a tremendous bonus for the Royal Family at the present time and I think the way they have conducted themselves has been absolutely without fault, and I think most people can see that. Clearly his career is very important to him, as it is to Prince Harry. He’s carrying out his role extremely well and I think that’s what people admire and respect.

    ANDREW MARR:

    But for all those people who kind of perhaps rather glibly open the papers and say “Oh well, can we not have him as our next King?” …

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    No, no.

    ANDREW MARR:

    As a constitutionalist explain why not.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    No, no. Constitutionally not. The Queen took an oath at the Coronation that she would remain as Queen for the rest of her life. When, hopefully many years hence, the Queen is no longer with us, Prince Charles will become King. There can be no question of skipping a generation. It simply isn’t going to happen. It’s a piece of newspaper sophistry from time to time. After the Queen will come Prince Charles. After Prince Charles will come Prince William. That is I think a matter that is settled and is beyond doubt.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now tomorrow I think, you are going to be launching a huge charitable project: the Diamond Jubilee Trust. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I don’t want to spoil your fire for it, but tell us a little bit about it and what you hope to achieve.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    We’re establishing tomorrow the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. It was agreed that it would be set up by all the Heads of Government at the Commonwealth at their recent meeting in Australia, and I’m greatly honoured to have been asked to chair it.

    The purpose of the trust is to raise money across the whole of the Commonwealth, I hope governments, companies, individuals will all contribute. We will raise this money just for a single year and then we will spend it on appropriate projects across the whole of the Commonwealth, including of course the United Kingdom. We’ll enter I hope into partnerships with people, so that we can leverage, so we can increase the amount of money we have had donated, to use it for the sort of projects I think that most people would approve of.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So we’re talking about projects involving children and disadvantaged groups?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Yes, no detailed decisions have been taken, but that sort of project. And it will all be there specifically as a legacy to the Queen and her long reign and her long service to the Commonwealth. I don’t think people who haven’t seen her with the Commonwealth, heads of government, can possibly understand what it’s like. There’s a very good relationship, she is iconic to them. And she and the Duke of Edinburgh – and the Duke has been quite superb of course throughout her reign – she and the Duke of Edinburgh are enormously popular across the Commonwealth and it’s unsurprising that when there was a suggestion from the heads of government of a tribute that the Queen would like the sums raised to be dispersed across the Commonwealth, including – as I say – the United Kingdom.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Of course the Falklands are part of the Commonwealth. Prince William down there at the moment and a huge amount of kind of jumping up and down and shouting in Buenos Aires.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there’s bound to be a certain amount of shouting. I think that’s what it will amount to – shouting and no more.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And no more. Alright, for now thank you very much indeed, Sir John Major.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My pleasure.

    [Break for news]

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sir John Major is still here and we’re going to talk a little bit just at the end about Syria because we’ve used enormously strong language at the United Nations yesterday, as have the Americans, about the Russians and the Chinese. I just wanted you know your perspective on actually what can happen, because it seems that the international community is now badly stuck.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there are two things that are happening. Certainly we’ve seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle and I don’t think it’s going to stop at the borders of Syria. So I think this is an issue that is going to continue. I think two things are happening at the moment. First, we are moving perilously close to a full-scale civil war. Secondly, I think Syria is becoming a pariah state. And if I can add a third thought. I don’t think in these circumstances that the Assad regime will survive. How much damage it will do in the short-term, I can’t say. How long it will survive is unknown, but I don’t think it will be a credible government for all that much longer. It has no support, except no doubt for Iran and for China and for Russia, beyond that no-one can possibly sanction what they’re doing.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And is there anything more do you think that a country like Britain can do, you know to avoid the break-up and the fall of the regime – if that’s what’s going to be happen – being too bloody, being too disruptive – not least I suppose to Israel which is next door, of course?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I think there are several thoughts related to that. Firstly, I think those in China and Russia might search their consciences about their veto. They are effectively giving a green light to a pretty bad regime to murder people, and I think one needs to put it bluntly so they understand what they have done and so the world understands what they have done. As far as what other nations can do, it’s possible to apply sanctions through the European Union, it’s possible to apply sanctions through nation states, it’s possible to use diplomacy. I think all those measures should be used and used as a matter of urgency and I don’t think the United Nations should leave this matter. If China and Russia have vetoed it once, let us see if they will at some stage veto it again as public pressure and international condemnation builds up.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Good final thought. Sir John Major, thank you very much indeed for joining us today.

  • Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting : Auckland Communique – 13 November 1995

    Below is the text of the 1995 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Communique, issued in Auckland on 13th November 1995.

    Introduction

    1. Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Auckland, New Zealand, from 10 – 13 November 1995. Of the 48 countries which attended the Meeting, 33 were represented by Heads of State or Prime Ministers. The Meeting was chaired by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Rt Hon James Bolger.
    2. Heads of Government commenced their deliberations with a message of felicitations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Head of the Commonwealth.
    3. Heads of Government noted with particular pleasure the return of South Africa to the Commonwealth in June 1994 and accorded a special welcome to President Nelson Mandela. They welcomed Cameroon, represented by President Paul Biya, as the Commonwealth’s 52nd member.
    4. Heads of Government expressed their deep appreciation for the warm welcome and hospitality accorded to them in New Zealand, for the excellent organisational arrangements made for the Meeting and for the outstanding manner in which the Chairman had guided the deliberations.

