The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Devolution

  • John Major’s Speech to the 1996 Welsh Conservative Party Conference – 14 June 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Welsh Conservative Party Conference in Porthcawl on Friday 14th June 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Britain Transformed

    People will ask you ‘What have the Tories ever done for me?’

    It’s an honest question – bluntly put – and deserves an honest answer, equally straightforward.

    So spell it out for them.

    Remind the questioner there’s been a revolution in education. In 1979 one in eight young people went on to higher education. Today it’s almost one in three. A third of all families can look with pride to their child’s achievement. A third of our young people enter the world of work armed with a better education.

    ‘Well’, they may say “So there’s education. But what else have the Tories ever done for me?”

    Under the last Labour government, if you needed an operation, you had a one in five chance of waiting over two years. Today, only a handful of people are waiting that long.

    ‘Fine – there’s education, health. Fair enough. Anything else?’

    Inflation. There’s another certainty. If we’d kept inflation at the level we’d inherited and followed Labour’s policies, today a loaf of bread would cost £1.25 and a pint of milk 70p. About double today’s prices.

    ‘All right. I give you that. But what else have the Tories ever done for me?’

    Well, there’s tax. If we still had the tax system we inherited from Labour, the average earner would be paying £17 more a week- £17 a week – in tax. How about that?’

    “Mmmmm. Education, health, inflation, tax. Is that all the Tories have ever done for me?’

    Look, don’t have to tell you ladies and gentlemen, they’re tough on the doorstep. So come right back at them.

    There’s the unions. In 1979, we lost twenty nine and a half million days to strikes. Twenty nine and a half million. The dustmen, the council workers, the car workers all proving Labour doesn’t work. Since then, the number of days lost to strikes has hit the lowest since records began.

    ‘Yes, well’ they may say. ‘Apart from education, health, inflation, tax, strikes. That’s all very well, but what have the Tories ever done me?’

    Take a deep breath, and broaden the picture.

    Under Labour, loss-making nationalised industries cost the taxpayer £50 million a week.

    Today, privatised industries contribute £50 million a week in tax. £50 million a week – enough to pay for 11,500 hip replacements, 1 new hospital a month and 5 new schools.

    What’s more, electricity bills are down £18. Gas bills – excluding VAT – down over £90. Phone bills still falling – down £44 in the last three years. Privatisation works.

    ‘So there’s education, health, inflation, tax, strikes, household bills. But what have the Tories ever done for me?

    Jobs. Under Labour, unemployment rose by 122 per cent. 2.500 people became unemployed every week. This week, unemployment fell again – down by 800,000 since its peak. We’ve more of our people in work than any major country in Europe.

    ‘Sure, sure. That’s all very well. But how else have the Tories helped me?’

    There’s mortgages. Average monthly mortgage payments are around £170 lower than they were 6 years ago. At less than 7%, they’re at a 30 year low. The average rate under Labour was 11 per cent.

    ‘So that’s it, is it?’

    No. Here in Wales. William has been working to improve the environment. Intending to designate the Menai Straits as a nature reserve. Aiming for 50 of Wales’ beaches to be of the highest, blue flag, quality. Helping to protect Wales’ coast. So there’s health. Education. Inflation. Tax. Strikes. Bills. Jobs. Mortgages. The environment. How about that for a success story?

    ‘Yes … but why didn’t you tell me about all that in the first place?’

    Madam Chairman, that’s what life under the Tories has brought about: it’s quite a story. The story of a Britain transformed.

    Which part of our United Kingdom do you think has recorded over 1,500 new inward investment projects, worth billions, during the last thirteen years?

    Where has unemployment fallen by almost 26,000 over the last three years?

    Where has self-employment risen by almost 30 per cent since ‘79?

    Where have days lost from industrial action fallen to less than 1% of those lost in 1979?

    Here in Wales. That’s the kind of change Conservatism brings in its wake. Change for the better. And it doesn’t stop there.

    Look at Caerphilly. Once overshadowed by Cardiff and Newport, today a thriving major retail and commercial centre in its own right.

    Or the new Severn Crossing. Built with private finance as a vote of confidence for the growing South Wales economy.

    Or the new Ford plant I visited this morning, a £340 million investment bringing almost 500 new jobs to Bridgend.

    One success after another under a Conservative Government. To borrow a phrase you may have seen about town: ‘Yes, it worked’,

    Life is better. And if people want a change, they need to be clear what they’re changing from, and what they’re changing to.

    The Next Election

    At the moment too many people are sleepwalking into the next election – which is precisely what Labour want them to do. It’s the whole point of their strategy. They want to drug people into thinking that voting Labour is risk free. They don’t warn people to realise that if they vote Labour, Britain will never be the same again.

    Madam Chairman, that’s not my idea of politics. Britain is the oldest democracy in the world. I’ve always believed that if you give the people the facts, and treat them like adults, then you can trust them to make their own minds up.

    Our job is to set out our case. To make people think before they vote. And to leave them in no doubt what the consequences would be for Britain if they decide to cast aside everything we’ve achieved and take a massive step into the dark.

    Because the next election is a watershed election. Many of the changes Labour want to slip past us are irreversible.

    Three over-arching issues will lift this election out of the run of the mill. Issues that will decide the kind of country we live in.

    First, there’s the United Kingdom itself. You might think it’s right to give Scotland its own Parliament and Wales an assembly. Or you might think that’s a rotten idea, as I do. But whatever you think, once you go down that route, it’s difficult to turn back. The change might be irreversible. It would be no use saying ‘No one told me that would happen’. It would be too late. The Union would be gone.

    Then there’s Europe. You might think that Britain’s destiny lies in being drawn ever deeper into a federal Europe. Or you might, like me, believe we should resist that tooth and nail. Because once you’ve given powers to Europe it’s all but impossible to get them back. No use saying ‘Oh I didn’t think that would happen’. It would have happened.

    Finally, there’s the economy. You can eve an argument about whether you have more state control, as Labour believe, or less, as you and I think we should. Whether or not you agree, don’t doubt what’s at stake. You’d be throwing away the strongest economy in Europe – I repeat the strongest major economy in Europe. No point in complaining ‘Oh, I didn’t think that would happen’ when taxes, strikes, inflation all start going up – as they always do under Labour. By then it would be too late.

    Britain’s success, our Union, our nation – that’s what Labour threaten. Between now and the next election I’m going to set out the difference, the major difference, if I may say so, between us and Labour – and I’m going to say it and say it and say it until everyone understands all that is at stake.

    The Choice

    On the day they go to the polls, people will think of a number of things. High on their lists will be which party will make me and my family better off?

    The Conservative answer is simple. We believe in rewarding hard work. Encouraging people to set up their own business, to save and invest for the future.

    We want to give people the chance to spend more of their money as they wish.

    So as soon as we can safely do so, our instinct is to cut taxes. They’re still too high.

    Britain will never be able to compete in tomorrow’s world if we’re lumbered with high taxes, cramping enterprise and investment. That’s what you’d get under Labour.

    But to cut taxes we need to keep spending under control. We’re doing just that. For the first time in its history, spending on the welfare state will grow slower than the economy. Of course we’ll always help those in genuine need. But let spending spiral out of control, and we can wave goodbye to a strong economy.

    Now look at Labour, they’re addicted to the spending state.

    Look at what they’re planning.

    First, anyone earning as much as Clare Short could be taxed more. Care has a bee in her bonnet. She thinks they’re doing too well. So it’s bad news for them.

    It’s also bad news for anyone living in Scotland. They’d be clobbered by Labour’s Tartan Tax.

    Bad news for any middle class parent with a child staying on at school. They run the risk of losing their child benefit. Labour’s Teenage Tax.

    Bad news for anyone who owns shares in a privatised utility. Labour’s Windfall Tax.

    And heaven help anyone who uses a company car or drives to an out of town shopping centre. They’d run straight into Labour’s Shopping Tax.

    Oh, they’re high on tax in the Labour Party. So to keep your money, make your choice: lower taxes under the Conservatives, higher taxes under Labour.

    As for jobs, we’ve the lowest unemployment of any major European economy.

    Why? Because of our policies.

    Look how much it costs to employ someone across Europe. I don’t mean wages. I mean extra costs over and above wages.

    For every £100 an employer spends on wages, he’d have to pay an extra £32 in Germany. An extra £34 in Spain. An extra £41 in France. An extra £44 in Italy.

    But here in Britain, the cost is just £18. That’s why we’re competitive. It costs less in overheads to employ people here than in other European countries.

    That’s why we’ve attracted more foreign investment than any other country in Europe.

    And that’s why I won’t sign the Social Chapter or have a minimum wage.

    But Labour would. They say they’re after full employment – what they’d get is more unemployment. The minimum wage would price job-seekers out of the market. The Social Chapter would price Britain out of the market.

    So once again, the choice is clear. Policies to create jobs under the Conservatives. Policies to destroy jobs under Labour.

    Of course, the only way Britain will remain competitive is if our children learn the skills of the future. Education is vital.

    Conservative Britain has come a long way. Schools are no longer a secret garden. Just look at our record. A national curriculum, tests, performance tables, regular inspection. Choice for parents – every parent – even Labour politicians. That’s all right. We’re broad minded. And more young people going on to higher education than ever before.

    That’s the Conservative record on education and I’m proud of it.

    And here’s the future under the next Conservative Government.

    More choice.

    More grant-maintained schools.

    Tougher teacher training.

    More selective schools – including grammar schools.

    More Assisted Places.

    More results published.

    Every child is different. Every parent deserves choice. Opening doors for everyone. That’s Conservative policy.

    Labour’s idea of education is a scorched earth policy. First they enjoy it, then they destroy it.

    Some Labour politicians went to private school. But do they support them? Not a bit of it. They’d deny others the chance they had by abolishing assisted places.

    Some of them went to grammar schools. So now they’d like to abolish them.

    Some of them make the most of choice. They send their children to grammar or grant- maintained schools. They’d be abolished too – once the children have left.

    Labour standards are double standards. And their motto: ‘do what I say, not what I do’.

    When it suits them Labour mouth platitudes about teaching children the basics. But when it came to the crunch, oh, that’s different. Where were they when we had to fight to introduce the national curriculum, tests, and league tables and the rest? Who opposed us at elections, in Parliament and in councils up and down the country?

    You’re right – Labour. My motto is: ‘watch what they do, not what they say’.

    So it’s clear. More choice, higher standards, more freedom under the Conservatives. Less choice, more control, more restriction under Labour.

    The Nation

    A strong economy. A skilled workforce. A nation that’s winning in markets around the world. That’s how we’ll become the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    But, just when we’re enjoying economic success, nothing would be more disastrous than Labour’s plans to carve up Britain. It would be an act of constitutional vandalism.

    Our nation’s prosperity and future depends on unity. Once broken up, it would be difficult – probably impossible – to put it together. And that’s the second reason why the next election is all important.

    I don’t say this for party political reasons. Nothing would improve the partisan, political fortunes of the Conservative Party than to see Scotland and Wales with Labour and Nationalist MPs going their own way. But we don’t want that.

    For one thing, we want Scotland and Wales electing more Conservative MPs. But irrespective of how they vote, we believe the people of Scotland and Wales want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

    Our United Kingdom has been moulded over the centuries, battered by the tide of history. Yes, it has changed. And it is changing. But necessary change, not change for change’s sake.

    Yet Labour’s plans are just that.

    When was the last time you heard someone looking for a job saying ‘What we really need is an assembly. Then I’d get a job?’

    Or parents concerned about their children’s education. Are they thinking ‘An assembly! That’s what my child needs to get through school’?

    And how many pensioners have you heard muttering ‘Welsh assembly. Welsh assembly – that’s what we need to fight crime on the streets’?

    Madam Chairman, a Welsh assembly is as pointless as a blunt pencil.

    Worse still, Labour’s plans are an humiliating, patronising slap in the face for Wales.

    Labour’s lust for power has forced them to promise Scotland a tax-raising Parliament. Why? Because the only way Labour can hope to compete against the Scottish Nationalists is to propose barmy plans for their own party political advantage. That’s why Labour want a Scottish Parliament. It’s their bid for Scottish votes.

    As a result, Scotland would become widely over-represented at Westminster. The only way Labour could attempt to redress the balance is by lumbering England and Wales with totally irrelevant assemblies.

    I come to Wales as an Englishman. A Conservative Prime Minister. But Prime Minister of a United Kingdom.

    Labour Prime Ministers – one of them even sitting for a Welsh seat – have governed the United Kingdom without holding a majority of seats in England. But they never said they had no mandate to rule England. They never said England should go its own way.

    But now Labour are singing a different tune. My duty is to point out the dangers of following Labour down the route they’d take us.

    Wales will choose.

    If the Welsh people want a focus for division, then a good way of doing so is to vote for a Welsh assembly. If they think an inspiring way to greet the Millennium is to have more politicians, chattering away in an assembly, then by all means they can vote for one.

    If, unlike Mr Blair, they can guarantee that an assembly won’t demand powers to spend other people’s money, they can vote for one.

    If they know why a Scottish Parliament should be elected by PR, but a Welsh Assembly by first past the post, they should telephone Mr Blair- because he hasn’t the foggiest.

    I have only one vote. I know how I’ll be using it. To protect and defend the United Kingdom from policies that would hurt and never work.

    But Labour’s madness knows no bounds. It spreads to the third great issue – Europe.

    Labour believe that our future lies in a sort of superstate. Let me remind you, Labour would undermine the veto. Jeopardize our rebate. Sign up to the Social Chapter. Give more powers to the European Parliament.

    No wonder Mr Blair says he’d never be isolated in Europe. Armed with a blank cheque, he’d agree to what is wholly against our nation’s interests. With his set of policies, he’d have little choice.

    Some people might like his idea of being part of a European superstate. If so, they can vote Labour. That’s their prerogative.

    Others – like all of us here – have a very different vision. It’s a vision of a Europe of nation states, linked by traditions of freedom and democracy and a single market, trading together but preserving their own identity.

    I don’t want to see our nation swept aside. Our Parliament at Westminster must remain the focus for British democracy – not Brussels.

    Yes, of course we must remain a part of the European Union. We can’t afford to be outside the world’s largest single market. We created that single market. It remains in our national interest to be part of it. The Union has made co-operation, not conflict, the habit between the nations of Western Europe.

    But we need to persuade our partners that the way forward is by building a partnership of nation states. A partnership that respects the cultures and traditions of European countries.

    We will argue for the Europe we want. And if we disagree, and think Europe is going in the wrong direction, we’ll simply say politely but firmly – ‘no, that’s not for us’.

    Europe must be flexible enough to allow us to do that. As more countries join, we can’t hope to fit into some universal blueprint. Nation states can’t be expected to march in institutional step.

    Flexibility, patience and understanding are essential. So I say again, if Europe goes federalist. Britain will not follow.

    Peroration

    Madam Chairman, no party has the right to point the British people towards the polling booth anaesthetised by warm words, hollow generalities, and a vague wish for change.

    We Conservatives inherited a Britain on the rocks.

    We’ve spent seventeen years rescuing this country from that inheritance and turning it round.

    Turning the tide of progressive thought in schools takes years.

    Reversing liberal approaches to crime takes years.

    Curbing the powers of the unions takes years.

    Getting inflation down to all time lows takes years.

    Building a Europe of nation states takes years.

    But on Britain’s doorsteps pointing to what we’ve achieved is only half the picture.

    We need to alert people to the choice they will have to make. When they go into the polling booth and pick up that stubby little pencil, what they’re voting for will be nothing less than the future of Britain.

    Say to the people before they vote ‘If you want a fragmented country, a weaker Britain, the end to our economic strength and that’s what you vote for, then fair enough, that’s democracy. You have that right’.

    But don’t leave them on the doorstep under the illusion that they’re voting for something else. Don’t let them be conned by that sort of thing: it’s a false prospectus.

    These issues are too great, too important to be brushed aside. If Labour had their way, the face of Britain would be changed for good. Forever. And irredeemably for the worse.

    We Conservatives can’t afford to let that happen – and we won’t. Which is why New Labour, Old Labour, any old Labour, are trying to pull the political wool over people’s eyes.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the 1996 Scottish Conservative Party Conference – 11 May 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the 1996 Scottish Conservative Party Conference, held on 11th May 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I want to touch first on two issues of great concern.

    When last I came to Scotland, I went to Dunblane. The events there were a horror, almost unimaginable – a mad act that robbed innocent children of a happy future.

    Michael Forsyth and Michael Howard have already announced an amnesty on illegal guns to gather them in.

    Lord Cullen – one of Scotland’s most senior judges – is to advise us on what further action is needed.

    Should legislation be necessary – and it may well be – I can promise you we will move speedily. We have already set aside time in the Parliamentary programme for this purpose.

    I intend that we will do all we can to ensure such a crime cannot happen again.

    Secondly, beef.

    The European ban on beef has caused frustration and anger.

    Not just amongst farmers, but amongst everyone.

    Certainly here in Scotland, as Scottish beef is a by-word for quality.

    The ban is totally unjustified. It’s the result of panic, not science. And it must be removed.

    The ban turned a problem into a crisis, not just in Britain, but across Europe where beef markets have also been hit.

    Next week, the first steps towards lifting the ban are going to be discussed in Europe. I hope that progress will be made.

    For the ban was introduced by the Commission. And it is the Commission that has now unanimously recommended a partial lifting of the ban.

    Against that background, our European partners must understand the level of resentment that will be created if they fly in the face of scientific arguments and the Commission’s recommendations and continue to damage our beef industry.

    But let us be frank. Even when the ban has been lifted, we will need to rebuild consumer confidence to regain our markets. We need to make the case for quality again and again.

    Many beef herds have never had a case of BSE. So, while we aim to get the ban totally lifted, we’ll also be pressing to get rapid exemption for specialist beef herds.

    Such a move across the UK will particularly benefit Scotland, and the premium, grass-fed beef herds for which Scotland is rightly famous.

    We’re already consulting on proposals to get mature, prime beef from these herds back on the market in Britain.

    But to regain our markets around the world, we must – in our own interest – look at any sensible proposals to speed up the already rapid decline of BSE throughout the UK.

    I met with the Scottish NFU this morning, and heard from them first hand of the fears and anxieties of their members. I promise you this – we will stand by this industry.

    We have already committed huge resources. In addition to that, I am confident that we can deliver significant extra help for beef producers within this year’s European farm settlement. And, to help the exporters, we’ve agreed to pay more money to those whose stocks were destroyed or devalued in the initial crisis.

    I pay tribute to the leadership which the NFU has given over this difficult period, and to the effective and influential role they have played.

    We’ve made a start in tackling this crisis but we need to remove the threat of BSE once and for all. British beef is the best in the world.

    It’s good to be back in Scotland and to find you in such good spirits.

    So am I.

    I always enjoy coming to Scotland. Not least because you always doctor my water in a most agreeable way.

    We’re now within a year of the next General Election.

    And, when it comes – next year, I expect – we Conservatives are going to win that election – by working together, north and south of the border.

    It’s a good Tory word, “together” – and especially so here in Scotland.

    It emphasises that ours is a United Kingdom.

    And we’re the Conservative and Unionist Party.

    We believe in working together, north and south.

    And, so long as there’s a Conservative Government, that’s how it will remain.

    Some people say to me – why? Surely, if Scotland breaks away, England will save on public spending and can have lower taxes? And surely, it’ll be easier to win elections without the SNP, Labour and Liberal MPs from Scotland?

    True. But the United Kingdom as a whole would suffer. And so would Scotland.

    And we Conservatives put the United Kingdom first, even though it’s not to our Party advantage. That’s not the way Labour behave. Their devolution plans put the interests of the Labour Party first. We put the country first. And that’s the difference.

    For months, Michael Forsyth and his team have been taking the argument to Labour, exposing their flawed plans.

    Showing how they would wreck Scotland.

    Showing how the devolutionists are laying a false prospectus before the Scottish people.

    I have a message for you Michael. The battle you’re fighting for Scotland is as important as any that has been fought before.

    Fight hard. Punch hard. Punch often.

    And you’ll have from me all the support you need.

    When I became Prime Minister I spoke of a classless society.

    Many scoffed that this had happened without my noticing it.

    Others said it was a preposterous and even undesirable aim.

    Well, there have been remarkable changes in British society over the last 50 years. Indeed, I’m a beneficiary of them.

    But don’t tell me that a child brought up in deprived circumstances – and given an inadequate education – has the same prospects as one from a more prosperous background with a good education.

    There are many who achieve good results from bad beginnings. But one of our principal risks as a Government – and as a Party – is to ensure that fewer and fewer of our children have those bad beginnings. And that’s what our education reforms are about.

    We don’t believe that people in difficulties always have only themselves to blame. Don’t forget I’ve been poor and unemployed. And I know that our Party has done more than any other to relieve poverty and to finance the National Health Service and social security.

    It was practical compassionate Conservatism that marks me a Tory and millions like me.

    And it’s values like that that have underpinned the last 17 years of Conservative Government.

    17 years.

    Some people on the cocktail and chattering circuit think it’s time for a change. As though Government were a game of street cricket with everyone having a bat in turn. But what sort of change?

    Labour wouldn’t bring to Britain the sort of changes we’ve brought.

    Taxpayers. Cuts for everyone. The lowest basic rate for 50 years. Change that?

    Homeowners. Lowest mortgage rates for 30 years. Gas, telephone bills falling. Change that?

    Workers. More of our people in work than any major country in Europe. Change that?

    Savers. TESSAs and PEPs flourishing. Scotland is thrifty. It saves. And now it has a 20p rate of tax on savings – a new low. Change that?

    Businessmen. The longest period of low inflation for almost 50 years. Why change that?

    Parents. More choice than ever before. We shouldn’t change that – and Labour agree.

    Not only do they agree, they welcome our change and take advantage of it.

    You don’t believe me. Check with the Blairs. Ask Harriet Harman.

    Pupils. More going on to higher education than ever before.

    Patients. More being treated than ever before.

    The changes we’re brought about are changes for the better.

    Thanks to them, Britain is the best performing economy in Europe. The world’s leading companies are pouring in investment and jobs.

    Britain, with her unique heritage of trading links, and a mother tongue that’s the world’s common language, is winning new markets around the globe.

    Today, Britain stands on the threshold of a new era of opportunity and prosperity as a global trading nation. A small island that’s an international success.

    Of course, there’s much we have to do. But look what we’ve done.

    Take our schools, for instance.

    We inherited a system that had become a secret garden, overgrown with so-called progressive theories.

    Today, children are taught the basics. Labour called that a “fanatical doctrine”.

    We’re going to make sure that children are regularly tested. Labour said tests “encourage a climate of failure”.

    Exam results are published. Labour called that “political propaganda”.

    Schools can now govern themselves. Labour said that was “wrong”.

    Wrong? It’s precisely the kind of education parents want. That’s not wrong. It’s just commonsense.

    The same goes for crime. We’re been turning back the tide of political correctness that excused the criminal and forgot the victim. It meant once again taking on the so-called progressive establishment that dominates Labour thinking.

    Well, we took them on.

    For example, we increased the maximum penalty for cruelty to children. For dealing in drugs. We gave the police new powers to stop and search suspects.

    And right the way down the line, Labour opposed almost every change.

    If Labour had won their arguments, dangerous criminals who are in prison today would be out – walking the streets.

    So, change? Change back to that? Surely that would be folly.

    Some of the changes we’ve made have been painful. They’ve hurt people. And they have hurt us politically in by-elections and local elections.

    But although it hurt, it worked.

    And when we look around us we can see life getting better and our country becoming more prosperous.

    So when people talk of change, ask them “What kind of change do you prefer?”

    “Higher inflation? Lower taxes? More jobs? Tougher laws under the Tories?”

    That’s the kind of change you and I want. And it’s the only way to meet the challenge of the future. A change to Labour would be a change all right – a change for the worse. Don’t let it happen.

    Mr Chairman, before these changes, British companies and British businesses were fighting just to keep their heads above water. Now they are fighting to lead the field.

    And that’s especially true in Scotland.

    Which place in the UK do you think has gained most from our reforms of the last 17 years?

    Seen living standards grow by over a third?

    Grown faster than the rest of the United Kingdom over the last five years?

    Exports 40 per cent more per worker than the United Kingdom average?

    Brought unemployment down to its lowest rate for almost fifteen years?

    You’re right: that country is Scotland.

    Could this remarkable success story have happened without the Union?

    It’s out of the question.

    Labour or the Scot Nats would never have given Scotland the changes she needed. Instead of sunrise industries we’d have had sunset industries, propped up by subsidy, but doomed to disappear. The only question was when.

    Our way has delivered the private investment that’s the key to Scotland’s success.

    In one year alone, almost 100 projects brought Scotland over one billion pounds worth of planned investment, creating or protecting over 12,000 jobs.

    International companies – like Motorola, NEC, BT – they’re all investing in Scotland.

    And they’ll continue to do so as long as they’re sure Scotland will stay in the United Kingdom and income tax will not rise above those in England.

    But, if either of these things do happen, they won’t. They’ll go elsewhere.

    That’s the choice for Scotland.

    One of the reasons they come here is that a Conservative Government has built an economy that encourages investors by controlling expenditure and keeping inflation down. That’s meant we’ve been able to cut interest rates and keep taxes low.

    Again – yes, it hurts. But it has worked. It’s making life better. Don’t throw it away.

    Enterprise has many elements. But high among them is something that goes right to the heart of running the country – and dips into the pocket of every family in the land. Tax.

    Tax is always a battlefield between the parties because we have different instincts.

    We believe in low tax because it stimulates initiative and enterprise, fosters personal independence, and helps the country create enough wealth to help those in need. So we cut taxes when we can. But, as Ken Clarke said yesterday, when, and only when, it’s sensible to do so.

    Labour’s instincts are different. They increase spending.

    So, as Roy Hattersley put it, “Labour now has a clear choice. It can either be the party of higher taxation and proud of it, or the party of higher taxes which it is ashamed to describe, afraid to admit and incapable of calculating with any accuracy. It cannot be the low taxation party”.

    For once, he’s right. People will have a clear choice, a party whose instinct is for less tax, or a party whose instinct is for more tax.

    That’s why our opponents don’t like talking about their tax plans.

    But there’s no honest reason why Labour shouldn’t come clean about them. Britain’s books are open.

    After all, I’m perfectly happy to talk about our tax plans. They’re quite simple.

    We’ll cut taxes whenever we safely can.

    Labour are the exact opposite. Believe it or not, I’m told there are actually people who say Labour are addicted to the politics of envy and want taxes for that reason. And New Labour too. Shocking isn’t it?

    Be that as it may, one thing is certain. Whatever Labour say for public consumption, people know from past experience they’d be worse off under Labour.

    Tory scare tactics, the spin doctors who rule Labour till say. Is it?

    For example, any family with a sixteen to eighteen year old child who is in education had better watch out. Under Labour, their child benefits could disappear.