    Global Review

    1. Heads of Government reaffirmed their commitment to the fundamental values set out in their Harare Commonwealth Declaration of 1991. They stressed that democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms were interdependent and mutually reinforcing. They requested the Secretariat to assist member governments to promote greater awareness, education and training in human rights and to continue to support governmental efforts for the promotion of democracy, good governance, sustainable development, alleviation of poverty and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, in an integrated and mutually reinforcing manner.
    2. Heads of Government reaffirmed that women’s rights were human rights and urged member governments to adopt legislation and develop national strategies to promote the advancement of women in accordance with the strategic objectives, actions and priorities adopted by the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing. In particular, they endorsed the Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and Development and encouraged governments to implement its recommendations. They also urged ratification and implementation of the human rights covenants and other international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
    3. Heads of Government reiterated their commitment to pay special attention to the rights and needs of children and to the importance of protecting and promoting their rights and needs. They called on all states to ratify and implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
    4. Heads of Government expressed satisfaction at the transitions from military or one party rule to representative forms of government which several member states had successfully achieved in recent years and urged that member countries, the Secretariat, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other relevant Commonwealth organisations should continue to extend all possible support to these countries to consolidate and strengthen democratic processes and institutions.
    5. Heads of Government adopted the Millbrook Commonwealth Action Programme on the Harare Declaration.
    6. In response to developments in Nigeria which constituted a serious violation of the principles set out in the Harare Commonwealth Declaration, Heads of Government, with the exception of The Gambia, agreed to suspend Nigeria from membership of the Commonwealth pending the return to compliance with the principles of the Harare Declaration. They urged the Nigerian Government to take immediate and concrete steps to adhere to these principles, and offered whatever practical assistance the Government might request in this respect. They called for the release of the 43 prisoners currently being held for involvement in an alleged coup attempt and the release of Chief Abiola. They further decided that if no demonstrable progress was made towards the fulfilment of these conditions within a time frame to be stipulated, Nigeria would be expelled from the association.
    7. Heads of Government welcomed the reaffirmation of the programme of transition to democracy in Sierra Leone and the fact that elections were to be held in the country early in 1996. In this context, they underscored the importance of peace and reconciliation to this process and noted with satisfaction the assistance which the Commonwealth, bilaterally and multilaterally, was providing in this regard.
    8. Heads of Government noted the affirmation by the Government of The Gambia of its plan to hold national elections by July 1996 and offered Commonwealth assistance in the implementation of the transition programme drawn up by the Gambian authorities in order to facilitate a successful restoration of democracy.
    9. Heads of Government attached special importance to the fact that their Meeting was being held in the 50th anniversary year of the United Nations and recalled that many of them had participated in the Special Commemorative Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and subscribed to the Declaration adopted by it. They reaffirmed their support for the United Nations as a vital instrument of multilateral co operation and as the primary forum responsible for the maintenance of peace, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the promotion of development, equality and justice. While acknowledging the organisation’s accomplishments over the first 50 years, they reaffirmed their conviction that only complete commitment to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter could ensure the effectiveness of the organisation.
    10. Heads of Government agreed that it was essential that the United Nations be reformed and revitalised. They underscored the need to improve the efficiency of the organisation by ensuring a clearer and complementary role for all UN organs, bodies and agencies, reducing duplication and waste and encouraging better management, transparency and accountability. They agreed that work on the revitalisation of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council should continue and noted the current examination by the General Assembly of the role of the Trusteeship Council. They welcomed the call in the 50th Anniversary Declaration for reform and expansion of the Security Council and called for further in depth consideration by member states of the United Nations, in order to resolve the key issues on which important differences remain.
    11. Heads of Government considered that the United Nations financial crisis required urgent attention and urged all member states of the United Nations to meet their obligations in full and on time, and without conditions.
    12. Heads of Government agreed that the Commonwealth should continue to support and complement the work of the United Nations. The Commonwealth’s strengths were particularly relevant in a world increasingly characterised by intra state instability and strife stemming from such divisive forces as ethnic and religious intolerance. They commended, in this context, the efforts of the Commonwealth Secretary General to foster peace and stability in Commonwealth member countries, at the request of governments concerned, through use of good offices and the promotion of sustainable development and fundamental political values. They recognised the Commonwealth’s capacity for conflict prevention and resolution and welcomed the recommendations made in the Report of the Intergovernmental Group on the Emergence of a Global Humanitarian Order, entitled Towards a More Humane World. They requested the Secretary General to take follow up measures as appropriate, in consultation with member governments.
    13. Heads of Government noted that changes in international circumstances and changing world opinion had provided an impetus for further practical measures to enhance global stability. They expressed their support for arms control, disarmament and non proliferation at the global and regional levels.
    14. Heads of Government emphasised the importance of the determined pursuit by the nuclear weapon states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons, and by all states of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. They noted that these were among the commitments reaffirmed by the states party to the Non Proliferation Treaty, which was extended indefinitely at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference.
    15. Heads of Government expressed concern at the threat to security posed by other weapons of mass destruction as well as the build up of conventional weapons beyond the legitimate requirements of self defence. They urged ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention at the earliest possible date to enable it to enter into force without delay. They reiterated their call for the strengthening of the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention. Heads of Government called for greater attention to be paid to the problem of the indiscriminate use of anti personnel landmines and encouraged states party to the Inhumane Weapons Convention to work constructively towards reaching agreed controls on these weapons.
    16. Heads of Government welcomed the decision by Britain, France and the United States of America to sign the Protocols to the Treaty of Rarotonga establishing the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone. They also welcomed the adoption by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) of the Pelindaba Treaty on the establishment of an African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. They expressed the hope that the nuclear weapon states would be able to accede to the relevant Protocols to the Treaty to ensure its success. They noted with satisfaction the advances made by member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) towards the establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone in South East Asia. They also expressed support for the establishment of other nuclear free zones based upon arrangements freely arrived at by all the states in the region concerned.
    17. Heads of Government noted the widespread anger caused by the current programmes of nuclear weapon tests. The overwhelming majority of Heads of Government condemned this continued nuclear testing which was inconsistent with the undertaking given by the nuclear weapon states to exercise utmost restraint so as not to affect the ongoing negotiations for the conclusion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. These Heads of Government urged the immediate cessation of such testing.
    18. Heads of Government emphasised the urgency of completing the negotiations for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. They stressed the importance they attached to a treaty banning any nuclear weapon test explosion and any other nuclear explosion. They considered the conclusion of this agreement to be of the highest importance for the international community as a major step towards strengthening the nuclear non proliferation regime and efforts for global nuclear disarmament, with the ultimate goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons.
    19. Recalling their Cyprus Communiqué, Heads of Government once again expressed support for the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Republic of Cyprus. They urged the Security Council to take resolute action and the necessary measures for the speedy implementation of all United Nations resolutions on Cyprus, in particular Security Council Resolutions 365 (1974), 550 (1984) and 939 (1994). They expressed full support for the proposal by the President of Cyprus for the demilitarisation of Cyprus. They called for the speedy withdrawal of all Turkish forces and settlers from the Republic of Cyprus, the return of the refugees to their homes in conditions of safety, restoration of and respect for the human rights of all Cypriots, and the accounting of all missing persons, and expressed grave concern at the continuing influx of settlers. Expressing deep disappointment at the continued lack of progress in achieving a solution, due to the lack of political will on the Turkish Cypriot side, they reaffirmed support for the United Nations Secretary General’s efforts to find a just and workable solution. In this context they agreed that the Commonwealth Action Group on Cyprus should continue to monitor developments and facilitate the United Nations Secretary General’s efforts as appropriate.
    20. Heads of Government reaffirmed their strong support for the security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Belize, encouraging continued expressions of individual and collective solidarity with Belize. They noted with satisfaction the consultations occurring between Guatemala and Belize with respect to the implementation of confidence building measures, and encouraged both parties to continue and successfully conclude their dialogue. Heads of Government reiterated the request to the Secretary General to convene the Commonwealth Ministerial Committee on Belize whenever necessary.
    21. Heads of Government warmly recalled Hong Kong’s long and close links with the Commonwealth, acknowledging the importance of the territory to the economic vitality of the Asia Pacific region and to world prosperity. They expressed confidence that Hong Kong’s success would continue beyond the change of sovereignty in 1997, in accordance with the Sino British Joint Declaration which provides, inter alia, for the rule of law and a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong. In this context, they hoped to see during the transition intensified Sino British co operation in the interests of Hong Kong.
    22. Heads of Government strongly condemned the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina and the commission of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, aggression, rape and other gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law. They expressed the hope that the peace talks currently under way in Dayton, USA, would result in bringing an early end to the sufferings experienced in recent years by the people in the Balkans. They called on all the parties to negotiate the prevention of a return to hostilities, including in Eastern Slavonia in Croatia. They emphasised the need for a just, equitable and comprehensive political settlement for Bosnia Herzegovina which provides for free, fair and democratic elections and which ensures its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and the status of Sarajevo as a single, undivided city under the Government of Bosnia Herzegovina. They also stressed the importance of international assistance in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country and that, pending the settlement of the conflict, the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina should have the inherent right of self defence. The international community should ensure the follow up to the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
    23. Heads of Government condemned the tragic assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. They expressed the hope that this would not adversely affect the peace process in the Middle East, which had their full support.
    24. Heads of Government noted the determination of the Mediterranean countries to pursue initiatives and to adopt effective measures to strengthen security and co operation in the region, and considered that the Euro Mediterranean Conference to be held in Barcelona in November 1995 would make a significant contribution in this regard.
    25. Heads of Government reaffirmed their strongest condemnation of acts of terrorism in all forms, including the taking of hostages, as aimed at the destruction of human rights, and as one of the most dangerous and pernicious threats which destabilise the political, economic and social order of sovereign states. They reiterated their determination to combat terrorism, whether perpetrated by individuals, groups or states, by every means possible, including the development of a comprehensive legal framework of conventions.
    26. Heads of Government were encouraged by the strong performance of much of the world economy in recent years but recognised that this improved performance was not shared by several least developed countries and particularly small states, which are vulnerable to natural disasters and external shocks. They stressed the importance of persisting with sound macro economic and structural policies to sustain the momentum of growth with social justice.
    27. Heads of Government expressed the hope that he expansion of world trade will continue to flow from the full implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements. They acknowledged the need to take account of the fact that some Commonwealth countries, especially the net food importing countries and those benefiting from preferential access to industrial country markets, face transitional problems in adjusting to the new global trade regime and may need assistance to meet these challenges. Heads of Government emphasised the need to ensure that new forms of protectionism are not introduced in the guise, inter alia, of environmental and labour standards.
    28. Heads of Government endorsed the conclusions on debt reached by Commonwealth Finance Ministers at their 1995 meeting in Jamaica. In particular, they welcomed the agreement last year on the Naples terms for official bilateral debt and called on Paris Club members to implement them fully. They also called for full implementation of the Trinidad proposals, including 80 per cent relief for the most needy.
    29. Heads of Government welcomed the multilateral debt initiative proposed by the British Government at the 1994 Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting in Malta and elaborated at the 1995 meeting in Jamaica. In the light of this initiative, they called on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to develop constructive proposals for addressing the multilateral debt problem in a comprehensive way, making full use of their available resources to finance a solution. They recognised that any proposal for financing debt reduction should take account of the need to avoid adverse implications for countries which have continued to service their debt regularly. Heads of Government considered that the Commonwealth could make a significant contribution to the debate on debt, both between debtor and creditor countries and within the international financial institutions themselves. They also recognised the concerns expressed by some heavily indebted lower middle income countries.
    30. Heads of Government expressed concern at the erosion of support in some countries for official development assistance and urged donors to use their best endeavours to secure substantial flows of funds, bearing in mind the special needs of the least developed countries and small island states, and to improve the quality of their assistance. They called for IDA 10 pledges to be honoured in full and for IDA 11 to take account of new claimants and expanded development agenda.
    31. Heads of Government endorsed the launching of the Commonwealth Private Investment Initiative (CPII) as a commercial venture to mobilise capital for long term investments in expanding privatised or privatising companies and in small and medium sized private sector business, initially in Africa. They encouraged interested investment agencies and institutions in Commonwealth countries to invest in CPII. They considered that the Initiative should be extended at the earliest opportunity to other regions within the Commonwealth.
    32. Heads of Government supported the need to continue the examination of reform of the international financial institutions and United Nations development agencies to reduce duplication and enhance their coherence, effectiveness and efficiency. Recognising the need for the Commonwealth to contribute to this process, they asked Commonwealth Finance Ministers to review progress at their next meeting.
    33. Heads of Government took note of the views of the ministerial level Commonwealth Consultative Group on the Environment and encouraged Ministers to continue their periodic reviews of Commonwealth co operation on environmental issues. They agreed that forestry was an area in which the Commonwealth could make a distinctive contribution.
    34. Heads of Government welcomed the signature of the agreement between the President of Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretary General launching the unique Iwokrama Rain Forest Programme in Guyana as the basis of a Commonwealth network for the conservation and development of tropical forests. They looked forward to the early establishment of a donor support group.
    35. Heads of Government endorsed the Special Report by Finance Ministers on money laundering and asked Finance Ministers to review progress on the implementation of the Report’s recommendations and to report to CHOGM in 1997. They also asked Law Ministers to review progress on the implementation of other measures to combat money laundering, and similarly to report to CHOGM. They noted the nefarious links between drug trafficking, commercial crime and money laundering and agreed that strong political commitment and stringent legislative and administrative measures were required for the problem to be effectively tackled.

    Small States

    1. Heads of Government welcomed the Report of the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Ministerial Group on Small States, which met on the eve of CHOGM, covering such issues as sustainable development, the implications of adjusting to the new international trading system, and security concerns. They acknowledged the importance of a forum to address the concerns of small states and noted the priorities identified by small states in these areas and the recommendations contained in the Report and called for follow up action as necessary.

    Commonwealth Functional Cooperation

    1. Heads of Government considered various aspects of Commonwealth functional co operation, which they reaffirmed as crucial to conferring the benefits of membership on member states and, in this context, strongly endorsed the attached Report of the Committee of the Whole. They urged that the Secretariat’s efforts be intensified to establish priorities in these areas, based on the Commonwealth’s comparative advantage.

    Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation

    1. Heads of Government recognised the important role played by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co operation in supporting the social and economic development of member countries, in the priority areas identified in the Harare Commonwealth Declaration. They recognised the resource constraints facing the CFTC and agreed, within the means of each country, to consider increasing the flow of resources to the Fund.

    Public Service Reform and Good Government

    1. Heads of Government endorsed the Secretary General’s initiative ‘Towards a New Public Administration’ aimed at assisting member countries in their efforts to improve the performance of their public services. They also welcomed the establishment of the Commonwealth Good Government Programme by New Zealand, as well as the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, the Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management and the Commonwealth Network on Information Technology.

    Commonwealth Sport

    1. Heads of Government recognised the important role of sport in promoting human resource development. Acknowledging the valuable contribution of the CHOGM Committee on Co operation through Sport, Heads of Government extended the mandate of the Committee for a further four year term.

    Commonwealth Foundation

    1. Heads of Government welcomed the Report of the Commonwealth Foundation and strongly commended the Report of the Second NGO Forum and the document: ‘Non Governmental Organisations: Guidelines for Good Policy and Practice’. They expressed support to the Foundation and urged member governments to take all possible action, including settlement of arrears, to alleviate the difficult financial situation confronting the Foundation.

    Commonwealth of Learning

    1. Heads of Government welcomed the Report of the Board of Governors of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and acknowledged the valuable role played by COL. Expressing concern at the financial crisis facing COL, they urged governments to take all possible steps to provide greater resources to the organisation at the earliest opportunity.

    Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management

    1. Heads of Government welcomed the establishment of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management as an innovative joint venture between governments and the private sector and urged both to contribute to it.

    Membership

    1. Heads of Government requested the Secretary General to establish an intergovernmental group to examine and advise on the criteria for assessing future applications for membership of the Commonwealth. In the meantime, they decided as an exceptional case, to accept the application by Mozambique for membership and therefore to warmly welcome that country as the 53rd member of the association.

    Venue of 1997 Meeting

    1. Heads of Government accepted with great pleasure the offer of the British Government to host their next Meeting in 1997.
    2. Heads of Government thanked the Secretariat for the work it had done since their Cyprus Meeting and, in particular, commended the Secretary General for the leadership he had continued to provide in the affairs of the Commonwealth.

     

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference in Auckland – 12 November 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Auckland, on Sunday 12th November 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me just say a few words at the outset about the last week, since I left the United Kingdom. We have had a series of unexpected and unusual events. What has been a consistent theme through the week has been the number of occasions one has been reminded of the price that people can pay for peace, for democracy and for freedom.

    At the beginning of the week I was in Jerusalem to attend the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered for seeking peace. This morning, Remembrance Sunday, I was at a small War Memorial in Arrowtown, it was a beautiful setting and a really rather lovely occasion, accompanied by both British and New Zealand veterans, the British veterans having travelled with me from the United Kingdom. At those two ceremonies I paid tribute to British and Commonwealth Servicemen who gave their lives for freedom in both the World Wars this century.

    And over the weekend, at the Commonwealth meeting, although we had many other things to discuss, a large part of our discussions were overshadowed by the issue of freedom and human rights and by the judicial murder of 9 people, including Mr Ken Saro-Wiwa. That was murder, callous and brutal. It was a direct challenge to the Commonwealth. It was not to be tolerated. The death sentences were confirmed on the very eve of the Commonwealth meeting. They were carried out in the middle of the meeting, despite pleas for clemency from Jim Bolger, the Chairman of the meeting, from Nelson Mandela, from myself and from many others, pleas addressed to the Nigerian regime, in public and in private, and all set aside and ignored by them. Neither was this a single incident, it followed a long series of abuses against human rights and democracy over many years.

    We have tried quiet diplomacy for some time with the Nigerians, and clearly it hasn’t proved sufficient. I believe the Commonwealth had no choice but to respond swiftly and decisively. It has done so by suspending Nigeria’s membership of the Commonwealth and making its readmission dependent upon a return to civilian democracy and the release of the political prisoners now held in jails there. If Nigeria does not comply, it will be not suspended, but expelled from the Commonwealth.