    Let’s call it a Teenage Tax – a tax increase of up to £560 a year for families whose children are 16 or over and at college. For some families, that’s the same as an increase of 5p on income tax.

    Under Labour, anyone who earns more than Clare Short would be easy pickings for the taxman. Clare’s salary is about £35,000. Many people would love to earn that much. But thanks to Labour’s ThirtySomething Tax, they’d be worse off.

    There are other taxes lurking.

    And, of course, anyone living here in Scotland would be hit by the Tartan Tax. But if they don’t need it, let them reject it now.

    Think how it would damage Scotland to pay more tax than the rest of the country. Who’d be hit most? Not those on high incomes, those on low ones. Someone earning, say, £76,000 a year would see his tax bill rise by 9%. At the same time, someone on £12,000 would see it rise by 14%.

    And this from a Labour Party that has the nerve to talk about ‘fair tax’.

    Before the last election, Labour published their plans. They said they’d increase spending, so naturally Labour would raise taxes to pay for it.

    The New, unscrupulous, Labour Party are different. Whenever Mr Brown threatens honesty on taxes, Mr Blair contradicts him. And Mr Prescott tries to keep up, but doesn’t quite know what’s going on. Well, I can tell you what’s going on.

    Labour still want to spend more of your money, that’s what’s going on. They can’t kick the habit – it’s a sort of reflex action. So they’d tax more. They always have. They always will. And nothing is going to change them.

    I sometimes wonder what on earth Labour stand for these days.

    Their leadership is trying to shed all its history, philosophy and creed with one contemptuous shrug and replace it with – what? A burning desire for office.

    But a lust for power is not, and never has been, a qualification for being entrusted with it.

    But it’s not just taxpayers who’d be worse off.

    Parents would be deprived of a choice of school for their children.

    Patients would see hospitals turned upside down as Labour tried to turn back the clock.

    Shareholders in privatised companies would find their shares threatened.

    But don’t just look at what Labour would do to our reforms. Don’t just think about how Labour would hit the pockets of the people. The real danger is to the very fabric of Britain itself.

    By their own admission, Labour say that they’d bring in the most extensive package of constitutional reform our nation has seen.

    Mr Chairman, this constitution of ours has run like a thread through this land for centuries. It’s been our backbone and our heritage. And without so much as a qualm, Labour would cut it in two.

    I wonder sometimes if they have any idea what their plans would mean?

    Labour would change our United Kingdom for good. Or rather, not for good. Palpably, flagrantly for the worse.

    If we were to let Labour tear this ancient island of ours apart, it could well be impossible to put it together again.

    Labour has tried the devolution gambit before.

    And now they’re at it again. A Scottish Parliament here, a Welsh Assembly there, regional assemblies heaven knows where. Will they never learn? What a way to mark the Millennium by tearing up the United Kingdom.

    Mr Chairman, this fiddling by Labour is a wild and dangerous game. No one can say where it would end.

    No-one can answer the questions it raises.

    No-one, least of all Labour – can tell how such totally irresponsible and disruptive plans would affect this nation and the real concerns of all its people.

    Would it help the Scots if they paid more tax?

    Do the Welsh think a talking shop would improve their lives?

    And when was the last time you heard people saying, “What Britain needs is more politicians in regional assemblies”?

    And all this would be just the tip of the iceberg.

    Proportional representation. No government ever able to take decisions without backroom deals.

    A Bill of Rights.

    Elected mayors – to do what, for heaven’s sake?

    A whole raft of constitutional doodling. That’s Labour’s irrelevant manifesto.

    Would it mean more jobs? Yes, for bureaucrats and politicians.

    More investment? Well, no actually – probably less.

    More prosperity? No. Just more taxes.

    Would Britain’s voice carry more weight in the council chambers of Europe if we divided her into three? No, much less.

    Mr Chairman, the changes Labour plan, no matter how slickly packaged and presented by their media gurus, would destroy in years what has been built up in centuries.

    Nor are the dangers Labour post restricted only to devolution. Their European policy is demeaning and disastrous.

    Now, I fully understand that the European issue raises the most passionate feelings. Who, in this country, would know that better than me? It’s a central issue of our time. But that shouldn’t distract us from a cool, dispassionate assessment of what is truly in our nation’s long-term interests – and what is not? That is my guiding principle. Getting the balance right for Britain now and in the years to come is the key to our approach to Europe.

    Yes, Britain must be a part of Europe, and a partner of Europe. But a Europe of nations, not a united states of Europe. Not a federal Europe. When people say “Let’s have a referendum on whether we want a federal Europe”, I say “why?”

    Because, Mr Chairman, there’s no need. Once again, I make this pledge. While I am Prime Minister, if others should opt for such a Europe, then Britain will not be part of it. We don’t need a referendum to know that we don’t want a centralised Europe.

    But let no one doubt that Labour would accept such a Europe. Already they’re committed to sign up to the Social Chapter. To give more powers to the European Parliament. To re-negotiate our rebate. To undermine our veto.

    So on both counts – what Labour would do to Britain at home and what Labour would do to Britain abroad – the whole future of this nation is at stake.

    Mr Chairman, come the election, the future we’ll be fighting for is a Conservative future.

    One where everyone feels that they belong.

    Where all our people, no matter what their background, have a chance to realise their dreams.

    To go to a good school, university, get a job, have a home of their own.

    To do what they think is best for themselves, their families, their children.

    To enjoy more of what they’ve earned and saved.

    These are the building blocks of the future.

    They’re what drive the people of our country.

    A people independent of spirit, proud of their past. Who look to a future of enterprise encouraged and work rewarded.

    Who want to protect the freedom and responsibilities of the family against the intrusions of the state.

    Who believe in the rule of law.

    And who love our country.

    Mr Chairman, at the last election, when I said I would fight to protect the United Kingdom, I was accused of wrapping myself in the Union Jack. It was meant as an insult. But I didn’t take it as such.

    You don’t have to dislike other nations to be proud of ours and I am proud of ours. I never feel more comfortable than in defending our nationhood and our unity as a Kingdom.

    The Union Jack in the flag of this United Kingdom – and we Conservatives, by nature a kindly Party, need to be ruthless, remorseless and relentless in defence of that Kingdom, as we always have been when that unity has been under threat.

    It is so once again today. Labour’s slick world of the soundbite and the over-simplified solution to problems of immense complexity has nothing to offer to bind this nation together. The superficiality of their policies – many of them disingenuous and ill-thought out – is breathtaking. What’s more, they bear little or no relation to the reality of government.

    When you walk through the door of Number Ten, reality walks in with you. Reality on a world scale. Over the years a Conservative Government has faced that reality and learnt how to handle it. So let me give you, here in Scotland today, this assurance.

    We Conservatives have the confidence and the tradition and, yes, the experience to guide us as we take our nation forward, out of this troubled century and into the next.

    That’s why we’re going to win the next election.

    Why we deserve to win that election.

    At stake is more than just our achievements. More than just the strongest economy we’ve seen for decades.

    This election will decide the very future of the United Kingdom itself.

    The future of our Parliament, our Union, our Country.

    It’s a fight for our Nation’s Future.

    And it’s a fight we’ll win.

  • PMQT – 9 May 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 9th May 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Matthew Banks: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 9 May.

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

    Mr. Banks: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s policies, especially on child benefit, the youth training programme and the lack of a minimum wage, give the youth of this country tremendous opportunities? Does he also agree that, given that it wants to abolish child benefit and the youth training programme and impose a minimum wage, Labour has nothing to offer Britain’s youth?

    The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Opposition have illustrated the case by their actions over the past few days. Today, they are going to try to retain child benefit for people coming from abroad at precisely the same moment that the shadow Chancellor is trying to abolish it for every family in this country whose child is taking A-levels. Frankly, I find that inexplicable.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister recall saying that, if the provisional allegations of the district auditor in respect of Westminster city council were confirmed, he would condemn those involved absolutely and unreservedly? The provisional allegations have been confirmed. Will he now condemn those involved unreservedly, as he promised that he would?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is misquoting. Let me make three points. First, both I and my party are in favour of the highest possible standards in public life. I condemn wrongdoing in any quarter.

    Secondly–I am surprised that I have to say this to a distinguished lawyer–I believe in justice. As the auditor’s report makes clear, the individuals have the right to appeal against the auditor’s decision. I understand that they vehemently contest the auditor’s report and that they have said that they will take the matter to court. In the face of such a clear-cut protestation of innocence, I think that any sensible and cautious person would be wise to await the outcome before making a judgment.

    Thirdly, with the trail of waste, inefficiency and corruption in Labour councils up and down the country, the right hon. Gentleman is in no position to lecture anyone.

    Mr. Blair: He said that, if the provisional allegations were confirmed, he would condemn those involved, and now he fails to do so. May I point out that of course they have the right of appeal–for heaven’s sake, the Home Secretary is in the appeal courts most days of the week. I also remind the Prime Minister that some of us remember how he stood at the Dispatch Box and condemned the Monklands council of my late right hon. and learned Friend, and predecessor, John Smith in the middle of an inquiry when the allegations were then dispatched.

    Does the Prime Minister not recall that the allegations are about putting homeless people into asbestos-ridden flats and appalling bed-and-breakfast accommodation? Will he not take this opportunity to fulfil his promise as Prime Minister and now condemn what any reasonable person would condemn?

    The Prime Minister: I am quite prepared to condemn cases of proven malpractice and those who have been found guilty in a court of law. I saw no condemnation from the right hon. Gentleman after Lambeth was found guilty of malpractice. I saw no condemnation when it was thought that between 400 and 500 officers in Lambeth were receiving fraudulent payments. The right hon. Gentleman knows well that the matter must go to the courts. The people challenged in this matter have declared their innocence in very clear-cut terms. I am surprised, in the face of that, that a lawyer would decide before the matter has gone to court to make a judgment about the outcome of that matter. I think that that is a contemptible way for the right hon. Gentleman to behave.

    Mr. Blair: I believe that what is contemptible is what we have just heard from the Prime Minister. As for saying that the allegations are not proven, they have been proven–that is precisely what the district auditor has proved under legislation set up by this Government. Is not the Prime Minister’s real problem that this was not a maverick group of obscure local councillors, but the flagship Conservative council? They carried on their activities with the knowledge and approval of the Conservative party. If the Prime Minister fails now to condemn what has been described as disgraceful and improper conduct, will it not be crystal clear to the British people that there are no depths to which the Conservative party will not stoop to gain re-election to any office that it holds?

    The Prime Minister: I suppose that it was only a matter of time before the Leader of the Opposition tried to widen the smears that his party has been making.

    We have learnt that Labour Members take a smear, spread a smear and hope that it will stick. That is what the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have been doing for the past two or three years.

    If the right hon. Gentleman is so pious, will he tell us whether he condemns his colleague, who sits on the Labour Benches, who is a surcharged councillor? Will he tell us why he appointed to his shadow Treasury team someone who encouraged people not to pay the council tax, against the law? Will he tell us whether he agrees with the comments of his deputy leader? He said:

    “In a local authority situation you obey the law or not obey the law. We”–

    presumably that is the Labour party–

    “don’t have any firm principles in the Party of how we might deal with the problem.”

    Against that background and the record of his party and his party’s councils, I shall take no charges from him about a matter that must go to court and is not yet proven.

    Sir Peter Tapsell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the great majority of my constituents would wish to mark Europe day by suspending all our net contributions to the European Union–which cost the taxpayers of this country £4 billion last year–until such time as all threats to our historic position as an international trading nation have been withdrawn?

    The Prime Minister: I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about the supremacy of British courts, but I must tell him that, if we decided to withhold payments to the European Union, that decision would be struck down in the British courts and not in the European Court of Justice. I must also tell him that, because the net under-payment in the European Union this year will be less than the net payment by this country, there is unlikely to be the draconian effect that some of my hon. Friends anticipate.

    I believe that it is right for us to press, in the European Union, for this matter to be speedily resolved. That is what we intend to do, and that is what I intend to press day after day. I want a solution to the problem, not an institutionalising of the problem so that beef farmers suffer longer, or no solution is reached.

     

    Q2. Mr. Illsley: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 9 May.

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

    Mr. Illsley: Given the Prime Minister’s refusal to condemn certain Westminster councillors for their corrupt conduct, will he take this opportunity unreservedly to condemn those Conservative Members who have failed to register their parliamentary incomes of millions of pounds?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman should be aware of what Madam Speaker said about this problem. She said that, if an hon. Member has a complaint about the registration of interests by any hon. Member, he should write to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and not raise it on the Floor of the House. That is not my view; it is the ruling of the Chair.

    Mr. Dover: Does my right hon. Friend remember that the Leader of the Opposition stated that one of the Opposition’s few policy decisions was that they would allow homosexuals into the armed services? If it is true that the Opposition are today allowing a free vote on that issue, does not that smack of very poor leadership and lack of direction?

    The Prime Minister: That is a matter for the Leader of the Opposition. We will discover the views of every hon. Member later today.

     

    Q3. Mr. Pike: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 9 May.

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

    Mr. Pike: The Prime Minister will recall that, on 21 February 1991, he said:

    “We should be happy to have Dame Shirley’s advice”.–[Official Report, 21 February 1991; Vol. 186, c. 432.]

    In view of the condemnation of the six councillors named as guilty in the report that was published today, will he recognise that there was advice from the policy unit at No. 10 Downing Street, and from the Department of the Environment, on the turning of a blind eye when Westminster council was committing those illegal and disgraceful acts? When will he condemn those who were guilty? When will heads roll–or will he bite the dust as Prime Minister and fall at the general election before this sordid affair is sorted out?

    The Prime Minister: Everything the hon. Gentleman has said is nonsense. Not only is it nonsense, but, as it happens, the quotation he has just given the House is entirely out of context, to make a dishonest point. If he had read the question, hon. Members would know that my reply related specifically to Westminster’s success in holding down local taxation. That is in sharp contrast to the performance of Labour councillors. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will now do me the courtesy of reading the quotation and placing an apology and a correction in Hansard.

     

    Q4. Mr. Robert G. Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 9 May.

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

    Mr. Hughes: On my right hon. Friend’s visit to Scotland, will he take with him the message that establishing a Parliament in Scotland, but still allowing Scottish Members of Parliament to vote on English and Welsh matters, would be deeply resented by English and Welsh people and that allowing Scottish Members of Parliament that double set of rights would be gerrymandering on a very large scale?

    The Prime Minister: It most certainly would. My hon. Friend highlights a fatal flaw in the Labour party’s plans. Labour Members have no idea how they would answer the question first posed by the hon. Member for West Lothian, now Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). The position of Scottish Members in this House would be untenable. That is the view once set out clearly by the shadow Foreign Secretary.

    The reality is that I cannot imagine that the Labour party has properly thought through or understood what it seeks to do in establishing a tax-raising assembly in Scotland, which would provide a staging post for the leader of the Scottish National party to try to take Scotland out of the Union. I oppose that, although it is not in my party’s interest to do so, because it is against the interests of Scotland and against the interests of the United Kingdom. Opposition Members support it because they see it as being in their own party, partisan interest.

    Mr. Radice: On Europe day, will the Prime Minister put the case for British membership of the European Union?

    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman cares to read the speech that I made to the Institute of Directors a week or so ago, he will see the case put clearly. I have made it clear from the Dispatch Box time and time again that it is in the interests of this country to be in the European Union, arguing for the sort of European Union that is good for this country. That is my position, it remains my position and it will remain my party’s position. What is not my party’s position is that, as a result of that, we agree, and slavishly follow, the views of each and every one of our European Union partners. It is not our view that we will “never be isolated” in Europe and will therefore follow the caravan wherever it might lead. If Europe goes in a direction that is not suitable for this country, we shall reject that direction and not follow Europe.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Newspaper Society – 1 May 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Newspaper Society, held in London on Wednesday 1st May 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    [Small section missing] What we see in our legislation is an environment in which the media thrives and is competitive without creating a monopolistic situation. I have to say to you it is a difficult balance to keep. I believe it is an intensely important balance in the democratic debate, but I don’t pretend to you that it is one that is readily obvious and one that can be achieved without a great deal of discussion and thought. For what we are seeking to do in Cross Media Ownership provisions is to exploit new opportunities and new technologies while ensuring that we protect diversity. Of course we have listened to the representations we have had by the regional press and national press on the subject of ownership, and we will continue to listen to them. We sought to lift controls which restrict the growth of vibrant media companies. All over the United Kingdom, companies, whether national or local, are finding themselves in a more competitive environment than any they have ever faced in the past. We seek to reflect that across a whole range of legislation and to try and find a more favourable environment than ever before for the newspaper industry, and indeed every other industry to operate.

    One thing I am sure of, the press expect the government to protect their freedoms, and if I may say so, sometimes under some provocation we have sought to do precisely that – to ensure that the press is free and unfettered to carry out its proper goal in the democratic debate. Not for us the veiled threats that if the press misbehave at the next general election they can expect curbs. Others may make those threats, indeed have done, we certainly don’t. And I think also it is well worth people looking at the commitment to put the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law, because a careful examination of that will show you that the voluntary code on press complaints could be replaced by regulations by courts, were that to be incorporated into domestic law.

    Now of course changes in the newspaper industry were essential, are essential, and I have no doubt will continue to be essential in the future because of the competitive market in which you operate. Old jobs, hallowed, dignified by tradition are suddenly overtaken by an entirely new way of doing things. Every day in the House of Commons l face appeals to fear of change, fear of a change, appeals which want to ignore change, that want to stop it and always itches to control it.

    I must say to you, I believe that although that may sometimes be good politics in the short-term, it is bad statesmanship. Unless this country actually faces the need for change – unpopular and uncomfortable though it may be for governors and governed alike – unless we actually meet those changes, face those changes and make those changes, we will not provide a business environment for the present, or for the future, in which British industry and commerce can survive and thrive. And I believe we have to make those changes, however difficult they may be.

    Labour have a new language these days, the pretentious language of ‘stakeholding’. I have to say to you, and I do not believe I am alone in this, that I am not entirely sure what it means or what it amounts to. It does seem to me to be a retreat into some cosy world of the past, that our future will only be bright if we look at the future, make the changes that are necessary, uncomfortable though they may often be, in order that industry and commerce can seize the opportunities that undoubtedly are there. And that can be done.

    Your industry perhaps above all, both nationally and locally, your industry is a classic example of how we embrace change with confidence. What we have seen in the last decade or so is an extraordinary burgeoning of new titles, new media companies, and whole new media industries.

    Information, education, communication – they are some of the key watchwords of the future. And we in Britain are uniquely well placed to take advantage of these global changes. The liberalisation of the whole telecommunications industry, the massive asset of the English language – all of this shows why your industry and across the economy as a whole, we can make Britain the Enterprise Centre of Europe, an increasingly effective and efficient force on the international business environment.

    We are now, as we meet here today, within a year of a General Election. And I believe as we get closer to that election people will increasingly wish to focus on the substance of the political debate. And I emphasise the substance. The important questions about substance and about policy are really very straight forward. Will it work? Does it make sense? Does it add up? Will we be better off, or worse off, if we take this particular route? How does this policy or that policy actually affect our national interests?

    They are the key questions and what we, the politicians, and what you, the media, must ensure is that those issues and principles are properly set out, exposed and challenged as well. Those questions affect our future. They deserve an answer from the politicians, and not just evasions.

    But I say “politicians and media” have a responsibility because I believe we both do. And let me explain to you why I say that. We have as sophisticated an electorate in this country as in any country in the world – sophisticated. But even so, these days it is often an uphill struggle to engage in rational detailed debate about contentious issues.

    The simple problems are gone. The complex problems remain and they are very difficult. They are very difficult to solve and they are very difficult to report fully and accurately as well. They need background and they need explanation.

    We are all familiar with the simplistic headlines. I have even heard there are politicians who talk in sound-bites in the hope that they might possibly become headlines.

    But there are two concerns that I would not be surprised if you shared with me. The first is over-simplification of important issues; and the second is too much emphasis on what is wrong and too little acknowledgement of what is right.

    I think that one of the great advantages of the written word is the opportunity to explain issues in greater depth. News clips on television and radio are very important, but they can rarely do proper justice to a complex detailed issue. It is impossible to conduct a serious political issue and then interpret it in a simple headline, impossible to address a complex issue in a brief clip on the 6 o’clock news.

    Let me paint a thought. I speak for 40 minutes on the intricacies of education and I set out a whole series of detailed policies. On the 5.40 or 6 o’clock television news there will be 1 minute of my speech and probably a contentious bit, 1 minute of my 40 minutes; it will be followed most probably by 1 minute of Mr Blair, who hasn’t read the speech; 1 minute of Mr Ashdown, who hasn’t understood the speech; and a 2 minute explanation by someone of what it was I meant by what it was I said. Of course the Prime Minister was talking about education, but what he meant was that he wanted to distract you from divisions in the party over European policy.

    That does not advance the democratic debate very much. And as for documentaries, they tend to follow after the event and are often broadcast at inconvenient times and to small audiences.

    But for the written press, national and local, a different set of criteria apply. I believe that the media has a very important duty in the exercise of our essential freedoms, to inform debate upon important issues, to raise public awareness and to inform our society.

    There is a problem that I would like to share with you and I hope you will accept that I am seeking to share it with you because I believe it is something that together we need to address.

    These days in our complex society with our complex problems, there is a tendency for people and their views to get labelled for ease of recognition. There is a tendency for the arguments to be over-simplified to the extent that they are only reported as if in code. It is left wing, or right wing, it is Europhile or Eurosceptic. We all know the code. I would like to alert everyone to the danger, and the danger is the short-changing of the public of what the true opinions and positions of their politicians are on important matters of national concern.

    But let me try and give you an example of what I mean. I believe it is the government’s job, any government, it is their job to weigh up the issues and to take action in what it judges to be the best long term interests of the country. Of course many will disagree with their conclusions, they may disagree, that is part of the debate but it ought not to dictate the agenda and certainly it won’t dictate mine. As Prime Minister I must speak for the national interest as I see it – and I will, whatever the noises off may be and from wherever the noises off may come.

    Let me take the European debate for a moment. I believe strongly that Britain can and does benefit from being in Europe. If we were to stand back and contemplate what our position might be had we not been opening up the European market over the last quarter of a century, I think you would begin to see precisely what I mean.

    But at the same time, whilst I have not a shred of doubt that we should be in the European Union fighting for the sort of European Union we want, we need to have the confidence to defend our interests and our rights as a nation state within the European Union.

    It has many frustrations, but it is in our interest, beyond a doubt, to be a part of it and seek to shape it. It is not in our interests to be on the side of it and leave the shaping of future policy, in whatever sphere it may be – social or monetary – to other people, then leaving us with decisions that they have made with which we have to live. That in my judgment is not a position for a proud, important, independent, democratic nation to find itself in. And that is why I believe we need to be in the centre of the European debate and express our views.

    But we are there to express our views and that means we can reject – as I do – any further moves towards political integration in Europe. It is important that a rational common sense European debate does not get obscured by over-simplification for the search for political drama.

    I know that in saying what I have just said to you that this view does not neatly fit into those simplistic boxes – Europhobe or Europhile. And because I occasionally make speeches that don’t fit into those simplistic boxes, it is all too easy to claim that what I am saying is just a balancing act with all the indications of compromise that that implies. I bluntly reject that interpretation. I am against communism. I am against fascism. That doesn’t mean I compromise as a Conservative. I am a Conservative because I believe in conservatism, and I take a middle of the road view on European matters because I believe our national interest requires us to be in Europe, not to take an extreme view, anti-European or fanatically pro-European, but to fight my corner in the interests of my country in the European debate.

    I don’t think that is a lack of conviction, I think that is an understanding of what is in the interest of the vast majority of people in this country and it is right for me to fight for those and not to be pushed to one edge or another edge of a vitally important debate for this country, and I have no intention of being so.

    But if you need to carry out your agenda, whether in Europe or elsewhere, the first ingredient for any government is to produce a stable economy. And I would like to say to you today that I think we have produced a more promising series of economic prospects for this country than we have literally known for generations. I know in the clamour of daily drama this can so easily be overlooked, but let me just set out some of the points to illustrate what I am saying.

    As we meet here today for this excellent luncheon, we have the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years; the lowest basic rate of tax for over 50 years; the lowest tax burden of any major European economy; the lowest unemployment of any major European country; the longest period of low inflation for 50 years; we get more foreign investment in this country than any other country in Europe, and almost as much as the rest of Europe put together; our industry exports per person more than Japan or the United States; and we have seen fewer days lost in strikes since records began. And if one turns to social changes: we have invested more in pensions than the rest of Europe added together; and we now have one in three of our young people entering higher education, where it was only one in eight 15 years ago.

    I have set out those points. I have to say to you that if I had come to you on the eve of the last general election and said I am going to come back in May 1996 and I will have achieved all those changes, there is not a single journalist or proprietor here who would have believed that that would actually have been achieved. But it has been, and the fact that it has been makes a profound difference to the backdrop of policy for the future and it is the backdrop to the agenda that I will put before the country at the next General Election.

    That agenda that I care about is a very down to earth agenda but I think it is a very realistic agenda. It sees the world as it is and it seeks to improve it. It is not pipedream dressed up as rhetoric. It is about trusting people and giving individual choice and opportunity to them, not having it exercised by government, national or local. It is about encouraging enterprise for the simple reason that governments cannot create jobs. We can set a framework in which enterprise can create jobs, but not if we hamstring it in the decisions that it has to make. And so we need to encourage enterprise and let it loose to create jobs, prosperity and security for the future.

    There are people who think they are helping jobs by preserving old jobs with artificial legislation. I say they are wrong and what they actually do is inhibit the provision of new jobs that will last and extra efficiency and competitiveness for this country.

    I have an agenda about maintaining respect for the rule of law and for ordinary common decency. I believe that up and down this country the people to whom you sell your newspapers, they are decent, straight forward, common sense people and they cry out to see that defended nationally and locally by their politicians and by their opinion formers and I believe that is precisely the business that we should be in.

    We need to care for the way that people are treated by the public services. I come from a background where the public services were very important to my family and I learnt at a very young age the arrogance of so much of the public service, the arrogant belief that because it was funded by the taxpayer and provided free at the point of delivery, that one didn’t have the same rights as a consumer of that service that one would have had if you were paying cash on the nail. For I passionately disagree with that. We don’t pay cash on the nail for our public services, we pay cash in advance in taxes, compulsorily extracted from our incomes, in order to provide that public service and we have every right to demand of it the very best service that can be provided.

    And I think we need to re-assess and speak more frequently about the pride and respect that our country deserves, about our national institutions and about our values. Those are issues that will be at the core of the next General Election and they are issues upon which I will be comfortable to fight.

    One of the most ill-judged criticisms of recent years has been those commentators who have said: “But there is very little difference between the political parties”. Now it is true that a number of parties ape traditional Tory sentiments these days, and they do that because they know that that is what appeals to the innate instinct of the British nation. But the policy issues, the actions that will be carried out in government that would affect you and all the people who read your newspapers, those differences are very real.