    I believe this action is merited. And I would go further than that. If the Commonwealth had not risen to this challenge, if it had not decided that it would make living the Harare Principles on good government, then it would have been apparent to people that those principles were not worth the paper they were written on. I think after the last couple of days people know that the Commonwealth are serious about those principles, serious in the short term and serious for the future.

    What we will now consider urgently with our partners is the most effective way of following up these immediate steps. Let me set out some preliminary thoughts for you.

    I think that there should be the widest possible embargo on defence sales to Nigeria. The policy we have in the United Kingdom is already highly restrictive. We shall now bring in an immediate ban, on a national basis, and we shall ask our partners to do the same.

    The Commonwealth has also put in place some permanent machinery for tackling violations of the Harare Principles. We have agreed upon a ladder of measures, of increasing severity, to encourage and persuade governments to return to acceptable behaviour. And those measures can result in suspension or expulsion from the Commonwealth. They are especially designed to tackle military regimes which have overthrown a constitutionally elected government, but of course they will be applicable in other circumstances as well.

    We have also set up a standing body whose job will be to monitor the implementation of the Harare Principles and make recommendations for action whenever that might be necessary.

    Before we had our discussions on Nigeria, we had an afternoon’s discussion on nuclear testing, and on this occasion we failed to reach agreement. I don’t think that was a surprise to anyone. I had spelled out on a number of occasions beforehand the principles upon which the British position rests: firstly, a recognition of our responsibilities as a nuclear weapon state; secondly, a determination to achieve a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996; and thirdly, a refusal to condemn France for the tests that it is carrying out. In the light of that, I was not prepared to endorse, or to stay silent on, a position which contradicts those principles and does nothing to achieve a test-free world.

    I believe that it is a measure of the Commonwealth’s resilience and maturity that after a crisp disagreement amongst friends on nuclear matters we were able rapidly to work together to take decisive action on Nigeria and the Harare Principles.

    So I think the outcome has been a good week for the Commonwealth. It has also been an outstandingly good week for British/New Zealand relations. And I would like to express my thanks to the New Zealand Government for this morning’s exceptional Remembrance Service.

    I will take back, as I think Norma will as well, a very deep impression of a friendly country, a prosperous country, a modern country, a country with very old links with the United Kingdom, but very close links today as well.

    Let me just tell you finally that this morning Commonwealth colleagues accepted my invitation to hold the next Heads of Government Meeting in 1997 in the United Kingdom, and we will take that forward over the weeks and months ahead.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    On the Ken Saro-Wiwa case, do you wish now that you had actually met his son for the image and impression that would have given to Nigeria?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think Lynda Chalker actually did meet Mr Saro-Wiwa Junior and he was aware, even before that meeting, of the support that he had from us. If you recall, I set out my position some time ago. I also set out very clearly yesterday morning the action that I thought the Commonwealth ought to take over Nigeria, and I am delighted that the Commonwealth did take that action. But I think we now know that those sentences were confirmed some time ago.

    And I very much regret that the Nigerian government do not seem to have been open to any of the pleas made by myself, by Mr Mandela, by Mr Bolger on behalf of the Commonwealth Conference, and by many others. And what I should say is that we have been making representations to Nigeria over a range of matters, not just over the last 48 hours but over some time.

    QUESTION (Paul Reynolds):

    I don’t know whether you can answer this question, having been locked up in Queenstown, but John Bruton, the Irish Prime Minister, has made a speech in which he said the support for the British government for a reasonable compromise on the remaining issues for all-party talks is now needed to move the process forward. Is that something you would favour?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It depends what is meant by a reasonable compromise. We had a position, before the summit that never was some time ago, that was an extremely good compromise, and it was not the British government that backed away from that compromise, it was the Irish government that did not proceed with that meeting because it came under pressure from Sinn Fein and from other people. So it is very frustrating for John Bruton, and for me, that we have not yet had a summit and that we have not yet been able to provide the conditions for all-party talks. And I know the Irish government have been under very considerable domestic pressure over the fact that they have not been able to make progress on those talks.

    Getting all-party talks is what all of us want. But there is no purpose whatsoever in launching all-party talks until we have a basis that will make sure that there is some chance that those all-party talks are likely to succeed. It is not the Taoiseach’s fault that we are not yet in that position. And neither is it the British government’s fault that we are not yet in that position. The problem, above all, lies with Sinn Fein and Sinn Fein’s complete reluctance to tackle the question, even with an international body, of how their arsenal of weapons and explosives are going to be taken out of commission. And that is important. That is not a semantic point.

    When we keep hearing from Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams that there is a fear of violence returning, I ask: from what source is that violence going to return? It is going to return from the IRA and that is effectively what they are warning. And when they are warning that they might return to violence, it is hardly surprising if other people say: before we will sit down with you in round table talks, we want some evidence that you are not going to return to violence. There is no point in Adams and McGuinness saying to us over months, we are set on peace, if a few days later they start making statements which suggest that unless they get their way, on each and every issue, with conceding nothing themselves, that they will return to violence, it is hardly surprising that the Unionists and others believe that we need to be more certain about what their long-term actions are.

    So I share John Bruton’s frustration that we are not yet ready to move forward to all-party talks, but the blockage to all-party talks is Sinn Fein and their reluctance to address the problem that must be addressed, of ensuring confidence in the community in the north and ensuring that there is going to be no return to violence. And when I hear Martin McGuinness and others warning that violence may return if parties don’t come to the table, he makes precisely the reason why the other parties will not sit down with him because they fear that that is the position that the IRA will take. So the blockage is theirs and no weasel words to the contrary will change that hard reality.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley):

    How many other Commonwealth countries do you see in danger of falling foul of the new disciplinary machinery? And with what the Commonwealth has decided on Nigeria, how worried are you about a backlash on British and European companies with large investments in Nigeria?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Upon the latter point, I cannot say what the reaction of the Nigerians will be. But Nigeria is an important country where there are very substantial human rights abuses. What we are seeking to do is to take action against them to persuade them to return to a proper democratic way of life where there will then be long term advantages both for Nigeria and for the companies trading with them. So I can’t judge what their response will be.

    As far as other countries are concerned, there is no country in exactly the same position as Nigeria or the same situation would have arisen over the weekend and they too would have been suspended. There are some countries about whom there are concerns and the Commonwealth will be seeking to persuade them to move to early elections and back to civilian governments and there was some discussion over that at the weekend. If they don’t then I think the Commonwealth would judge them in the same way, and with the same criteria and for the same reasons that they have acted against Nigeria over the last couple of days. But I don’t think that is imminent. we will look at the countries in difficulties

    [Small section indistinct]

    QUESTION (Simon Walters – The Sun):

    Do you fear that Mr. Bruton’s comments might be taken by some people as bolstering the case put by McGuinness and do you think it was rather inappropriate for Mr. Bruton to make these remarks in London while you are away on Remembrance Sunday of all days?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    John Bruton has worked very hard to try and promote the circumstances where we can move forward to all-party talks and get complete agreement. While I have been here, I haven’t had the chance to read the details of all he had to say. All I can say is that it is usually in character for him to try and find a way forward, not to frustrate a way forward, so I don’t quite know. Perhaps it was frustration that lay behind this particular speech but the important thing is for us to continue to work together and to make sure that the democratic governments and the democratic parties set the right sort of conditions so that we can have all-party talks.

    I have to make this clear: what is not a starter is for people make it clear that they would resort to violence if they don’t get their way in talks and then expect to be admitted to talks on that basis. That isn’t on, it isn’t on for us, can’t be on for the Irish Government, other governments that have an interest, the Unionists or any of the democratic parties. We need evidence of good faith and words suggesting a return to violence hinder the chance of talks, they do not add to them.

    QUESTION (Philip Johnston – The Daily Telegraph):

    Prime Minister, you are returning home to quite a critical time in the political calendar with the budget coming up and the Queen’s Speech. How do you propose over the next year getting out of the position you are in at the moment, 40 points behind in the polls and facing a likely election defeat at the hands of the Labour Party?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I would like to know which part of the political calendar isn’t critical. I’m open to suggestions as to when it may be. In the 16 years I have been in the House of Commons, I have never found a part of the political calendar that wasn’t critical for one reason or another and the last opinion poll I saw was nothing remotely like the one you just quoted, in fact it was rather half that and rather less than half of that and if one tends to look at what is happening in the local election results, you will see a different picture already beginning to emerge so the opinion polls will begin to change.

    What is substantially the basis of my confidence about the next election is when you look at the really big issues to see whether things are going well or badly. If you look at the economy, for example, I am not sure if any of the distinguished people here this afternoon can recall an occasion when we had inflation so securely under lock and key, interest rates so relatively low, growth at the upper end of the European level, unemployment having been on a downward curve for over two years and growth in the economy fuelled by investment and exports rather than a short-term artificial consumer boom.

    That position is becoming more apparent month after month and I could range over a series of other issues as well. I think in terms of other policies, European policy, there is now a much greater understanding of our policies that were criticised both abroad and at home some time ago and it is becoming apparent to people that the long-term position we have taken is right and not wrong so I am confident. I remain confident about the future position and I always enjoy the run-up to an election period even though it may be a lengthy run-up to an election period. We may well have another 18 months or so before the election but I shall no doubt enjoy every day of it.

    QUESTION (Ian Black):

    On Nigeria, Prime Minister, you talked about the widest possible embargo on defence sales. How will that differ from the existing embargo on defence sales? On punitive measures, there have been quite a lot of calls in the last 24 hours for tougher action against Nigeria including economic sanctions, oil exports and so on and so forth. Are you contemplating anything beyond what you have just referred to?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I said there should be the widest possible embargo. Of course, I was speaking beyond the United Kingdom when I said that. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, I went on to say there will be an immediate ban on a national basis. That differs from the present situation, which is highly restrictive but not a complete ban, so that is the extent to which it varies there.

    As far as other matters are concerned, we will look at the options. The High Commissioner has come home and we will have consultations with him over the next few days and make our announcements in due course.

    On the general question, traditionally with things like oil embargoes and trade sanctions, they tend generally to function only under a United Nations mandate when there are threats to international peace and security. The difficulty is that the judgement we have to make on things like that is whether within the Nigerian economy they would cause worse unemployment, worse poverty, worse misery and worse starvation that is already being suffered and those are judgements we would have to make.

    In the long term, what we seek is economic improvement for Nigeria, not economic destruction for Nigeria, not least for the reasons I set out a moment ago about the Nigerian people but at the moment we haven’t had a chance to consider these matters in detail and some of them, such as the one you raised, would need to be considered internationally in any event.

    QUESTION (Chris Buckland):

    Prime Minister, you have spoken about how well you got on with Mr. Bolger and how prosperous New Zealand is. Mr. Bolger’s government is well known for its drastic cuts in the welfare state. Have you learned anything from him on this and are you tempted down this road? Do you think it would be successful?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I will tell you what I did learn from Mr. Bolger, very much and it is probably relevant to the question Simon nearly asked but didn’t quite get in! There was a time before the last election when Mr. Bolger seemed a long way behind in the opinion polls and nobody thought he was going to win but he did win and that is a very useful thing for everyone to observe I think. We will look at control of public expenditure and we will make our announcements at the end of this month in the budget speech.

    QUESTION (Nick Wood – The Times):

    Prime Minister, you have been pressed repeatedly, I think, in the last months to rule a single European currency in the next Parliament. Do you see any prospect of you so doing at some point in the run-up to the next election?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have set out our position and I have nothing to add to it today.

    QUESTION (Simon Walters – The Sun):

    The point I wanted to make was that you are that far behind – 40 points behind or 20 points behind on your figures – and the arguments that you put of inflation, the economy and other factors have been put for the last one, two, three years.

    The fact is it is having no effect whatsoever. Your deficit in the polls has stayed exactly the same, the election is now getting closer and closer and it is becoming harder and harder to see you overtaking the Labour Party and not least, look at the way that Keating is behaving; Blair is going there for Christmas and they are acting as though they think Tony Blair is Prime Minister in-waiting.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If you had had my conversations with Paul Keating, you would have been better informed.

    Let me deal with the question of the opinion polls. When you have two opinion polls within a week that are 23 points apart, I think you might have a certain scepticism about opinion polls. I have very great scepticism about opinion polls and you see that phenomenon occurring to a greater or lesser degree in places all over the world where opinion polls change very rapidly. To take a separate example, if you look at the referendum in Canada, at one stage the people in favour of separation were ahead by double figures within two or three weeks of the campaign, then they were 7 points behind and in the event it was almost a dead heat. That suggests not just in the United Kingdom but in other places as well – I will give you other examples if you wish – opinion polls are becoming an increasingly erratic and unsatisfactory guide and I think that is the case.

    I prefer to look at what has happened in the past, look at what is beginning to happen in the local elections which is beginning to show a marked improvement and also recall what happened in the last General Election where five days before polling day I don’t think there was a single newspaper represented here this afternoon who did not write off our chances of winning the last General Election. We were actually 7 points ahead on polling day. I think there may be one here that thought we would win but most of them didn’t. On the back of that, Simon, you will understand my scepticism over your assertions.

    QUESTION (Simon Walters):

    Is a dead heat the best you will get?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That’s not what I said, Simon. Even you can’t produce that headline out of what I said.

    QUESTION (John Deans – The Daily Mail):

    Prime Minister, will the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth have implications for British immigration or asylum policy?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I will have to look at that. We will have to look at what all the ramifications are but at the moment they are suspended from the Commonwealth, they are not expelled from the Commonwealth. Let me make that point but I will need to look at precisely what the position is. I am not aware that it is likely to have an impact upon individual Nigerians and for this reason: our squabble is not with individual Nigerians, our squabble is with the Government of Nigeria so I think we would look with that in mind at any internal changes in the United Kingdom.

    QUESTION (Evan Black):

    Going back very briefly to the seminar, do you think that the behaviour of Patrick Nicholls asking questions and then asking for shares from the company concerned is helpful to your fight back?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about. I have been in Arrowtown and I am not going to answer it on the basis of your assessment of it, Evan.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley – BBC):

    Prime Minister, you mentioned the row over the French nuclear testing in the Pacific. There was a lot of puzzlement among people here at CHOGM that you played it as toughly as you did afterwards in the sense that Australians and New Zealanders felt that their leaders had been a little bit soft and maybe given away too much to you. Why were you so angry? Were you perhaps just deliberately picking a fight for presentation at home?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I thought it was grandstanding to be blunt. I was angry because I think they were wrong. It was grandstanding. Britain has been seeking a comprehensive test ban treaty, they have encouraged other people to have a comprehensive test ban treaty but the world is not yet safe enough for the nuclear-weapon states not to have nuclear weapons. If you are going to have nuclear weapons, you need to make sure they are safe.

    Britain is in the position that it doesn’t have to test. France is not in the position that it doesn’t have to test. Am I to say to the President of France: “Throw away your nuclear weapon because you mustn’t test!” and diminish the security of Western Europe? I don’t think I am likely to say that and I also took the view, to be blunt, that there were a large number of people present at the Commonwealth meeting who in case of need would certainly look to Britain for support and help on matters military just as in the past when we needed help they came to our side so I thought there should have been a better understanding of the position.

    I looked at it as a matter of principle. It wasn’t a matter of tactics, it wasn’t a matter of picking a row or any of that nonsense that I read about, it was a matter of principle. It is not yet safe in my judgement for there not to be nuclear weapons. When it is safe, no-one will be more pleased that I am but the happy day hasn’t yet dawned.

    We didn’t need to test, the French did. I think the fact that there is a British deterrent and a French deterrent makes the world safer than it would be without them and if one looks at any of the less stable states who may be near to nuclear weapons or biological weapons or chemical weapons, I think you see the strong reasons why Britain wants to maintain its nuclear weapon and will retain its nuclear weapon until we consider it safe not to.

    What I found very striking in that whole episode was the way in which the British Labour Party jumps around trying to score domestic points that can have only one implication and the implication is that the British nuclear weapon would not be safe if there was a British Labour Government. It is another illustration where the gap between what they say and what they really think is very wide and when what they really think comes out, as it did in their attempts to be difficult on that issue over the last few days, you see that they have not moved nearly as far in policy as they have occasionally with their oratory. There is a great gap between what they think, what they really believe and what they say and that was exposed yet again over this issue.

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley – BBC):

    If your scientists came to you tomorrow and said you needed to test, you would test?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    My scientists have come to me and told me I don’t need to test so it won’t arise but that wasn’t the happy position that President Chirac was in.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Ken Saro-Wiwa – 9 November 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on Ken Saro-Wiwa, made in an interview on 9th November 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if Nigeria could stay in the Commonwealth following the trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It was a bad trial, a bad judgement and an unjust sentence and the Commonwealth will make that point very clear to Nigeria when it asks for clemency, but my principal concern at the moment is to save the lives of the people who are presently under threat and we will use all our endeavours to do that. I don’t think going beyond that and uttering threats of what might happen subsequently is a helpful way of securing that primary interest – saving the lives of the people who are at present at risk.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if anyone else could exert pressure on Nigeria].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think a number of countries can exert influence, certainly the leaders of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, President Mugabe of course, President Mandela self-evidently and others will all have a particular role to play and I believe they will play that role.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked about whether Nigeria’s actions would just be forgotten about].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, of course not but one needs to remember that the Commonwealth concern about Nigeria and other countries was on our agenda before the sentences on Mr Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues; it isn’t something that has just blown up at a result of that particular trial and those particular sentences, it was on the agenda beforehand and has been for some time so self-evidently we will be looking to see what can be done.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the Britain in the World Conference – 29 March 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the “Britain in the World” conference, held in London on Wednesday 29th March 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. When I heard Jim was here chairing the conference I tore up my speech and prepared 32 interruptions.

    The motto to this conference today perhaps is best epitomised by a leading British Ambassador, now retired, who kept what became a very famous plaque in the middle of his desk, and in capital letters it bore a single word upon it: “THINK” – not I think a bad motto. And these days when Ministers and officials, pre-occupied perhaps obsessively sometimes with the immediate issues of the day, find themselves constantly under pressure to react, and react immediately, perhaps thinking long-term thinking may be thought to be an optional extra, but in truth it is not, it is essential.

    And thinking of course, thinking widely, perhaps quite outside the normal drift of thinking, is precisely what today’s conference is about. In its 75 distinguished years Chatham House has done a very great deal of useful thinking about foreign policy and in doing so it has provoked a great deal of thought amongst others, and I warmly congratulate it for that.

    I congratulate also both Chatham House and Douglas Hurd in bringing together on this occasion industrialists, bankers, politicians, public servants, academics, journalists, non-governmental experts and specialists in a range of different fields. Britain’s place in the world, in a different way perhaps, is of concern to all of us present today and everyone else in the country.

    And I am delighted also that later on today the conference will hear of how the United Kingdom looks from the outside from two very eminent speakers, Dr Kissinger and Dr Joffe, and I am delighted to see them both here today.

    Mr Chairman, this conference might equally have been entitled Britain in the Wider World, because over recent years the domestic debate in Britain has perhaps too often focused, and too narrowly focused, simply upon the internal workings of the European Union. And of course they are vitally important to our interests in this country, but so too are the United Kingdom’s interests and responsibilities in the other four continents and the oceans between, to which the other half, and at the moment a growing half, of our international trade goes.

    So I think it is right to widen the focus today, to ask whether this medium size country of ours of 55 million people really needs a global foreign policy, and if so, how we should operate it over the next quarter of a century or so. And I think the timing is right to look at that as well because there is a sense in which one historical period has ended and another is just beginning. It is surprisingly 70 years ago since Winston Churchill said: “What a terrible century the 20th Century has been”. Well a terrible 20th Century, savagely deformed by totalitarianism, by fascism, by World War and by Cold War, but marked also by astonishing technological progress, and yet it has ended sooner and more suddenly than anyone could have foreseen. And it is not merely, I believe, that the world is changing faster than ever before, it is at least as much that the rate of that change is accelerating. Events happen on a speed and on a scale which risks running beyond the control of governments and of international institutions.

    Let me give you but one graphic example in the 24 hour global money market. Ten years ago daily currency flows were of the order of 300 billion dollars. Now, thanks to computerisation and space-age communications, 1 trillion dollars can cross the exchanges in a single day. So 10 years ago central bank intervention could be decisive. I suspect that can no longer be the case and a different approach is needed.

    And change of a different sort has affected international politics and security. Today’s world is less predictable and perhaps more volatile than at any time in the past half century. The old known threats to stability, huge though they were say during the Korean war, the Berlin Blockage and the Cuban Missile crisis, they have changed, they have been changed, supplanted by new, often unknown and diverse risks. For example, international terrorism, some of it state-sponsored, must be high on the agenda of all responsible governments and so is the need to deny the most destructive modern technology to extremist regimes.

    I would like this morning to divide my remarks really into two parts. And first, as a backdrop to your discussions today, I would like to describe in outline the British government’s broad approach to the world. And then I would like to pose some questions to you, questions about how we should respond to the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead.

    I suspect, looking at this audience, that I scarcely need to remind them of Dean Acheson’s famous dictum in the ’60s, that Britain had lost an empire and not found a role. It hurt, it hurt at the time because Dean Acheson was uncomfortably close to the truth when he said it, and that is why we hated him for saying it.

    But that was 33 years ago. Britain has found her role in Europe and around the world and has developed it more successfully than many people in this country appreciate. We have operated in that time as a leading member of NATO and the European Union, a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, part of the Group of Seven Economic Summit countries, and of course as a founder member of the Commonwealth. The UK now has troops deployed or stationed in over 40 countries around the world in a wider variety of roles than ever before. The end of the Cold War may have led us to reduce the size of our Armed Forces, but not their quality which we believe remains the equal of any in the world, and nor their importance to this country for which the Armed Forces remain an outstanding national asset.

    We have begun I think more than ever before to realise the power of our language and of our culture. We have built up a remarkable portfolio of investments overseas. Per head the United Kingdom’s direct investment is higher than that of the United States, of Japan, of France or of Germany. Our global investments are said to be worth around 300 billion dollars and only Japan and the United States can exceed that sum. And that very naturally gives this country a very lively interest in what happens practically anywhere across the globe.

    I will not attempt this morning a full inventory of our national interests, but let me try and define some of the main characteristics of the United Kingdom in the world.

    First, this is a nation state, a nation state in what I firmly believe will continue to be a world of nation states for the foreseeable future. We are attached to our independence, to our sovereignty and also to our national peculiarities. But there are numerous interests that we necessarily share with others. We work particularly closely with our partners in the European Union which remains essential to our prosperity and to our security. The world may no longer be divided into rigid blocks, and nations must act more closely together than ever before to deal with the global, economic and security problems that we all must face.

    And second, it follows inevitably from what I have just said that we have at the moment a global foreign policy. Prescriptions for areas of concentration and inner and outer circles were floated in the 1960s and they were done then on a pessimistic analysis of the future outlook for Britain. We did not follow them at that time and I think the politicians of the day were right not to follow them for events have shown that that is the case.

    Thirdly, no less than in past centuries, the United Kingdom remains a trading nation, but in a world where invisibles are now as important as visible trade, and one quarter of our GDP comes from external trade. Export success, investment success, have both helped our current account to go down dramatically last year from nearly 12 billion to more or less zero and we now have a current account surplus with Japan, a point perhaps not generally recognised in every part of the country.

    Promoting trade is an important part of our activities, an important part of my own business abroad whenever I travel. The Indo-British Partnership which I launched in India has helped the surge in trade. Visits to other parts of the world that I have made and that other senior Ministers have made have so often taken with them large parties of British businessmen interested in trading with the countries abroad, investing in countries abroad and attracting investment from those countries into the United Kingdom.