    And let me tell you the differences I mean. The different approaches to public expenditure, where it is clear that the Opposition would spend far more and where their plans don’t remotely add up to the income they are likely to have. The difference between our philosophical belief as Conservatives in low taxes, and our opponents’ hidden agenda of raising taxes, whether through axing child benefit, taxing company cars, or raising the rate for anyone who earns as much income as Clare Short.

    There are different approaches throughout the political agenda, different approaches to employment. My approach is to create jobs through enterprise, not to damage enterprise by adding extra social costs to employers to inhibit their capacity to employ.

    The difference between the action that we have taken to improve standards and choice and information in education, and the action all our political opponents have taken, which has been to oppose everything we have done to improve standards, to enlarge choice or to dispense information to parents.

    I believe in choice in education. Our children are not all of a kind. We need a rich variety of choice to match the individual needs of our children. And I don’t have a shred of hesitation in saying that that will certainly include an extra element of selection where that is the demand of parents and where that is the wish of school governing bodies.

    And then there are differences in our approaches to crime, where we have produced measure after measure and had to force them through the House of Commons against the votes of our opponents time and time again.

    And then perhaps, at this moment, the greatest debate of all. The implication of the Opposition’s policies at home and in Europe for the constitution and the stability of the United Kingdom.

    Let me turn firstly to the plans for devolution and other constitutional tinkering. I won’t mince my words about that. I believe that if we were to have a tax-raising parliament in Scotland, that we would have taken a giant step towards dismantling the United Kingdom as we see it today. These policies are not thought through. How can it be right for Members of Parliament at a Scottish Parliament to vote upon matters that affect Scotland, and then go down to England and vote upon the same matters affecting England, where English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would have no say in what happens in Scotland? How can it be right to leave over-representation in Scotland where they have a tax gathering Assembly? How can it be right for a disproportionate amount of public expenditure to continue to flow to Scotland if they are to have their own tax-gathering Assembly?

    And what have the Scots done, what dreadful crime have they committed, that they should be invited to pay at least an extra 3p in the pound in taxation? I have a great affection for the Scots, I listen to them whenever I have the opportunity, and I have never heard them say to me yet: “I would like to pay an extra 3p in the pound in taxation”.

    When our opponents say: “We might reduce taxation in Scotland”. Really? Well that would be a novelty, for Labour to reduce taxation anywhere would be a novelty. But for Labour to reduce taxation on the basis of a disproportionate amount of public expenditure coming out of the rest of the United Kingdom would not be possible. The fact is taxes would rise in Scotland and there would be great disunity between Scotland and the United Kingdom.

    And what would happen at some stage in the future, and if possible, perhaps probable, that the Separatist Party in Scotland won the elections for the Scottish Assembly? Would not the Scottish Nationalists regard this as a mandate for separation? That is the basis of their programme. Of course they would. And what would be the position between a Scottish Parliament in which a party demanding separation had just got the majority, and an English parliament perhaps peeved and concerned that they were pouring extra expenditure into Scotland? What sort of division and break would come about from those policies?

    Now I am not seeking to make a cheap political point. If one wishes to talk politics, we don’t have as many seats as the Labour Party in Scotland by quite a margin, if I wanted to play political advantage I would say let Scotland go, I will be 40 seats to the better if I let Scotland go. But I say no. The United Kingdom would be weaker if it began to break up and we lost Scotland. I would rather have Scotland, even with its extra Labour and Scottish Nationalist seats, than see it divide. We Tories are on a high point of principle with our policy about Scotland and we will try and make sure that this is a central part of the next General Election because a United Kingdom that is divided and broke up would not only mean a weaker Scotland, it would mean a weaker United Kingdom as a whole and it must not be permitted to happen.

    And then of course there are divisions in policy between ourselves and our opponents on Europe. I think it is interesting to look not at the divisions within the parties, of course there are divisions within my party and divisions within the Labour Party. Fifty Labour members recently produced a manifesto that was tantamount to saying let us leave the European Union and have nothing whatever to do with it. So there are those divisions across politics, let us enter into serious debate and acknowledge that.

    But there are also very substantial differences between the political parties on European policy. The Labour Party would centralise power in Europe. We would not. The Labour Party would accept the social chapter. We would not. Labour would accept more qualified majority voting. We would not. Labour say they will never be isolated in Europe. We know you sometimes have to be isolated in Europe if you are going to stand up for Britain’s national interests. If Margaret Thatcher hadn’t been isolated we would never have had the rebate. If I hadn’t been isolated, I would have lost the rebate in the Maastricht negotiations. I can tell you now there wasn’t another friend around that table who wanted Britain to retain her rebate from her European contributions which is worth literally billions to us. So you have to be isolated in Europe, you have to stand up in it.

    We will seek changes to the Common Fisheries Policy. We don’t know what Labour’s policy is. We will seek changes to the European Court of Justice which is now seeking to change what the law is rather than interpret the law, most recently in the working time directive, but we don’t know what Labour’s policy is. We would have a referendum on a single currency if we decided to enter it. We don’t know what Labour’s policy is.

    Now these are deep fundamental differences between the two major political parties at Westminster. That is the real debate. It is an important debate. But let us engage in what the real debate is in politics and not so much of the fantasy debate that we have seen over the last few months.

    I will fight that election when it comes on the sharp differences between the parties and upon the issues that I believe matter most to the people of this country. And let me make this point to you. The economic changes we have seen, and the change in our economic prospects, will give unparalleled opportunities after the next general election to the government, opportunities that can be used in different ways, opportunities to change and shape our country that have not been there in recent years while we have been building our present economic strength as we have come out of the recession. The way in which those opportunities are used would be sharply different between the main political parties at Westminster.

    I will use those opportunities in a way that will make them predominantly available to individuals and their families, predominantly available to the people. I believe they should have the first choice about how to make decisions that affect themselves, their families, their future and their interests. I don’t believe that will be the first choice of either of our main political opponents.

    And as we come to the election, we need to focus on those choices. Whatever the outcome of that election is to be, it ought to be an outcome determined upon the basis of what genuinely matters to the people up and down this country. And that is not a froth and bubble of every day disputes, it is the fundamental issues that affect the future of this country constitutionally and the way in which people live their lives within it.

    I believe we are right to lift the eyes of the nation to the opportunities that now lie ahead of us. It is time to rekindle the self-confidence that too often has been at a very low ebb in the last few years. We need to rise above the tendency to be negative, we need to recognise how far this country has come, and more importantly precisely what this country is poised to achieve if it has the courage and the imagination to take the opportunities that lie immediately in front of them.

    We have perhaps the best opportunity in front of us that we have had for generations. We need to take it, not throw it away, not dissipate it, not lose it by even failing to realise that it is there.

    I have a determination that Britain will become the Enterprise Centre of Europe. That is not just a slogan, it has hard-edged policy behind it. It is a statement of economic philosophy and a statement of belief, a belief that a free enterprise, low tax Britain can ride high as a global trading nation and win markets in every part of the world.

    But we do need to get the balance right. By we I mean we the politicians, not only you the media. We need to get that balance right. It is no good talking ourselves down as a country and neither in my opinion is it remotely justified. This is a great nation, it doesn’t have an empire, but it is a nation of importance and influence, with standards and values that most nations in the world still look at with some envy and with very great respect.

    Let us realise what we are and stop down-playing what we have done. We need, in my judgment, a proper measure of optimism and self-confidence to fire the enthusiasm and enterprise we need to take on the challenges of tomorrow. That I think is the debate that lies ahead of us. That I can tell you with every fibre of my being is the debate that I believe we should be having in this country at the moment. It is a debate of immense importance, it is a debate I look forward to with relish, and it is a debate I believe that I will win.

  • Mr Major’s Conservative Central Council Speech – 30 March 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech made to Conservative Central Council on Saturday 30th March 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Within a year or so we’ll fight a general election.

    At stake will be not just who forms the government, but what that means.

    In the Tory years, the quality of life has changed immeasurably for the better and now it’s moving up again.

    We are poised for a step change in prosperity.

    The world knows it and says it. The Opposition knows it – but denies it. Because Conservative success means Labour failure. But I can live with that. And so, I think, can you.

    We must tell people about the opportunities ahead.

    Tell them what’s at risk.

    Never mind the opinion polls. Bucking the trend is the story of my life.

    So, it’s time to stop underselling what we’ve done, what we stand for, and time to start selling what we care about and what we’re going to do.

    Mr Chairman, as you know we have been holding hundreds of meetings up and down the country. It has been the biggest consultation exercise the party has ever had.

    It’s shown our gut instincts haven’t changed: we still back the traditional values that brought us into the Party in the first place.

    But we’ve always been able to move with the times.

    So, we’ve been turning our beliefs into practical political action.

    Enterprise

    Now to business. First, some facts.

    We’re enjoying the longest period of low inflation for nearly 50 years.

    The lowest mortgage rates for 30 years.

    Fewer days lost to strikes since records began.

    More of our people in jobs, more investment.

    And the lowest tax burden of any major European economy.

    And yet it is fact, fact, fact. When – in all the long history of our country – could any Government have said as much?

    This is the result of a government getting the important things right. It didn’t happen by magic. That’s the prize tough decisions have won for us.

    Britain can be proud of what Britain is achieving. But we must go on. We must build on what we’ve done and make Britain the unrivalled Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    There can be no future for high taxing, high spending governments. That’s a nightmare from the past. A socialist vision – let it go. We don’t want it back.

    Our aim is to get taxes down.

    And not only income tax. I want to cut and, when possible, abolish inheritance tax. Labour wince when I say that.

    But I can’t defend a tax that stops children inheriting what their parents have worked to earn and save.

    It’s a tax on the family. And helping the family is what we’re about.

    So I don’t want our children to see the fruits of their parent’s life time work disappear forever into the Government’s coffers. I just believe it’s wrong.

    Taxes should come from a growing economy. And a growing economy comes from competition – the drive of the market.

    Competition works.

    The state once ran industries into the ground, often. But look at them now.

    Telephones – now amongst the cheapest in Europe.

    Electricity – where prices have fallen and are set to fall further.

    Gas – where prices have fallen by 20% and are set to fall further still.

    This hasn’t happened in the water industry – yet. But it will. And I’ll tell you why.

    Because we’re going to introduce competition into the water industry. It’s worked wonders in gas, phones and electricity. And it should do the same for water.

    How Labour hate all this. They know none of it would have happened if they’d been in power. They mouth the words of the market – but they don’t believe a syllable.

    They loathe the thought of the private ownership of British Rail.

    They can’t stomach the fact that enterprise and competition will improve the service and bring down the price.

    They’re positively mortified that new private investment will build in a new railway system for a new millennium.

    They’d rather defend a public sector monopoly that’s become a music hall joke.

    Perhaps you think I’m being unfair.

    But am I?

    These are the same people who said that privatising British Airways would turn it into the pantomime horse of capitalism.

    Well, some pantomime. Some horse.

    British Airways is now one of the most successful airlines in the world.

    Don’t ask me. Just ask the champagne socialists. Would they rather travel on British Airways or good old state run Aeroflot?

    Privatisation has given millions of people the chance to own shares. There are now more shareholders than trade unionists. And there are many Trade Unionists who are shareholders.

    Take the rail union, RMT.

    They own shares in privatised companies. They want the profits of the market. But that doesn’t stop them attacking the privatisation of British Rail.

    Don’t do as I do. Do as I say. That’s the theme that runs right through the Labour movement.

    Once Labour promised common ownership. Now they call it stakeholding. But – as usual – it’s common deception.

    We mean ownership by individuals for themselves and their families. They don’t.

    We want to make the capital owning democracy a living reality. They don’t.

    They want people’s wealth. We want wealth for the people.

    More ownership.

    More people owning a share of the company they work for.

    Let’s be clear. I’m not just talking about directors or managers on the executive floor. I’m talking about staff on the factory floor and at the supermarket checkout. They can be owners too.

    In the last Budget, Ken Clarke made it even more attractive for employees to own shares in their company. Now it’s up to industry to spread employee share ownership.

    Here’s a challenge for them. Let’s have the majority of workers in Britain’s large companies holding shares in those companies by the end of this decade.

    That will be an important part of making Britain an enterprise culture to its core.

    We must make change work for us. That’s what enterprise is about.

    Twenty years ago, pocket calculators were an oddity. Portable phones were hardly heard of. The information superhighway was somewhere off the M6. A lap top was something you sat on, not worked on.

    We’re having to learn a whole new vocabulary.

    New technology is going to affect all our lives.

    We’ll be able to work or shop from home, to send messages to anyone, anywhere, any time. These opportunities are on our doorstep, but for many people it’s still difficult to imagine. We need to open the Nation’s mind to the opportunities ahead.

    So we’re getting together with industry on a project for the millennium. To let as many people as possible try out computers – in schools, libraries and shops in the high street. These skills will equip us for the new century. They offer tremendous and exciting opportunities. We need to know about them.

    We’re not just creating jobs and prosperity, this year and next year. We’re out to build the enterprise and skills to secure jobs and prosperity that lasts.

    Opportunity

    I tell you who does love these new things: children.

    Tomorrow’s their world. But they won’t stand a chance of making the most of it unless we deliver world class education.

    Education is the door to opportunity.

    Every parent wants the best for their children. Especially parents in the Shadow Cabinet.

    There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s every parent’s right.

    But there’s the little matter of other people’s children too.

    We believe it’s right to offer them the best as well.

    We do. Labour don’t. And that’s the difference.

    Labour can’t decide its policy on education.

    For GM schools, against GM schools: for selection, against selection.

    Every time they settle the line, some Labour frontbencher breaks it.