    Those of you who are here today who are businessmen will have noticed, I believe should have noticed, a cultural change in British diplomacy abroad. Carlton Brown has left the Foreign Office and the Foreign Office now devotes far more of its overseas resources to commercial work than to any other front-line activity, and rightly so. And that has made a significant difference to the way in which British commercial interests can be represented overseas.

    And fourthly, the United Kingdom remains one of the world’s leading free market democracies. We actively promote democratic values and liberal economics in our foreign policy, not simply to proselytise but because in our view they are the best guarantors of peace and of stability.

    And fifth, we have stopped taking for granted the English language, British science, education, training and broadcasting, we realise precisely what assets they are and what can be done with them both at home and abroad. Through immense good fortune the United Kingdom originated the world’s most valuable piece of intellectual property – its main international and business language – and we are now marketing it more aggressively than ever before.

    Let me add one more characteristic. The United Kingdom is a conservative country, with a small ‘c’. We have enjoyed enviable stability over centuries and we cherish our institutions – Monarchy, parliamentary government, a rigidly impartial Civil Service, professional Armed Forces, an independent judiciary and churches operating within religious tolerance. It has become fashionable in some circles, some cynical quarters, to snipe at those institutions. I believe that is a destructive tendency, but it will pass because those institutions remain the bedrock of this nation and the bedrock of Britain’s place in the world and they will outlast superficial criticism.

    But the essential conservatism of the British, and I am not making a party political point here, it spans the political divide, should not be mis-read in any sense. We are rightly averse to revolutions but we are not afraid of change or of risk. And indeed I would go further. I think that our willingness to take intelligent risks, to act sometimes quickly and independently and to give a political lead, underpins Britain’s standing in the world. It explains why, despite nature’s inevitable limits on our size and resources, the UK is one of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council and has the world’s sixth largest economy. It is not a quality that we should permit to be submerged, it brings value not only to this country but to the international community as a whole. And let me perhaps put some flesh on that assertion, some illustrations from current policy.

    One revolution we did back, and backed sometime before it became fashionable to do so, was Gorbachev’s revolution in Russia. We did not hesitate to support the reformers when they came under attack, both under Gorbachev and under Yeltsin, and we have no intention of changing direction now. It may take a generation, perhaps longer, before Russia has a full range of effective democratic institutions, more time still before its people enjoy the standard of living we take for granted here, but we shall continue to take the long view for I believe that is the wise view to take with the changes taking place in Russia.

    There will inevitably be set-backs. Chechnya I believe is one such example. The Russians there faced an unenviable problem. But the response of Russian military commanders was wrong and it was brutal, as many Russians to their credit will acknowledge. The fighting there must be brought to an end, international conventions and norms of behaviour must be respected. We should not pull our punches at all over Chechnya, but that huge error does not toll the knell of economic and political reform in Russia, it remains in our interest in this country and in the West to encourage reform in Russia and to develop further cooperation in foreign policy. And that is why I stand by my decision to recognise our common sacrifice in the World War II by going to Moscow in May, as I promised President Yeltsin last September. And it is also why I continue to support Russian participation in the Halifax Summit later this year.

    We have taken a similarly long-term view of China. No longer these days is China a sleeping giant. We have welcomed China’s advance on the world scene, we would like to bring China into economic partnership and political dialogue. But at the same time we have not minced our words about human rights and their abuse in China. We are fulfilling our vital responsibilities to Hong Kong. That approach has not been free of risk but I believe it has earned respect and we will continue with it.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    When Yugoslavia erupted, the United Kingdom didn’t hang back. we sent in an emergency aid programme which remains the lynchpin of the international humanitarian effort. We convened the international conference in London against I may say a very unpromising background indeed and got a diplomatic process moving. The UK was amongst the first to deploy troops to UNPROFOR in Bosnia and our large contingent has performed outstandingly there. I am in no doubt whatever that the suffering in Bosnia would have been far worse without the steps that we took and that the war would almost certainly have spread perhaps southwards, perhaps wider to a full-scale Balkan conflict.

    That Bosnian problem is still with us and may I fear be with us for some years to come. In the past few days, fighting flared up again in Tusla, in Kravnik, even though the cease-fire has yet another month to run and if there is all-out war in Bosnia, UNPROFOR’s position could become untenable but sooner or later the Bosnian parties will need to find a negotiated outcome and there will be no clear-cut military solution and the sooner that is recognised the better. But however hard the task, it is in Britain’s interest, working with Europe and the Contact Group, to edge the parties towards a settlement.

    Two weeks ago, I visited Israel, Palestine and Jordan. It is an area fraught with political risk but the United Kingdom has huge interests and a longstanding affection for the Middle East. I was the first G7 Head of Government to visit Chairman Arafat in Gaza and I went because we have an interest in supporting the peace process. Yasser Arafat asked me on that occasion if the European Union would coordinate international monitoring of the Palestinian elections and the Israeli government, when I spoke to them, supported this request. I hope that the European Union will now agree to take on that task and thereby to engage more directly than ever before in the attempt to build peace in the Middle East.

    We have had to take risks over Iraq. We took losses in the Gulf War and broke new ground promoting safe havens for the Kurds. When Saddam threatened Kuwait again last year, we responded very rapidly and in force. Now, Saddam Hussein is trying to blackmail the Security Council by causing his people to suffer. The world must not give in to such tactics, Saddam must comply with the United Nations obligations and must never again be permitted to threaten Iraq’s neighbours but we must also help the Iraqi people, themselves innocent, who are as much his victims as anyone else and we must do that by standing robustly against Saddam’s wanton abuse of human rights and declining any compromise or accommodation with him whatever his blandishments and of course by trying to get aid through to those who are today suffering. Britain is therefore launching a new proposal in the Security Council to allow Iraq to sell oil and thereby import food and medicines. We wish to see an end to malnutrition and deaths from curable diseases. Saddam must show whether he has any concern for his people and I hope he will take up the offer that now lies before him.

    Neither, Chairman, has our commitment to the Kurds of northern Iraq diminished. I understand Turkish concerns about PKK terrorism but Turkey itself should remain within the rule of law. We look to Turkey to withdraw its forces as soon as possible and to avoid harm to non-combatants and to relief efforts.

    South Africa, like Russia, is at the beginning of a long-term transition without a guaranteed outcome. It would have been wrong for the United Kingdom to hold back and wait and see what happened so we are doing all that we can to help this remarkable transition we see daily in South Africa move towards success. I believe the United Kingdom can be a tremendous power for good in South Africa provided we don’t shy away from taking risks and there could be no better demonstration of this than last week’s outstandingly successful state visit by the Queen in which the Foreign Secretary took part.

    Finally perhaps Ireland. For the past four years, we have worked more closely than ever before in our history with the Republic of Ireland and we have done so to promote peace in Northern Ireland. In doing this, the British and Irish Governments had to overcome historic tensions and entrenched positions. It hasn’t been an easy process for either of us and many more difficulties remain to be surmounted but a lasting settlement will only come about if all concerned are prepared to risk a new approach.

    That, Mr. Chairman, is the sort of country I believe us to be and that I wish us to remain, perhaps a little less cautious and a lot more hard-headed than many people may believe.

    Now let me take the opportunity of speaking first at this Conference by throwing some of the difficult questions at you that governments will have to grapple with within the next quarter of a century and we perhaps may benefit from your advice today.

    How should the United Kingdom respond to future challenges and opportunities? If the last quarter of a century is anything to go by, the world in 2020 will be a very different place from the one we meet in today. By then, the Asian tigers, once aid recipients bearing a Third World label, should be prosperous players in the economic first division. How is that going to change the balance of political power around the world?

    Will China realise her huge potential and if so, to what effect? Will Latin America have consolidated democracy and taken off economically? Will South Africa have helped to generate an upturn not just in her own country but perhaps in all Africa south of the Sahara? What will be the consequences of the serious and mounting instability in North Africa? And in Europe we will, I hope, have embedded the new democracies of central and eastern Europe within an enlarged European Union but will we also have developed a close and harmonious relationship with the large states further to the east, with Russia and with Ukraine? How can we be sure of avoiding, as we must, a new dividing line down the centre of our European continent? Another question of some importance: to what extent will the United States still be engaged as an active partner in European security?

    Technology has made a huge change to the way in which the world operates. Instant television reporting can move public opinion in an instant, easy air travel brings people together more frequently at all levels, telecommunications and computerisation have revolutionised the work of overseas outposts, heads of government these days can pick up the telephone and speak to forty or fifty other heads of government whom they personally know and have met in a way that their predecessors could never have imagined and how will the march of technology affect us over the next generation?

    This is by no means an inclusive list but these are some of the variables in long-term thinking that are necessary for the present generation of politicians and businessmen and diplomatists to consider. Of course, we are often overwhelmed by short-term problems but how refreshing it will be to see some of these longer-term problems examined, considered and debated so that the public mood may be taken and the public wisdom gauged.

    What policies should we now be shaping to equip the United Kingdom for change to take advantage of the new opportunities, to be ahead of the curve as events move on and what is going to happen to the institutions of which we are a part?

    Let me here identify some of the key issues, turning first to the United Nations. The United Kingdom has supported the United Nations from its birth and played a leading role in it. Recently, we have been a leader of continuing efforts to reform the United Nations and make it more cost-effective and arguably – some would say unarguably – the need for a powerful, compelling United Nations has never been greater. The world is certainly replete with both man-made and with natural disasters and yet as we say that we see something else at the same time: the United Nations is in a profound financial crisis which is set to deepen; despite American arrears of $1.5 billion, the Congress has voted to reduce the United States contribution. Does the financial crisis present an opportunity for us to press for really effective reforms in the United Nations and if so, in what direction?

    Second, that crucial transatlantic relationship. Britain has a vast range of shared interests with the United States which I shall be discussing next week with President Clinton. We have traditionally favoured both a strong Europe and a strong relationship with North America. How can we help promote ties between the two heartlands of democracy now that we are no longer bonded together by shared fears over the Cold War? We have seen the first stirrings of a debate in Britain and in Europe about a new transatlantic community, it is a worthy aspiration but how should it be developed?

    Third, the United Kingdom and Germany have led the drive to extend western Europe’s security and prosperity to the east, to bring the countries of central Europe into the European Union and by forming closer ties with Russia and with Ukraine and this will require a huge political and economic effort over many years; it will require us to take the domestic strain of opening the markets of western Europe and of investing more in the east. Is this an attainable goal? Is western Europe simply strong enough to undertake that job?

    Fourthly, is our diplomacy adapting fast enough to new international problems?

    Some of the most acute threats to our interests and to our way of life are not posed by dictators, not posed by traditional conflicts but by terrorism and by crime, by the narcotics trade, by extremism in the name of religion, by diminishing natural resources and by environmental pollution. Do these problems receive a high enough priority? What new approaches to these problems should we now be developing?

    Fifth, how do we play our proper part in tackling world poverty? Official development aid can point to some successes, for example in South Asia, but it is trade, investment, education and entrepreneurship which have fuelled the more spectacular development of South East Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa have seen little improvement in their living standard despite huge flows of official aid over many years. How can we promote investment and entrepreneurship there? Is there still a rationale for official aid, tackling emergencies, promoting reform and spreading know-how? We have in the United Kingdom a tightly-administered aid agency in the ODA, it delivers both value for money and I believe credit to this country but increasingly the British bilateral aid budget is being swallowed up by our contributions to the multilateral programmes of the European Union so looking into the next century, what kind of aid programme should we maintain?

    Without pre-empting the many questions already on the agenda, let me just raise one final point. I am a firm believer in the Commonwealth. It is more of a family than an institution and it brings us together with nearly one-third of the world’s nations. Sometimes we make good use of its assets as in the Trinidad Terms initiative or the Harare initiative on good government but if we don’t keep using it, then I believe we will lose it. The Commonwealth needs a focus, it needs a raison d’etre; what should it be as we look at the years ahead?

    Mr. Chairman, as the opening speaker, I have had a luxury perhaps denied to others, a luxury of raising questions and inviting you to debate and perhaps supply some of the answers but I hope in some way I may have done a little more than that. I believe that this Conference is about building on success. The United Kingdom, as an island with a trading and a seafaring tradition, has always looked outwards. I am sure that we should continue to look outwards. We cannot afford a “Little Englander” mentality and frankly, I see little danger of that but I do think we will have to work even harder in the future to maintain the United Kingdom’s influence and a healthy competitive position.

    I hope that the outcome of today’s Conference will help to guide our way in the years ahead, I hope it will inject fresh thinking into our external strategy, I hope it will assess our strengths and our assets critically but fairly and suggest how they can be best applied to the greatest benefit. If this gathering of nearly 700 people with such wide experience at home and abroad can do that, as I believe it can, then Chatham House in the Institute’s 75th year will have made yet another invaluable contribution to national policy and for that we may all be grateful. [Applause].

  • Mr Major’s Comments on India – 24 January 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on India, made in Delhi on 24th January 1993.

    QUESTION:

    [The Prime Minister was asked whether he thought the Indo-British relationship was damaged by Britain’s new role in the European Union]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, I do not see how they can and I certainly do not think whatever may happen within the European Community will affect them in the slightest. The relationship that exists between England, the United Kingdom and India is based on years of history, on years of common interest. They are both leading members of the Commonwealth, we have a common view on many international problems. Now I see that as a quite separate matter from our relationship with the European Community and an enduring matters. I would have suggested, and I daresay most Indian politicians would agree with me, that the present relationship between my country and India is as good today as at any time for very many years past and I see no reason why it cannot continue to stay that way.

    QUESTION:

    [The Prime Minister was asked about the future of the Commonwealth]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Oh yes, I do not have a shred of doubt about the future of the Commonwealth. You cannot break up the sort of links that have been built up between Commonwealth countries over recent years. You cannot always point to them in tangible form in the same way that one may have a direct trading relationship with a near neighbour, but they are links of language, they are links of history, they are links of interest and they are links of common interest. So I do not have any reservations about the future of the Commonwealth, I have deliberately sought to manoeuvre Britain’s position back into the centre of the Commonwealth, I think that is where she belongs and I wish to see the Commonwealth strengthened. I very much expect in the years to come that other countries will wish to join the Commonwealth and I see no-one wishing to leave it and I think that perhaps is the clearest illustration of its continuing strength.

  • PMQT – 22 October 1991

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 22nd October 1991. John MacGregor responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Dr. Twinn : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 22 October.

    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor) : I have been asked to reply My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is returning from a highly successful performance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare.

    Dr. Twinn : Will my right hon. Friend take time today to consult our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence about the effects of a 27 per cent. cut in the defence budget? Will he further consult about the effects–especially on Scottish regiments–of a 50 per cent. cut in the defence budget?

    Mr. MacGregor : I think that my hon. Friend is referring to the policies of the Labour and Liberal parties on defence. The Labour party’s conference proposals, which a future Labour Government would be pressurised into accepting, would mean defence cuts of about £6 billion– [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker : Order. The Leader of the House must put his own interpretation on the question.

    Mr. MacGregor : He is also answering the question. That would be more than the nation spends on the Army and Navy together. The Liberal’s proposals would mean a cut in the Army of nearly 50,000 men below the level set out in “Options for Change”. That is the equivalent of no Scottish regiments and no soldiers from Scotland. I hope that the whole nation and especially those with interests in defence and defence jobs will note the consequences of their policies and the contrast with ours.

    Mr. Kinnock : Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to agree with the Secretary of State for Health in repudiating tax relief on private health insurance for the over-60s, or does he agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the scheme should be commended as

    “definitely a way of getting more resources into the Health Service.”–[ Official Report , 12 July 1989 ; Vol. 156, c. 1024.]

    Mr. MacGregor : My right. hon. Friend was making it clear that he did not believe that there should be an extension of that particular scheme. Obviously, tax proposals are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

    Mr. Kinnock : The right hon. Gentleman’s memory is not serving him well. Just 48 hours ago the Secretary of State for Health said that he would not be at all surprised if the whole scheme was dropped in the next Budget. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that over a three-year period the Government are spending £150 million on supporting private health insurance. Would not that sum be better spent on maintaining and improving services in the national health service for elderly patients who are being hit by the closure of geriatric wards?

    Mr. MacGregor : The right hon. Gentleman knows that the figure is £60 million. Perhaps he should now answer the question that was put repeatedly yesterday and that has not been answered. How does the Labour party propose to fund and find the additional £650 million which would result from its changes in policies on charges, contracting out and the minimum wage? Those policies would reduce patient care and the Labour party refuses to answer.

    Mr. Kinnock : Will the right hon. Gentleman, deputising for the Prime Minister, now answer the question that I asked him? The Secretary of State for Health has repudiated the private scheme. The Chancellor of the Exchequer supports the scheme. What does the right hon. Gentleman think? Does he agree that the money would be better spent in the national health service helping the elderly with their needs instead of funding private health insurance?

    Mr. MacGregor : I have already made it clear that what my right hon. Friend said was that he did not believe that there should be any extension of the scheme. The point is that the £60 million being devoted to the scheme is very small compared with the £650 million that would be taken away from patient care as a result of the Labour party’s changes in policy.

     

    Q2. Mr. Michael Brown : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 22 October.

    Mr. MacGregor : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Brown : Will my right hon. Friend reflect today, as we complete the 12th Session of this Government, that after those 12 years, 1.4 million people now own their council homes and 9 million people are now shareholders for the first time? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that those people will look forward to the Prime Minister’s proposals for the reform of inheritance tax? Will he condemn those who oppose that reform, who are displaying not only the politics of envy, but the politics of revenge?

    Mr. MacGregor : I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. One of the many great achievements of the 1980s has been the big increase in and wider spread of ownership throughout the community. It is no wonder that the Labour party looks to inheritance tax as a means of financing its high-spending policies. As my hon. Friend points out, Labour opposed all the policies that have brought about the greater increase in home ownership and the much wider spread of share ownership.

    Mr. Cousins : Is not it disgraceful that neither the Prime Minister nor any Cabinet minister has met representatives of the people and the police from Newcastle upon Tyne, where every day police and fire officers face more incidents than anywhere else in Britain, where every day, because of poll tax capping, care, schools and youth clubs are being cut and where every day, old people and women face a relentless campaign and a wave of crime and harassment? Is not that the real city challenge and have not the Government failed?

    Mr. MacGregor : It is this Government who have constantly increased resources to the police, who have put police pay on a competitive level, who have considerably increased the numbers of police, who have supported them in all the difficult tasks that they do and who throughout have taken many steps to deal with the sort of problems that the hon. Gentleman mentions. It is this party which has put substantial resources and substantial support behind them.

    Mr. Allason : Has my right hon. Friend read early-day motion 1286 on today’s Order Paper? Will he ask the Prime Minister, as head of the security and intelligence services, to order an immediate inquiry into the alleged relationship between the Israeli intelligence service and Robert Maxwell and especially Mr. Nicholas Davies, the news editor of the Daily Mirror?

    Mr. MacGregor : If any questions are raised about export sales to Iran–about this issue–which justify an investigation by the Department of Trade and Industry and any evidence is provided, I am sure that it will do so.

    Mr. Ashdown : Does the right hon. Gentleman feel any remorse at the fact that, over the next few months, thousands of business men and tens of thousands of their employees will pay with their jobs and their livelihoods for the Government’s economic mismanagement?

    Mr. MacGregor : The right hon. Gentleman knows that the most important way to ensure long-term prosperity and competitiveness is to get inflation down to competitive levels, as we have succeeded in doing. The right hon. Gentleman also knows that, throughout the 1980s, we saw substantial increases in the number of new businesses that have lasted, in the number of growing businesses and in new jobs. Of course, we regret the increase in unemployment, but I believe that it is our policies that will give us the path for growth in the 1990s that we had in the 1980s. It is important to recollect that about half those who become unemployed find a new job within three months. The policies that we have been pursuing have enabled that to happen.

     

    York

    Q4. Mr. Gregory : To ask the Prime Minister if he has any plans to make an official visit to York.

    Mr. MacGregor : I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is to make a series of visits to all parts of the country and very much hopes to include York.

    Mr. Gregory : My right hon. Friend will no doubt recall the campaign by animal lovers in York and, in particular, by the York branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to outlaw the export of live horses. Will he accept the grateful thanks of all those involved for the determined stand taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food last night, to ensure that our national rules continue and that such deplorable exports do not take place?

    Mr. MacGregor : I am well aware of the feelings in York. All hon. Members–certainly Conservative Members–are well aware of the concern felt by many at the possibility of changes in relation to our existing trade in horses policy, especially our restrictions on the export of live horses for slaughter. I am sure, therefore, that the whole House will wish to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on securing a most successful outcome to the Community negotiations and on ensuring that our policies on that issue can be maintained.

    I would go further. On the directive as a whole, there is no doubt that the United Kingdom has taken the lead in ensuring proper welfare safeguards in the transport of animals and that we have achieved significant improvements. That shows the high priority that we have attached to the matter.

     

    Engagements

    Q4. Mr. Morgan : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 22 October.

    Mr. MacGregor : I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave a few moments ago.

    Mr. Morgan : Following the statement by the Secretary of State for Health to the House yesterday, to the effect that it was illegal for NHS patients to be charged for services–except for the three categories prescribed by law–what redress does the right hon. Gentleman, who is standing in for the Prime Minister today, suggest to my constituent, Mr. Charlie Harding of Ely, who was charged £100 for his nebuliser by Llandough hospital’s chest medicine department and who is still paying £32 a year for the nebuliser to be maintained? Mr. Harding was torpedoed during world war 2 and is now being torpedoed again by this two- faced Government, who say that charging is wrong but who do not do anything about it? What redress does the right hon. Gentleman have in mind to help Charlie Harding get his money back?

    Mr. MacGregor : I understand that the health authority has provided the nebuliser on loan and the hon. Gentleman will know–

    Mr. Morgan : It is a different case.

    Mr. MacGregor : In one particular case, the equipment has been provided on loan. With regard to other cases, I wish to make the position absolutely clear. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that there will be no charges for patients on the national health service and we will look at cases where payments have already been made.

    Mr. Brandon-Bravo : Like my hon. Friends, I know that my right hon. Friend very much welcomes the statement by the Secretary of State for Health yesterday, especially with regard to our additional provision for residential homes. Will my right hon. Friend note, comment upon and compare our caring approach on residential homes with the approach of the Labour party, whose friends in Nottinghamshire have spent the past six months trying to close the 12 homes in our county?

    Mr. MacGregor : I agree with my hon. Friend. The policies that we have been pursuing in respect of care in the community, which includes residential homes, have very considerably improved the care and resources devoted to such elderly residents. I am sure that all hon. Members will welcome the additional resources–well above the level of inflation–that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced yesterday for them.

     

    Q5. Mr. Canavan : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 22 October.

    Mr. MacGregor : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Canavan : Will the Leader of the House now settle the dispute between the Secretary of State for Health, who told the House yesterday that it is illegal to charge national health patients for fertility treatment, and the Scottish Office Minister with responsibility for health, who claimed that it is perfectly legal? No matter who is right or wrong with regard to the legal technicalities, will the Government intervene now to ensure that such treatment is available free on the NHS?

    Mr. MacGregor : The position is absolutely clear. It is illegal for the NHS to charge NHS patients except in the limited respects allowed by statute. The NHS has, of course, never provided every service in every area. It is up to local health authorities to decide local priorities– [Hon. Members :– “Ah!”] That has always been the case and it was the case under the previous Government. There is nothing unusual about that. As I said to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), if there are specific examples of NHS bodies overstepping the law, we shall investigate them.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with President Vassiliou – 21 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with President Vassiliou of Cyprus, given in Harare on 21st October 1991.