    While they divide, we deliver.

    Under the Conservatives, education has changed a lot.

    Year by year, we’ve been clawing back from the worst excesses of the comprehensive system. Choice is expanding. Standards are rising.

    The National Curriculum, tests, performance tables, regular inspection, a whole range of schools.

    All this is new.

    But there’s more to be done.

    Gillian Shephard has put standards and discipline firmly back on the agenda – and she’ll have more to say about them soon.

    Teachers deserve our support on this and I promise you, they’ll get it.

    Every parent is concerned about those crucial years at the start of schooling. So we’re turning nursery education over time from a nice dream to a reality for every four year old whose parents want it.

    But that’s not all. We have ambitions to ensure that by the time children are seven, they can master the basic skills that underpin all learning.

    Teaching children basic skills is just the bare minimum. Children need to use today’s technology with confidence. They can access a huge library of information in seconds. The computer can be their personal tutor to help them learn arithmetic or a foreign language.

    So we’re working on training teachers and staff, putting the latest kit in our schools and linking schools up to the new world of information.

    Britain already has a head start.

    We’re now developing substantial and practical plans to build on that progress. To engage industry and private finance in our ambitions to transform technology in schools for the next century. Giving our nation’s children the skills they’ll need for our nation’s future.

    Not just pipe dreams – we’re delivering practical action.

    The education system we’re building reflects a simple truth every child is different. And every child is special.

    Let me turn to a controversial matter.

    I believe choice and selection does have a place in education. And so do you.

    Not the old 11 plus – that’s gone – but more selection in schools. And if parents want them, that could mean more schools like the old grammar schools.

    It’s time to say goodbye to the political correctness of the levellers-down. We’re going to give all schools more control over their own affairs.

    Earlier this week, Gillian Shephard set out our aim: to give all schools as much power as possible to take their decisions about as much as possible of their budgets.

    More of the money delivered straight into the hands of teachers and governors, bypassing bureaucracy.

    We want to free our schools from the straitjacket of uniformity.

    Freedom to demand the best from our brightest pupils.

    Freedom to help the weaker pupil.

    Freedom to give opportunity to every pupil.

    Conservatism instinctively knows that freedom works.

    Mr Chairman, there’s another point: there’s no place for intellectual snobbery in the classroom.

    Practical skills must be respected.

    We’re planning a single clear national framework of qualifications with common certificates that all children can aim for. And with that will come new opportunities to combine academic work with learning at work. New modem apprenticeships are a success. We intend to open that opportunity to more and more of our young people.

    Welfare

    Mr. Chairman, fate does not equip everyone with the same gifts or the same good fortune. We are a generous hearted nation. We’re more than willing to help those who genuinely need it.

    I believe we must encourage the successful so that we can protect those who need help.

    To do that, we must build a welfare system we can afford: one that reflects Conservative values – self-sufficiency. Responsibility. Independence.

    That means doing three things.

    First, cracking down on fraud and abuse. On Monday, Peter Lilley will launch another step in our campaign – an area by area focus to put the spotlight on benefit cheats. We’re going to protect the taxpayer and close down the welfare rackets.

    Second, we’re going to direct money to those who genuinely need it to help them back on their feet.

    People out of work and looking for a job deserve help. They’ll get it.

    The long term unemployed need special help. They too will get it. We’re piloting schemes to help get them back to work. But after that, if they refuse to accept work on offer, their benefit will be reduced. I believe that’s fair and right.

    Third, we must help people secure independence for themselves and their families.

    More people are living longer. We need to help families support relatives who can no longer be cared for at home. Our Party feels strongly about this.

    So, next month we’ll set out our proposals to deal with this challenge – to help protect the family home and lifetime’s savings.

    Our starting point is the classic Conservative theme of partnership.

    Very simply, if people take out insurance to help pay for their care, the state will reward their contribution by safeguarding more of their assets when that insurance runs out.

    And we’re looking at ideas to help people in the near future, not just in the far distance. There is no perfect solution to this. But our ideas are fresh and far- reaching.

    Responsibility will be rewarded. Prudence will be recognised. And the elderly will have the chance to protect the savings they’ve worked for all their lives.

    Public services

    Mr. Chairman, the usual dismal voices say Britain won’t be able to afford high quality public services in the future. I think that’s nonsense.

    We taxpayers pay for public services. We pay with taxes compulsorily taken from our income. I’ll tell you what I think.

    We taxpayers have a right to expect the best as if we’re paying cash on the nail. In fact, we’ve done better; we’ve paid in advance. And when we deal with the public sector, we shouldn’t be shunted from file to file.

    To make sure they’re not, we’re breaking down the large bureaucracies.

    Wherever possible, less bureaucracy at the centre, more choice at the grassroots.

    In this, we are the polar opposite to Labour.

    They’re wedded to control by anyone except the people. Bureaucracy, not taxpayers. Trade unions, not consumers. Politicians, not people. Labour don’t trust people. Unless they’re people in authority – lots of them – calling the shots.

    I’m not prepared to let public services remain an outcrop of socialist planning, a kind of prescriptive service, oblivious to the needs and wishes of the people who pay for it.

    So, let’s have an end to the faceless institutions, the bureaucratic assault courses, the unanswered telephones, all run from the top down. Instead, services should be run on a human scale. Decisions taken close to those they affect. And that’s what we’re building. The benefits are already clear.

    In self-governing schools – schools run by teachers, governors and parents.

    And in our hospitals – where team work has cut waiting lists. Are our reforms working? Yes – indeed they are.

    One example: since our reforms began, the number of people waiting more than a year for an operation has fallen by 90%. Thousands of people, old and young, are enjoying a better quality of life because they have been treated better and earlier.

    Let no one doubt our commitment to our National Health Service. Our commitment is there – in concrete, bricks and mortar.

    Labour founded the NHS. They’re proud of it. But built it up. Every week, since 1979, we’ve seen a new capital scheme worth a million pounds.

    And we should be proud of that.

    And we should also be proud that, thanks to our reforms, GPs now have greater power and freedom to serve more and more of their patients’ needs.

    We’re going to build on that. We want to give Britain’s 30,000 GPs the freedom to provide, in the communities they serve, the treatments that people need.

    In the summer, we’ll set out some of the next steps down this road – including opportunities for GPs to offer a range of hospital treatments in their surgeries.

    Our aim now is a far reaching one: it is to allow GPs’ practices to become the cottage hospitals of the 21st century. To ensure we offer better health care, closer to people, than any other nation can provide.

    Law and Order

    Mr Chairman, in building Our Nation’s Future we must also take forward our natural Conservative instincts for a society based on law and order.

    For decades rising crime and lawlessness seemed unstoppable.

    There was a culture that tried to excuse crime.

    But crime is caused not by society, by poverty, by circumstances. It’s caused by criminals kicking the door in for personal gain.

    For every crime there is a victim. A victim for whom the fear, loss, outrage and intrusion far outweigh the financial consequences.

    Let me take one illustration of many.

    Burglary.

    I had a flat burgled many years ago. Not much was taken because there wasn’t much to take.

    But it was vandalised.

    I was young. Fit. But I never felt quite the same in that flat again.

    How much worse for people whose family home has been ransacked.

    Whose possessions have been rifled through, whose security and safety shattered – quite apart from financial loss.

    I have no hesitation in seeking tougher punishment for such a crime. And especially for the criminal who burgles again and again – the serial thief.

    Let me tell the Conference: I am absolutely behind Michael Howard’s proposals to secure longer sentences for those who commit crimes like this time and again. And we will introduce laws to that effect.

    I believe it’s a fair punishment. Let me tell you why. I believe it will deter.

    But more important still, if we know somebody is likely to go out and commit more crimes, we owe it to the public to put them out of harm’s way.

    That’s the surest way to continue cutting the crime rate. And that’s exactly what we’ll do.

    But we need to put equal emphasis on order – or perhaps civility. On a society where the decent common courtesies are expected and observed.

    We should not have to tolerate loutish behaviour. People’s rights to quiet and privacy should be respected. Simple obvious rules – on the roads, in the parks, on public transport – should be followed.

    To some, these things may seem unimportant compared with major crimes. But they cause many people distress in their daily lives.

    So, as we build and extend the role of schemes like neighbourhood watch, we’ll put order as well as law back where it belongs – in our communities.

    So when people say to me, is it cost effective to have policemen on the beat, to have special constables patrolling our neighbourhoods, my answer is unequivocally yes. That’s how we’ll give people reassurance. That’s how we’ll nip crime in the bud.

    That’s what you want. That’s what we’ll deliver.

    The Nation

    Mr Chairman, amidst a sea of change, a united nation brings security. We need that security now more than ever.

    Our nation’s history is one of change. But sensible, careful change, never change for change’s sake.

    Scotland and England united are the cement that binds the United Kingdom together. Scotland is vital to the Union. The Union is vital to Scotland. And the whole United Kingdom would suffer if that Union were damaged.

    For me, this issue dwarfs the daily political debates.

    Some cynics ask: why do I care about the Union? After all, they say, why should I care about devolution? With Scotland out of the Union, there’s more likely to be entrenched Conservative majorities at Westminster for ever and a day.

    That may be true, but they’re forgetting the overall interest of the United Kingdom.

    I reject the narrow selfishness of a little England or a little Scotland. I believe that Scotland and England – and Wales and Northern Ireland – have all benefited from the historic constitutional settlement which created our United Kingdom. A unity Labour plans put at risk.

    So Scotland faces a choice.

    It can share in that success – lead it even – and be at the heart of the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    Or it can cut itself off. Saddle itself with higher taxes. Destroy jobs with the Social Chapter and minimum wage – carrots held out by Labour that would become sticks across industries’ backs.

    And it would watch, helplessly, as investors get out their pocket calculators and their airflight timetables and go away.

    The scheme for a tax-raising Scottish parliament is separatism by instalments. The Scottish Nationalists have already acclaimed it as the fast track to independence and they’re right.

    Could there honourably be devolution without fewer Scottish members at Westminster? No, there could not. Without such a cut, Scotland would become the most over-represented part of the United Kingdom. There’s a word for that – an old word: gerrymandering.

    And could it possibly be right that Scottish MPs at Westminster should be able to vote on purely English matters, while English MPs would have no say over matters devolved to a Scottish Parliament?

    My answer to that is simple.

    ‘I don’t believe that we could for ever maintain a situation in which Scots and Welsh Members vote on, say, English education and pay beds while the English cannot vote on Scottish and Welsh equivalents’. You won’t ever guess who said that. Robin Cook. That’s what Robin Cook thinks. The first good sense he’s ever spoken.

    Then there’s Labour’s Tartan Tax. Why should people in Scotland pay more tax than in England? What does the Labour Party have against the Scots?

    Labour have the cheek to suggest that they might even cut taxes. What an untruth to set before the nation! For how long do they think English MPs will vote 30% more money to Scotland so that a Scottish Assembly can use it to cut taxes north of Berwick? The proposition is ludicrous.

    Mr Chairman, my commitment to the Union is total. It’s not just a political commitment. It’s emotional as well. I admit it. And I’m not ashamed of that.

    I feel, with every fibre of my being, that the result of this folly would be the dismemberment of the United Kingdom.

    That would be the burial of our history, the interment of a great good. It would deprive future generations of a sane, flexible, tolerant system. It would weaken England, weaken Scotland and would begin the destruction of a kingdom whose very reason for being is to be united.

    People who support a tax-raising Scottish parliament are sowing dragon’s teeth. These proposals will lead – implacably and irrevocably – to the break-up of the United Kingdom. That is not speculation, it is fact. I do not say “may” or “might”; I say “will”.

    Scotland and the Scots are central to the British identity. We are that close.

    Let us work and live together, as one nation, as we have been for centuries. If we do anything else, we shall grow smaller – all of us – separately.

    PERORATION

    Mr Chairman, I’ve set out some of our plans. There is much more yet to come.

    Ahead of our United Kingdom lies tremendous – and exciting – opportunities.

    The opportunity for more people to realise their ambitions and their hopes and their dreams.

    A better life for their family. Their own home. Their own savings. A secure job. A good education for their children.

    I became a Conservative because I was brought up to be proud of our country. Our traditions, our heritage.

    I still am.

    And so are the vast majority of the British people.

    Our hopes are their hopes.

    That’s why we’ve trounced Labour four times in a row.

    And that’s why we’ll do it again.

  • PMQT – 8 February 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 8th February 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

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

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

    Mr. Riddick: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Conservative and Unionist party will always stand four-square behind the Union? Is it not the case that the British constitution has evolved over centuries, but that it could take a matter of months for a meddling, middle-class public school boy to undermine or even destroy it?

    The Prime Minister: We have made some evolutionary changes to the constitution in recent years, and I believe that there is scope for more evolutionary change in the years ahead. I do not believe that large-scale changes that would significantly alter the face of the United Kingdom and the Union as we know it are in the interests of the United Kingdom. Frankly, I believe that many of the plans that have been put forward do not address the difficulties.

    I see no reason why Scotland should be taxed more highly than the rest of the United Kingdom. Neither do I see any reason why Scottish Members should vote on Scottish matters that English Members cannot vote on, and then vote in the House on the same matters as they affect England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Those issues need very careful examination. I hope that they will receive that careful examination, as they clearly have not had it yet.

    Sir Malcolm Thornton: Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent newspaper article about education by the Labour transport spokesman, which I shall quote–[Interruption.]–which I shall paraphrase. It refers to public schools producing more social cripples than any other form of education devised by man. Does my right hon. Friend believe that that is yet another veiled attack on the Labour leader and some of his Front-Bench colleagues, or is it simply another example of hypocrisy?