    PRESIDENT VASSILIOU:

    We had an extremely useful and interesting meeting with Prime Minister, John Major. I had the opportunity to discuss with him the latest developments on the Cyprus issue, the latest Resolution by the Security Council and I also used the opportunity to express our thanks to him both for the support of the UK Government and of the Commonwealth in our efforts to have a solution as quick as possible and I would like to thank you once more for your understanding and your goodwill, Prime Minister.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you President Vassiliou and I have had a number of meetings over the last year and we keep in close touch about the particularly intractable problem of Cyprus. We all want to see a solution, a satisfactory solution. We very strongly have supported the moves by the Secretary-General to that effect. We hope we are going to see an international conference. We hope we are going to see a settlement. It is our very clear view that that is in the interests of everyone who lives on the island of Cyprus. The sooner the better and I hope everyone will work to that end.

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference in Harare – 21 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference, held in Harare on Monday 21st October 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I would like to say first of all that the organisation of this conference has been a very remarkable achievement by President Mugabe and his government and by the Secretary General and his staff. It is no mean feat to organise a conference of fifty Heads of State and Government and we have all had the warmest possible welcome and hospitality. The only slight drawback in the midst of what has been a very enjoyable and productive week is the fact that one of my Commonwealth colleagues appears to have handed me a cold, though the donor thus far has been unwilling to admit who it is. We will seek to track him down.

    I think we have achieved a lot in the last week and we have achieved a lot against a background of very remarkable changes since we last met in Kuala Lumpur two years ago. There has been a rebirth of democracy around the world, a point made repeatedly by Heads of many governments over the past few days. But second, there has been a growing realisation that in terms of government, our economies and our political life, we are increasingly one world. And that is the theme that has run through all our discussions over the past week.

    In the past from time to time the Commonwealth has often been divided. But the factors which unite it have always brought the members together again. And when we sit round the table it is quite remarkable to contemplate nearly fifty countries from every continent. The superficial differences are clearly vast – size, wealth, colour, religion – but sitting down together we do all speak the same language both literally and metaphorically. I can think of no other international meeting of this sort that needs no interpreter or any other meeting where as the Prime Minister of St Lucia remarked the other evening “It is not cricket” and everybody knew precisely what he meant.

    So we have been determined during this week to use the collective strength of the Commonwealth to secure real achievements and believe that is reflected in the outcome of our discussions, though more of this will be apparent of course when the communique is issued and I cannot anticipate that at this stage.

    But firstly the Harare declaration. All the members of the Commonwealth have pledged themselves to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental human rights as well as the sound economic and political management. In short, all those matters that collectively come together under the term of good government.

    And second, the Harare declaration puts new responsibilities on the shoulders of all Commonwealth countries. Let me say quite clearly that Britain is prepared to bear its share of those responsibilities and that is why I announced last week that if necessary Britain would implement the Trinidad terms even if all other countries cannot join in immediately. Though I would like to say how delighted I was when Mr Mulroney for Canada immediately said he would do the same and Mr Hawke for Australia undertook to look positively and sympathetically at what we proposed. And I was also very pleased at the favourable response from many Commonwealth leaders at the conference.

    Thirdly, we are determined to step up our cooperation on the environment in the run-up to next year’s United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. It is a very important conference and I think it needs proper preparation and the widest possible attendance.

    And there were three points from that meeting that I emphasised in our discussions this week. Firstly that we need a convention on climate change signed by the greatest possible number of countries. Secondly that we need agreements to conserve the plant and animal species of our planet. And thirdly that we need a statement of principles to safeguard our forests, which are vital for national economies, for the purity of the air we breathe, for reducing global warming and for preserving biodiversity. And all these are matters that I hope the Commonwealth will be united on and I hope the Commonwealth will collectively go to Rio de Janeiro and fight for those three important matters.

    Fourthly, South Africa. South Africa was a dominant problem in the 1980s but the problem of the 1980s should now be the opportunity of the 1990s. Since we met two years ago there have been remarkable and positive changes in South Africa which we have all recognised at this conference this week. And we are agreed this week that we want to see rapid progress towards a constitutional conference and democratic majority rule government in South Africa. There is no disagreement about that in the Commonwealth.

    Of course only the parties themselves can reach agreement on a constitution, but if the Commonwealth can help then we should be ready to do so and it is for that reason that we have asked the Secretary General to visit South Africa and report back to those of us who constitute the high level appraisal group.

    I had a useful meeting during the week with Mr Mandela with whom I have been in frequent touch over the past few months. We naturally talked about the violence in South Africa and discussed the offer which the British Government has made to the South African government to share with them our expertise on community policing.

    I explained our view that with the South African economy stagnant, that with the South African population growing at very nearly 3 percent a year, early opportunities for investment will be vital. And I argued that if the decision was delayed until the very last stage of the constitutional progress then the benefit of new investment would not be felt in terms of growth and jobs for many years. Now that is the one point of difference between Britain and our partners in the Commonwealth, it is a difference of judgment about how we achieve a common goal, there is no argument whatsoever about the goal itself.

    Fifthly, there was absolute agreement that there must be a successful outcome to the Uruguay Round, failure would be an absolute hammerblow for the developing countries, the cost to them of protectionism in the industrial world currently exceeds the total value of the aid that they receive from the industrial world. And I put the quite bluntly and quite frankly, there is little point in the developed countries providing aid for economic development if the developed countries then deny access to our markets for those very same countries.

    This meeting this week has reaffirmed the common culture, value and goals of the Commonwealth. We have in the Commonwealth no legal powers of enforcement to make individual members live up to the goals we have agreed. But I come back to the theme of one world I mentioned earlier, a coup in the Soviet Union or a coup in Haiti is no longer regarded as simply the business of the countries concerned. And the Harare declaration is not a string of words to forget but a roadmap for our future progress and it will be backed up by practical measures, including technical and training assistance and the increasingly important role of Commonwealth monitoring of free elections.

    So I think it has been a good week. It has been a week that can best be summed up in the words of the Harare Declaration itself in which we expressed, and I may quote:

    “Our determination to renew and enhance the value and importance of the Commonwealth as an institution which can and should strengthen and enrich the lives not only of its own members and their peoples but also the wider community and peoples of which they are a part”.

    That is what I think we have set ourselves to do this week and I believe it has been a very good week for the Commonwealth.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley, The Times):

    Prime Minister, what guarantee can there be that this will not turn out to be all words this week? The actual Harare declaration does not offer us very different words to what was in the Singapore declaration in 1971. If it proves over the next two years to be nothing more than words, would you push for some kind of sanctions against backsliders at the next CHOGM in two years time?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think it is a mixture of carrot and stick. Clearly I am much more concerned about the carrot. We set out here, and everybody without dissent has put their name and their reputation and their country’s policy behind the declaration that we have. I do not believe that this declaration, Robin, is a declaration that would have been available two years ago or four years ago, we simply would not have been able to reach agreement on it, we have this year. No doubt it will not operate perfectly in all respects but I think the extent of peer pressure and the extent to which we are increasingly independent will put a very considerable amount of practical pressure on people who may fall short of the principles that are actually there.

    You are accurate in saying that we have no obvious mechanism for enforcing this. But I think the collective view of the other members of the Commonwealth is a potential force that will encourage people. In the first instance we would want to encourage them in a very positive way, I do not at this stage want to talk about negative ways in which we might apply encouragement.

    QUESTION (Paul Reynolds, BBC Radio):

    Can you say whether there is a British reserve on the sanctions issue and without prejudicing the wording of the communique perhaps you could explain how you have sought to resolve the difference between the Commonwealth’s approval of the Foreign Minister’s Committee and your own approach?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I cannot anticipate what is in the communique, I think it would be improper to do so, but I think it will be apparent that there is complete agreement about what the goal is in South Africa. As I said a moment ago, there is a difference of view between Britain and the Commonwealth about the pace at which we develop in some aspects but I think to go beyond that until the communique itself has been published would be unfair on my colleagues and I hope you will forgive me if I do not.

    QUESTION (Commonwealth Human Ecology Council):

    We have been particularly struck with your references to rain forests, we also know Britain’s support for the rain forest programmes, your references again this morning put emphasis on plant and animal biodiversity. We would like to ask you if you also are sufficiently sensitive and aware of the project within the Guyanan Commonwealth Rain forest which is dealing with the Amerindians and indigenous people. We feel that the United Nations preparatory committee are dissatisfied or saying that the Commonwealth reaction and momentum is very weak in relation to UNCED and though individual governments are speaking very much on it we want to know if Britain is going to be firmer in helping to bring the whole Commonwealth together and if they will look at the human and indigenous and say in for example in Guyana the Amerindian side?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    When the G7 met earlier this year, and I chaired it, I pressed Heads of Government in the G7 to attend the Conference at Rio next year. In many parts of the world there is some reservation about attending the conference in Rio. I have said quite clearly that I believe this is an extremely important conference, that as many Heads of Government as possibly can should attend whether it is the G7, whether it is the European Community or whether it is the Commonwealth. And I certainly stressed in the remarks we made earlier this week that it would be very desirable for Heads of Government to attend. There is no compulsion within the Commonwealth, we cannot compel them to do so. What we can do is set out before them the importance of this and encourage them to believe that it is as important for the developing countries of the Commonwealth as it is for the developed countries of the Commonwealth that we reach satisfactory conclusions at Rio.

    So the answer is yes I do regard it as very important, I did press people to attend, you must ask them individually whether they will, though we did not discuss any individual rain forest project whether it was in Latin America, in South East Asia or the particular project that you mentioned.

    QUESTION:

    We hope they are not going to put all the emphasis, as is happening in Guyana, on the review and inventory side, we feel that the human side is more important.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I understand that point but that is one of the matters that will be discussed at the conference.

    QUESTION (GEMINI NEWS):

    Prime Minister, your Opening Statement had the welcome reference to access to markets by developing countries. Over recent decades, the growing economic integration of Europe has had disastrous consequences for some Commonwealth countries. Do you feel that at the meeting this was taken into account and that they can expect some further protection for the Commonwealth?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We didn’t discuss the particular position of the European Community in our discussions this week though as a member of the European Community, you may know that Britain has been arguing generally for open markets. The one thing we don’t want is a closed Community. It is for that reason, partly Community but also a bigger matter as well, that we are so concerned to get an agreement to the Uruguay GATT Round as speedily and as comprehensively as possible. I have said to my fellow Heads of Government in Europe that such an agreement is vital. It may be an agreement that isn’t entirely comfortable for us; it may be an agreement that isn’t comfortable for Japan, for the United States, for the Cairns Group that is chaired by Bob Hawke of Australia but the damage that will be done to the international community and in particular, I think, to the developing world if there is no satisfactory GATT agreement on opening markets, will be immense.

    It will not be that there is much in the GATT Round that is there and will be lost if there is no agreement; it is also to an even greater extent than that, the possibility that no agreement would lead to trade blocks and protectionism and that would be absolutely fatal – absolutely fatal – and that point is increasingly recognised, I think, in all the trading blocs and it is certainly now increasingly recognised in the European Community.

    We will push very hard within the Community – the Foreign Secretary does so repeatedly, the Agriculture Minister does, I do so, the Chancellor of the Exchequer does so – for movement in the Community’s position so that we not only get an agreement on GATT but if possible, get an agreement on GATT this year.

    QUESTION (SABC):

    In your discussions with Mr. Mandela, did you agree on all aspects that you were talking about or was there any disagreement? If there was, what was it?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We agreed on many things. If I may put it this way without it being misunderstood, there was no special drama in my meeting with Mr. Mandela. We have had several meetings in recent months and we speak on the telephone frequently so it wasn’t, as it were, a set-piece meeting in which we dealt with all sorts of things from the bottom upwards.

    We discussed what was going on in South Africa, we discussed the problems with violence, we discussed the desirability of moving forward to a constitutional conference as speedily as possible, we discussed the bilateral offer of assistance that we have given to train black South African citizens for a future role in the Civil Service, we discussed practical matters like this. We didn’t spend a lot of time discussing individual items of sanctions.

    Mr. Mandela, as I said in my Opening Statement, knows that I am concerned that we should actually get investment and access to the financial markets as speedily as possible and for this very practical reason, which he understands.

    If one waits too long before those are lifted and suddenly one waits until there is a settlement and there is a majority government and then all the barriers come up at that stage, my fear is that then the investment starts to dribble in, it takes years before it builds up and it will be quite a few years down the road before the jobs that are necessary and the growth that is necessary actually become apparent. It is for that reason that I think we should move a little faster than previously we have and there is a difference of view of about that. There is no ill feeling about that; it is a different perception of the way in which we should proceed.

    Mr. Mandela, in the meeting, mentioned the fact that he had just seen the figure that there were 7 million people unemployed in South Africa and I must say if anything that rather reinforces my concern that the sooner investment begins to flow into South Africa and you begin to narrow that difficult gap between no economic growth and 3 percent population growth, the better it will be for the people most in need in South Africa.

    QUESTION (NETWORK 10 AUSTRALIA):

    To what extent is the British minority view on sanctions that you have just expounded now based on a greater trust of President de Klerk than is shared by other Commonwealth leaders and what would you say to cynics who might suggest that the British view is motivated by British commercial interest?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I would say that they were cynical! [Laughter]

    The view that motivates the British interest is the view I have just expressed and I don’t think I need reiterate it. There are 7 million black South Africans who at the moment are without work; the sooner we get growth, the sooner they will get work.

    If you actually get a majority government, as I am sure we are going to get at some stage in the not-too-distant future, I would like to see some of the problems that government will have to face beginning to be solved, not all there waiting for them to begin to solve over a longer time-scale. That is the point. It is not a new British position and I must emphasise to you that there has been no squabble whatsoever about sanctions. The British position and the reason for the British position is understood and appreciated. People take a differing view but there is no difference about the end game; the difference is simply about the pace at which sanctions will be removed. The direction and flow of policy is now clear.

    STEVE DOUGHTY (DAILY MAIL):

    Prime Minister, have you been concerned by developments on the European front during your long absence in Zimbabwe? In particular, are you concerned by the European Commission’s intervention into British construction projects?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes.

    STEVE DOUGHTY:

    What are you going to do about it, Prime Minister?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The answer to that is “Yes”. I think it was an astonishing intervention. We had no previous notice of it; it was not the first time it had happened. It seems to me to be on the basis of ill-founded reports and not facts; it is also on the basis of reports that were not discussed with the United Kingdom. It seems to me to be absolutely how the European Commission ought not to behave and I have told them so.

    QUESTION (ZIMBABWE TV):

    Mr. Prime Minister, the Commonwealth Secretary-General said that the Commonwealth was likely to look at itself and South Africa has often argued that certain governments in the Commonwealth have no moral justification in questioning its system of government. Did the Summit ever look at certain governments in Africa, for example military regimes, certain absolute monarchs and other things like that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the Harare Declaration sets out an elaboration of what good government is and what people should move towards and clearly, we are looking towards everywhere a plural society, a non-racial society, a democratic society, a society in which everyone has the right to vote for whichever political party as a government they wish to vote for and a multi-party society but the way in which those matters are interpreted cannot be uniformly prescribed by the Commonwealth or by any individual members of the Commonwealth. We have greatly diverse histories, greatly diverse structures, but the broad principles I think are quite clear but you can’t set down in black and white terms precisely the way in which such a system ought to operate in every country and I don’t think we should attempt to do so. We should set down the principles and the ideals that are there in the Declaration and then judge the activities of individual governments against those principles over a period of time.

    Every government that has agreed with this has implicitly, by their agreement with this document, said that they will move towards the principles that are enshrined in that document and every other government that has put its name to this document will be looking to see that they do over a period of time.

    QUESTION (CONCORD PRESS, LAGOS):

    How will you react to the criticism that Britain has not been doing enough for its former colonies, especially on the economic front; that most of the programmes they are adopting now are just run by the IMF and the World Bank, that Britain has enough capacity to have assisted them more rather than allowing them to go through the draconian policies of the IMF and the World Bank?

    Britain appears to have left them to their fate whereas Britain has the capacity to be a model for members of the Commonwealth.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think I would answer the criticism this way: by saying that not one Commonwealth leader this week has put that criticism to me. A lot of Commonwealth leaders have said to us this week that they believe that Britain is batting very strongly on behalf of the Commonwealth.

    I made it perfectly clear earlier this week not only that we would continue to sustain large aid programmes and large technical assistance programmes where that was appropriate but also that we very strongly believe your own country for example, Nigeria, should have access to the enhanced Structural Adjustment Fund and that we, Britain, would fight for that with our colleagues elsewhere to ensure that they would get it.

    I also yet again, though I hesitate to return to the point, increased the Toronto terms to the Trinidad terms and gave that a further push down the road so that it actually becomes enacted and I think people perhaps have not entirely understood what that means. What that means for the countries that qualify is that we take two-thirds of their debt and we don’t roll it up and say pay it later, we don’t ease the terms upon which they pay it; we say: “We write it off lock, stock and barrel!” or perhaps I should say: “Pounds, shillings and pence” in the old terms in which so much of it was built up. Nobody has ever done anything like that before and I don’t think there is a prevailing view out there amongst our Commonwealth colleagues that we are not shouldering a very fair share of the burden in assisting many of our lesser well-off colleagues in the Commonwealth to face the problems they have.

    There is one other point I would make too; we are actually supporting Nigeria’s attempts to be eligible for Trinidad terms so as you asked the question for a Nigerian perspective, I think it is worth adding that.

    QUESTION (FINANCIAL TIMES):

    Prime Minister, could you explain to us why the term “good government” which figures in most publications by the World Bank and the IMF was not used in this instance? “Just and honest government” is all right – it means roughly the same but it doesn’t have quite the same connotation in international terms.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There is no special significance in the fact that we used this term rather than that. We preferred this term. The real important point is the elaboration of what it means. One can use “just and honest government”, one can use “good government”, one can use “sound administration”; the important point really is the elaboration of what we actually mean by those rather generic terms that are capable of different interpretations and we have actually set out in the Declaration itself what we mean and that, I think, is the most valuable part of the Declaration.

    QUESTION (Simon Walters, The Sun):

    Prime Minister, after your rigours on the cricket pitch and alleged twinges in your leg, back and now a common cold – or should I say “Commonwealth cold” [Laughter] – will you be seeing a doctor when you go back to Britain and if so, will it be an NHS doctor? [Laughter]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The answer to whether I will be seeing a doctor is no; the answer to whether I have an NHS doctor and whether I see him when I am ill is yes but I do not anticipate any necessity for that at all and if you come close, Simon, I promise to try not to give you the cold – but I don’t promise too hard!

    QUESTION (ZAMBIA):

    Prime Minister, the Human Rights Watch has just issued a report in which it has criticised a number of Commonwealth countries, including Britain, for the violation of human rights. What is your comment?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I will study the report. I haven’t seen it in any depth yet so I can’t comment on it but I think it is quite difficult to criticise Britain on human rights. I will be interested to see what they have managed to produce that is a form of criticism but I will certainly look at it.

    QUESTION (IPS):

    The Commonwealth Secretary-General announced yesterday that he will visit South Africa at the earliest opportunity. I understand that Australia’s Bob Hawke has expressed an interest in being part of the team that visits South Africa and perhaps some others. Presumably that idea has been shelved since you said that the Secretary-General would be coming to report to the High Level Assistance Group. I am just wondering whether you yourself are itching to visit South Africa, whether you have set a date for that visit and what would be your reason.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Two points to that question:

    As to the impact of the Secretary-General’s visit and what follows it, I can’t make a judgement about that until the Secretary-General reports back. I don’t know what will follow his Report. The purpose of sending him there is for him to come back and report and for us to consider if there is some way the Commonwealth can help. We can’t impose anything but we stand ready to help if there is anything we can help with.

    As to whether I have any immediate plans to visit South Africa, the answer is I have no immediate plans to visit South Africa and don’t expect to do so in the next few months.

    KIM GORDON:

    In the light of your commitment to relieve part of the debt owed to Britain, how far are you prepared to go to review the structures set up at Bretton Woods and how much pressure would you be prepared to put on commercial banks to relieve the debt burden on Third World countries?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think I have anything to say about Bretton Woods at all or the changing institutions – certainly that isn’t part of our present package.

    As far as the commercial banks are concerned, I have invited them in the past to make comparative amendments to their own debt positions. A number of banks over recent years have written off a lot of debt; they do it progressively year upon year for their own sound commercial and I think social reasons as well but it is a matter for them, not for me but I have expressed the hope that where appropriate banks will act similarly.

    BILL SCHILLER (TORONTO STAR):

    On the subject of the elaboration of what constitutes good government, I would like to know if the practice of one-party state-ism is incompatible with the idea of good governance as set out in the Harare Declaration.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is not ideal at all and over a period of time one would hope that people would be presented with a choice. It may be that one government will continue to be elected – I have no objection to that happening for quite long periods of time [Laughter] – but it clearly isn’t ideal and it clearly isn’t what is intended over a period of time with the Harare Declaration.

    BILL SCHILLER:

    What kind of period of time, Mr. Prime Minister?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It will vary, will it not? You can’t draw a single conclusion for fifty different countries of different size, different backgrounds and different events occurring in them. It is the direction in which we move that we have set out the principles. We will have to examine how people behave against these principles and decide whether they are behaving in a way that we think is satisfactory and that is what we will do.

    QUESTION (TODAY):

    A very brief cricketing point: following your private discussions with various Commonwealth Heads over the last few days, can you tell us if you think that South Africa will actually be playing in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand early next year?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I can’t tell you that answer today, no. My own position is quite clear: I would wish to see the new non-racial cricket organisation in South Africa admitted to the World Cup in Australia. I think the Australian Prime Minister has expressed the same view. We will have to await the communique and other matters to see how far we have got.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on the Harare Declaration (II) – 21 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the Harare Declaration, made in an interview in Harare on Monday 21st October 1991.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked what the minimum Commonwealth countries need to do to meet the Harare Declaration requirements].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think if you examine the declaration you will see it sets out a series of principles on human rights, on democracy, on good government in all its aspects. And by good government I mean one man one vote, a proper democracy, sound administration, we set out all the matters we mean in the declaration. What the Commonwealth is saying is those are the principles upon which we should operate and we must all move in that direction to the extent that we are not already there.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked why reference was not made to multi-party democracies in the Harare Declaration and if was a serious weakness].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I do not think so, that is the general way in which the whole drift of democracy is going, it has been so increasingly across the world. The remarkable events one is seeing in Eastern Europe at the moment is a case in point and I think one has seen it in other parts of the world. The trend is inevitably going in one direction now, the Commonwealth is swimming with the tide of that tread.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked that if countries without a multi-party democracy might feel they have already met the requirements of the Declaration].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Commonwealth will come back and it will examine whether its members are actually meeting the commitments they have agreed to this week and that is something we will do no doubt when we meet on future occasions.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked if sanctions would be taken against countries].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You are a long way down the road before you fine whether that circumstance occurs. The Commonwealth have collectively decided upon the Declaration without being pressed, without being pushed, without huge horrible rows, have agreed that that is the direction in which the Commonwealth should go. When the Commonwealth meets in future I am sure it will consider how far it has achieved its own principles and if people are not achieving its own principles then the Commonwealth will decide how to act. But I think to produce pre-emptive, prescriptive ideas of what might happen in some unforeseen circumstances in the future is not a helpful way to proceed now.