    The Prime Minister: I feel as though I am in an air raid shelter on this occasion, speaking as a grammar school boy. My hon. Friend should not be too hard on the hon. Member concerned. I think that Labour Members are required to put their children down for private school these days so that they can remain in the vanguard of Labour education policy.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister agree that the Scott inquiry was entirely fairly conducted and that no criticism can or should be made of its processes or procedures?

    The Prime Minister: As I said in the House on a previous occasion:

    “I asked Sir Richard to carry out the report and I have confidence that he will do so”–

    and has done so–

    “thoroughly.”

    Mr. Blair: I must press the Prime Minister on that because he will know that, in the past few days, there has been a concerted attempt to rubbish the inquiry. Will he say unequivocally that he accepts that it was entirely fairly conducted?

    The Prime Minister: I just said to the right hon. Gentleman:

    “I asked Sir Richard to carry out the report and I have every confidence that he will do so”–

    and has done so–

    “thoroughly.”

    The right hon. Gentleman is saying that neither he nor anybody else can comment fairly on the Scott report until people have had the opportunity to study it. I agree with that point, but it also applies to the past three years. It applies to the fact that the Opposition have made crude and blatant smears throughout those past three years without having had the evidence of the Scott report before them. If, in his question, the right hon. Gentleman was making it clear that he believes that those were unjustified attacks without any evidence, I would be pleased for him to withdraw them now and make it clear that he will repudiate them.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister is not even prepared to say whether the report is fairly conducted. When he says that we should await the findings of the report, let me remind him that he and his Ministers will have had the report for eight days, that four Government Departments have units working on it and that we are to get it a few hours before publication. I am not asking him to comment on its findings, but on whether it was fairly conducted. He set up the inquiry. He chose Sir Richard Scott. Is he now prepared to state that he is confident that it was fairly conducted? If he does not say that, the final vestiges of respect will be removed from the Government.

    The Prime Minister: I know that the right hon. Gentleman had carefully prepared his third soundbite before my first answer, and I am tempted to refer him to the two answers I have just given. I made it clear that

    “I asked Sir Richard to carry out the report and I have confidence that he will do so”–

    and has done so–

    “thoroughly.”–[Official Report, 6 June 1995; Vol. 261, c. 15.]

    I have now said that three times. Will the right hon. Gentleman now stop preparing his soundbites in advance and listen to my answers before he prepares his questions?

     

    Q2. Mr. Illsley: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 February.

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

    Mr. Illsley: Why cannot the Prime Minister publish such an important document as the report of the Scott inquiry a few days before the statement on it next week so that the Opposition, and indeed the House, can be properly informed? Is it not disgraceful that a few Conservative Members will have had that report for eight days, but the rest of the House will receive it on the day of the statement?

    The Prime Minister: We plan to follow the precedents for a weighty report of this nature, and to permit Opposition spokesmen to see the report several hours before the statement is made. Of course, the House will also wish to study and comment on the report. That is why we propose to find time in Government time for an early debate on the report a few days after the statement has been made, once the whole House has had the opportunity to study the report and comment on it on the basis of detail, not of innuendo and smear, which has been the nature of the comments thus far from a number of Opposition Members.

    Dame Jill Knight: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the House of Lords provides a useful and important advisory service for this country at very little cost? It has no power to overrule or frustrate the will of the House of Commons. Has my right hon. Friend heard of the old phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t mend it”?

    The Prime Minister: I believe that this House should treat constitutional reform of any sort with care and consideration, and examine what the outcome of that reform might be before being committed to it. I do not believe that the reforms proposed to the House of Lords are relevant to the problems and opportunities facing this country over the next five to 10 years. It seems to me that the reform in question is irrelevant–and intended to be a spiteful, thoughtless irrelevance.

     

    Campbell Soups

    Q3. Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Prime Minister when he next plans to visit a Campbell Soups exhibition stand at a United Kingdom food trade fair.

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

    Mr. Campbell-Savours: The Prime Minister will be aware of the call for an international boycott of Campbell Soups and Fray Bentos products, arising out of the appalling decision by the company to close down the highly profitable Homepride plant in my constituency–having purchased it for £58.6 million only 11 weeks earlier. Are not the real stakeholders in Homepride not the greedy shareholders in America who do not give a damn about the people of Maryport, but the work force who have invested their lives in making that company a success and who are now being put on the scrap heap? Will the Prime Minister join the 341 Members of Parliament–a majority of this House–who have called on the company to reverse its decision?

    The Prime Minister: I realise the extent of the disappointment that must be felt at Maryport over the decision. I understand that Campbell’s has offered employees jobs at one of its five other plants–although, self-evidently, that will not be appropriate for many employees. I also understand the depth of the hon. Gentleman’s concern for his constituents, but I hope that he and everyone else will bear in mind the fact that Campbell’s has been in the United Kingdom for over 30 years. It employs more than 2,000 people here and has shown its commitment to the United Kingdom by investing more than £100 million here in the past 12 months. I would not wish to threaten and damage those investments, or the jobs that are safeguarded and are being created as a result of those investments.

     

    Engagements

    Q4. Mr. Chidgey: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 February.

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

    Mr. Chidgey: Does the Prime Minister agree with the Social Security Secretary, who has described today’s proposed cuts of £1 billion in the social security budget as devastating?

    The Prime Minister: That is in no sense what my right hon. Friend has said about the outcome of the public expenditure round. The whole House will recall that, in recent weeks, I have been criticised by the Opposition for administrative costs being too high. Here we have a practical illustration of the Government seeking to cut administrative costs, in the interests of the taxpayer, to preserve the resources available for benefits–yet on that point the Opposition criticise me as well.

    The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind: does he criticise the Government for not cutting administrative costs or for making administrative savings? Even though he is a Liberal Democrat, he cannot have it both ways.

    Mr. Butterfill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the height of hypocrisy to maintain that one is committed to the elimination of state subsidy and then to do the reverse? Do not the recent decisions by the Transport Commissioner show that the Labour party–whether old Labour or new Labour, in Westminster or in Brussels–is committed to state subsidy and to Spanish practices?

    The Prime Minister: The whole House will know of our concern about the Iberia decision. It is certainly not in the interests of the air travellers of Europe, and we have made that known to Commissioner Kinnock and to others.

     

    Q5. Mr. Hoon: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 8 February.

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

    Mr. Hoon: In a statement to the House about the setting up of the Scott inquiry, the Attorney-General stated that matters of form and procedure were a question for the learned judge. Why will not the Prime Minister condemn unequivocally those, such as Lord Howe, who have sought to impugn the integrity of the learned judge and to attack the contents of his report before publication?

    The Prime Minister: On attacks on the contents of the report, if anyone has predetermined what the contents of the report might be, it is the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and not my noble Friend Lord Howe.

    On the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, I refer him to what I said on 13 January 1994 at column 332.

    Mr. Butler: Does my right hon. Friend recall the words of Lord Palmerston, who said that to be born British is like winning the lottery of life? Will my right hon. Friend now go further and say that to be born or to live in Milton Keynes is like winning the national lottery, and join me in welcoming the grant of £19 million to build what will undoubtedly be the best theatre outside London?

    The Prime Minister: There may be some challenges about the scheme being the best theatre, but I know that my hon. Friend is proud of the scheme and I congratulate him on it.

    As for being proud of being British, I just hope that we do not reach the situation where to live in Scotland is to lose the lottery of taxation because it has to face extra taxation and a tartan tax.

  • PMQT – 6 February 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 6th February 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

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

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

    Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the considerable strength of the economy throughout the country, including Scotland, is based in large measure on reduced burdens on business? During his busy day yesterday, did he have the opportunity to–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Waterson: Did my right hon. Friend have the opportunity to read reports in Scottish newspapers that two different spokesmen had said diametrically different things about whether extra public spending would be required to carry out Labour’s plans for Scotland?

    The Prime Minister: I am not remotely surprised to hear that Opposition Members say different things about their devolution policy. They have not yet thought through that policy; it is full of holes and full of damage. We said from the outset that a Scottish Assembly would require increased taxation and increased public expenditure. The right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has, I think, referred to that as utter rubbish. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) has confirmed that that is indeed the case and that taxes will go up–a tartan tax of £6 per week initially, but undoubtedly more later. Another instance of Labour saying one thing and doing another.

    Mr. Blair: When customer complaints to British Gas have doubled and the company has been forced to split into two today because of huge losses on gas contracts, does the Prime Minister think that the leaving package of the chief executive–a £4 million pension fund, an annual income of £250,000 a year and £120,000 in consultancy fees–is justified?

    The Prime Minister: As a matter of fact, the company has split into two to increase competition, which I should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would have liked. As for the package that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, that, in the private sector, is a matter for the shareholders. As those shareholders include the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman takes it up with the union. If the shareholders are unhappy with the arrangements, no doubt they will pursue the matter. If he does not know how to get the RMT on his side, he can ask the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), the deputy leader of the Labour party, who is sponsored by it.

    Mr. Blair: Do we take it from that answer that the Prime Minister recognises no responsibility at all on the part of Government? [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Blair: Two years ago the Prime Minister told us that he found those excesses distasteful, and they have grown since then. He then told us to wait for the Greenbury committee, and the excesses continued to grow. We have had Greenbury and nothing has happened. When will the Prime Minister act in the public interest to make those privatised utilities serve the public and not a small group at the top?

    The Prime Minister: A moment ago, I explained to the right hon. Gentleman that he and one of his hon. Friends were saying different things. We have it again here. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees that the Government should not attempt to sit in the boardroom in a metaphysical sense. One of his hon. Friends said:

    “We believe that people should be rewarded for a performance, whether in the form of salary or the granting of share options”.

    That person, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling)–a shadow Treasury spokesman–continued:

    “It is not for me to spell out the benchmarks of success”.

    The right hon. Gentleman is once again playing the politics of envy. [Interruption.] Let me be a moment. He loathes privatisation, he loathes private ownership and all that he has had to say about private ownership and a new Labour party is exposed every time that he takes that line.

    Mr. Blair: With all due respect to the Prime Minister, can he not see the difference between people operating within a highly competitive market and the privatised utilities operating monopoly services? Can there be any more telling expression of Conservative values than the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday condoning late payment to small companies while today condoning the excesses in the privatised utilities? One group of hard-working people is told to wait for its money and the other group is given by the Government a licence to print it.

    The Prime Minister: Let me explain to the right hon. Gentleman the benefits of privatisation for millions of people who happen to be consumers. Gas prices have fallen by more than 20 per cent. since privatisation. Potential new suppliers are offering price reductions of 15 to 20 per cent. in the south-west. Personally, I believe that we need

    “the enterprise of the market and the rigours of competition”.

    I hope that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with that, because that is the Labour party’s new clause IV, which he pushed through last year. As ever, Labour’s constitution says one thing and Labour Members do another.

    Mr. Hendry: Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the exceptional courage of 21-year-old Fleur Lombard who came from the High Peak and who lost her life at the weekend in the course of her work as a firefighter? Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is great scope for a scheme of rewards to recognise the contributions made by young people in all walks of life, whether they have shown great courage–as in Fleur’s case–or they have made a contribution to others and to society? Will he consider whether such a scheme could be backed by the Government?

    The Prime Minister: I will of course consider the matter. I am sure that the whole House will join me in expressing our sympathy to the family of Fleur and those of the other firefighters who have lost their lives in service. There is no doubt that such incidents underline the selfless bravery of the fire service. On this occasion, a young lady lost her life while seeking to save the lives of other people. I shall certainly consider what my hon. Friend has said.

    Mr. Ashdown: Does the Prime Minister think that it is right to delay payment on other people’s bills and to use their money to gain interest for oneself? Having done that, does he think it wise to then boast about it?

    The Prime Minister: Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman–

    Mr. Skinner: Can’t pay, won’t pay.

    The Prime Minister: That reminds me of what the trade unions say about their control over the Labour party.

    They say that unless they maintain that control, they will not pay for the Labour party, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for reminding me of that.

    On the substantive question, the Government–not least my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, when he was President of the Board of Trade–have done a great deal to encourage prompt payment. My right hon. Friend encouraged the establishment of the CBI’s prompt payment code. We required Government payments to comply with the code and we improved procedures in the small claims courts. We are making companies disclose their payments rapidly. Those are the practical measures that we are taking.

    Mr. William Powell: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the remarks of the Prime Minister of Belgium, delivered at Davos at the weekend, to the effect that, if the single currency does not proceed in 1999, the single market will collapse? Is it not the case that Belgium has not the slightest chance of meeting the Maastricht criteria as its general Government gross debt is more than twice the threshold level set down in the Maastricht treaty? Does my right hon. Friend believe that there is a secret agenda to proceed with the single currency despite the treaty of Maastricht? Do not Mr. Dehaene’s remarks vindicate my right hon. Friend’s decision to veto Mr. Dehaene as President of the European Commission?

    The Prime Minister: I certainly do not believe that the single market would be at risk if the single currency did not proceed in 1999 or at any other time in the future. I do not think that anyone can seriously dispute that, at the moment, there are uncertainties about the timetable. No one can say with absolute certainty which countries might qualify for stage 3 if it goes ahead in 1999. What is relevant is that we must address the key issues about how stage 3 would work, and I have raised that point at successive European Councils. Were it to proceed without the right economic background, there is no doubt that it would be a disaster, not just for the countries taking part, but for all the countries of the European Union.

     

    Q2. Mr. Dowd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 February.

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

    Mr. Dowd: Does the Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his condemnation of late payment as a serious threat to the very survival of many small firms, or does he side with the Deputy Prime Minister, who advocates becoming skilful at keeping creditors away? Is not that latter approach a kick in the teeth for millions of honest small businesses? Which one does the Prime Minister support? May we have a straight answer?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman must have been dozing, because a few moments ago I set out a range of measures that the Government have introduced to encourage prompt payment, some of them initiated by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

    Mr. Booth: As last week we all heard the German Chancellor say that integration would be a matter of war and peace in the 21st century, will the Prime Minister tell Herr Kohl that integration and federation forced on countries and peoples that are free, against their will, often result in civil war? Where is Yugoslavia now? Will my right hon. Friend tell Chancellor Kohl that this country takes it ill when we hear loose talk of war from Germany?

    The Prime Minister: The whole House recognises the importance of examining very carefully what criteria there might be for any countries that decide to move ahead to stage 3. We need to look at what has been achieved in the European Union over the past 30 years or so and to ensure that that is not imperilled by moves to other advanced changes for which the European Union is not yet ready. That needs to be a pragmatic debate on whether the economic circumstances are right for movement and on what the implications would be, both in the short term and in the long term, for the countries that might be in a single currency and for those that might not be.

     

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

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

    Mr. Mackinlay: Is the Prime Minister aware of the growing feeling that the country is being run for and by a narrow magic circle of privileged people? In that regard, will he tell the House how it is that former Eton toff Darius Guppy can negotiate his sentence and negotiate his way out of prison–a prison that he likened to his school, Eton? How is it that top rail managers can fail to pay rail ticket fares yet not suffer any penalty? How is it that Cedric Brown can have a massive windfall pay-off? Is it not a case of, “It’s the rich what gets the pleasure and the poor what gets the blame”?

    The Prime Minister: That was an exceedingly well worked pay-off line by the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure that the build-up merited it. This is the first time in my life that I have been told that I am part of a magic circle, and I do not think that I like it.

  • PMQT – 11 January 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 11th January 1996. Michael Heseltine responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Mike O’Brien: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is in Paris representing Her Majesty’s Government at the commemorative service for the late President Mitterrand.

    Mr. O’Brien: Tonight’s speech by Baroness Thatcher is set against the background of her well-known opposition to a single currency. As the one who wielded the knife that did her in, will the Deputy Prime Minister take this opportunity to reassert the Prime Minister’s view that Britain should be at the heart of Europe, and his own stated view that there can be no truly unified single market without a single currency?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The whole House understands that there is a massive national self-interest in our policies in Europe. The purpose of our presence in Europe is to fight for British self-interest. That was very much the view of my right hon. Friend Lady Thatcher and it is the view of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Each of us does it in his own way and in his own context.

    Mr. Stephen: Has my right hon. Friend received his £50 electricity rebate? Does he agree that the family silver is still there and that it is working for us better than ever, that millions of people have been turned into stakeholders and that the money that they have paid the Government for their shares has been invested in hospitals, schools, transport and in many other essential services?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I share his anticipation and that of the electricity consumers of this country that their average bill will be £90 less next year than it would have been otherwise.

    Mr. Prescott: Will the Deputy Prime Minister comment on today’s damning report from the British Medical Association which says that patients’ lives are being put at risk because of the crisis in the provision of acute hospital beds in our country?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that very important issue. The fact is that there has been an increase in the number of emergency and accident admissions to hospitals in some parts of the country. The increase is not universal, as there has actually been a decrease in some areas.

    However, this is obviously a matter of concern for the Government. It is being examined by the chief medical officer and the Government are determined to see that all proper steps will be pursued in terms of the improved management of bed utilisation which has flowed from the immensely more sophisticated treatment that is now available. We are determined to preserve the reputation of the health service as one of the most important aspects of public service.

    Mr. Prescott: Even so, is it not true that yesterday an elderly man who had suffered a heart attack died because none of the 12 Yorkshire hospitals could admit him owing to a shortage of beds? Is it any wonder when one looks at how the money is spent by the Government? They have spent an extra £1 billion on bureaucracy and an extra £25 million on company cars, the number of accountants has doubled, and the number of managers has increased from 500 to 20,000–while they have cut the numbers of beds and nurses. Is that not the real reason why there is a crisis in the national health service?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The whole House is deeply preoccupied with the standards of the health service and with ensuring that they are maintained. It does no service at all to people who are sick or elderly to raise concerns and fears in the way that the right hon. Gentleman has done. Since 1948, the number of beds in the national health service has been falling under all Governments. One of the reasons why that has been happening is that today patients spend less time in hospital, because the means of treating them enable a speedier recuperative process.

    I can reassure the House that, since our reforms of the health service were put in place, 1.5 million more patients have been treated every year. That is the fact that the patients of this country should hear, because it is the reassurance to which they are entitled.

    Mr. Prescott: Why is it that the Deputy Prime Minister will not admit what everyone knows–the Government are destroying one of our greatest assets? They are destroying the national health service, which was given to the nation by a Labour Government and opposed tooth and nail by the Tories.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The reason why I will not say it is that it is not true. The fact is that we are treating more patients and building more hospitals, the queues are coming down and the health service is safe with the Conservative party.

    Mr. Jessel: On the subject of hospital accident and emergency admissions, is my right hon. Friend aware that at West Middlesex hospital, which I visited at 11 o’clock last night, staff told me that on 30 December, the day of black ice, they had admitted 60 fracture cases compared with the normal daily total of 10? That is bound to have a knock-on effect for the next week or two when taken with the increase in asthma cases this winter. However, the staff are working hard, their morale is good and they should be warmly commended.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend raises a most important point. There is no question whatever about the dedication of the staff in the health service and their ability to cope with those problems. Nor is there any universal agreement as to the causes of the increase in the number of admissions. The BMA and the chief medical officer are looking closely at the problem. It is a matter for concern, and it will remain so until it has been dealt with.

     

    Q2. Mr. Pike: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Pike: The Deputy Prime Minister will recall that Tuesday of this week marked the 10th anniversary of the day on which he marched out of Baroness Thatcher’s Cabinet. In view of her much trailed speech tonight, can the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House and the nation why, in 1990, he considered that it was essential that she be removed from office?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The whole House will know that after leaving Baroness Thatcher’s Government I did all in my power to secure her re-election. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: As I look back on a long life of public service, I regard the fact that I played such a conspicuous role in the 1987 general election campaign, in which Baroness Thatcher was re-elected, as no mean achievement.

     

    Q3. Sir Colin Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Sir Colin Shepherd: Has my right hon. Friend yet had the chance to give careful consideration to the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition in Singapore? If so, has he yet been able to figure out just what a stakeholder economy is?

    Mr. Skinner: Mine’s a sirloin.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: How typical of the hon. Member for Bolsover to choose one of the most expensive and luxurious parts of the animal. At least he has the advantage of having found an answer to the question– which is more than his hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) succeeded in doing. According to The Guardian this morning, when asked much the same question he had this to say:

    “It’s warm words time again. I haven’t a clue what it means. If anyone does could they let me know?”

    If I may trespass on the time of the House, I shall explain what it means. The stakeholders that the Labour party would bring back are all our old familiar Labour friends–the unions, the single-issue pressure groups, the local authorities and the co-operatives. A stakeholder society in a Conservative world, on the other hand, is all about home owners, share owners, pension owners, choice, freedom and a competitive society.

     

    Q4. Mr. Gunnell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Gunnell: Further to the Deputy Prime Minister’s replies on the question of the elderly man from Bradford who died while waiting for a hospital bed, is he aware that the admitting consultant at the intensive care unit in Leeds general infirmary described the case as just the tip of an iceberg, and said that there were hundreds of such cases? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Yorkshire Evening Post that that is a disgrace? What is he going to do about it?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have tried, when answering questions similar to the one put to me by the hon. Gentleman, to express the concern of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who shares the anxieties of all hon. Members and the wider community. These are regrettable individual cases; they evoke nothing but sympathy from everyone involved. But it is quite wrong to believe that they are typical of the treatment that people can expect from the health service. It does this House no good in the public’s esteem to try to undermine the high reputation enjoyed by the health service.

    Mr. Garnier: Will my right hon. Friend take an early opportunity to come to Leicestershire–and my constituency in particular–where he will see a growing economy, falling unemployment and increasing confidence? All those things are a direct consequence of the Government’s economic policies. Will he come to Market Harborough and the constituency generally to make sure that that message gets home even more loudly than hitherto?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The fact is that we have one of the fastest growing economies in western Europe. Unemployment has been falling for 27 months. Our inward investment is growing, and all we must ensure to keep it going is that the Government remain in charge of managing the economy.

     

    Q5. Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Bruce: I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister would like to comment on today’s opinion poll in The Guardian showing a six-point drop in Conservative support and a corresponding six-point increase in Liberal Democrat support. That could of course be explained by the decision of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Miss Nicholson). May I just point out that if that effect is repeated every time a Tory crosses the Floor to our Benches, after four more defections we will lead both Labour and the Tories?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not find it greatly surprising that the hon. Gentleman should seek to draw our attention to the views of the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon. I find the views that she expressed in June this year slightly more reassuring:

    “In troubled times such as we are experiencing at present when we have been wrongly assaulted for our Government’s many fine achievements by an irresponsible press, our task is to stick together. Those old Conservative virtues of loyalty, thrift, hard work and vision must be our priorities whenever we are under fire.”

    The hon. Lady was right then.

     

    Q6. Mr. Stewart: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 11 January.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to underline the success and importance of inward investment into the United Kingdom, especially into Scotland–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. Let us have a little less noise on the Government Benches below the gangway. Mr. Stewart, repeat your question. I could not hear because of the noisy ones there.

    Mr. Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to underline both the success and importance of inward investment in this country? What would be the impact of inward investment in Scotland if people who work in Scotland were subject, uniquely in Europe, to the imposition of the iniquitous tartan tax?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to draw this matter to the attention of the House and of Scottish people in particular. Under the excellent conditions that the Government have created, 100 inward investment projects, worth more than £1 billion and creating or protecting some 12,000 jobs in 1994-95, were delivered to Scotland in that one year alone. There is no question but that the only thing that would flow from the introduction of a Labour Government and the consequent establishment of a tartan tax would be that inward investment, flowing not to Scotland but to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That would be good news for everyone except the Scots.

  • PMQT – 14 December 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 14th December 1995. Michael Heseltine responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mrs. Anne Campbell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 14 December.

    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is in Paris signing the Dayton agreement on Bosnia.

    Mrs. Campbell: Will the Deputy Prime Minister unequivocally condemn the remark made yesterday by his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he said:

    “This bottom 10 per cent. always drive me up the wall”?

    Will he further apologise to that bottom 10 per cent., who have seen a real fall of 17 per cent. in their living standards since the Conservative Government took office?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was referring to those people who have significant wealth but low incomes, which can give a wholly misleading idea of their overall position and the standard of living that they enjoy. The hon. Lady is giving a false impression of what he was saying.

    Sir Anthony Grant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the best service that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor can render to the lowest 10 per cent. and, indeed, the highest, is to reduce interest rates as much as possible and that his decision is much to be congratulated?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor is presiding over one of the most exciting periods of British economic potential. [Interruption.] I am sure that a wider audience will notice that Labour Members jeer at the fact that, for the 27th month in a row, unemployment fell. It was 20,000 less month on month and has been nearly 750,000 down over the 27 months. I should have thought that Labour Members would cheer on behalf of their constituents.

    Mrs. Ann Taylor: As the Prime Minister was unable to give any figure for the cost of rail privatisation at Question Time on Tuesday, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the Government’s figures, following the Budget, show that the long-term cost to the taxpayer will be £850 million per year?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Lady has the quotations wrong. Those quotations come from a Labour party press release. Like most Labour party press releases, they are unadulterated rubbish.

    Mrs. Taylor: Will the Deputy Prime Minister therefore take the trouble to look at the sources of the figures in those documents, every one of which is a published Government source? Will he further look at the report of the Select Committee on Transport published today, which also shows that, if rail privatisation goes ahead, taxpayers will have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds extra to keep services as they are? Is not the message clear: rail privatisation is a waste of taxpayers’ money?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: If the hon. Lady and the Labour party are so against privatisation, why have they not got the guts to renationalise any of the industries that we have privatised? Why is it that every time we take the process a step further, they jeer and produce scare stories in advance, none of which stands up when we achieve the result?

    Mr. John Townend: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Government on the unemployment figures that he has just mentioned–8 per cent. and falling, whereas unemployment in France is 11.5 per cent. and rising. To what extent is that due to the franc fort policy and French membership of the exchange rate mechanism, while we have a free and floating pound?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to all those industrialists in this country who have helped to create the jobs in the enterprise culture that we have designed as a Government. What I find extraordinary about the Labour party and the issue of unemployment is that last month, when there was a 200 increase in unemployment, the shadow Employment Secretary put out a press release in which he said that that recognised

    “the final collapse of the Government’s shuddering economic recovery.”

    The fact is that those figures have now been revised and we have discovered that last month, as in each of the past 27 months, unemployment fell. Why does not the Labour party recognise that far from a shuddering economic recovery, we have a buoyant economic attitude in this country which is creating wealth at one of the fastest rates in western Europe?

    Mr. Beith: Have the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues considered the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) that it would be an outrage if social security regulations that could make 10,000 people homeless and destitute were to be implemented before Parliament had had a chance to debate them?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: The right hon. Member raises an important question. I can assure him and the House that there will be an opportunity to debate these matters before they are implemented. I give that assurance.

    Mr. Duncan Smith: Did my right hon. Friend notice in yesterday’s Hansard a very good Bill on protecting those who wish to disclose information in the public interest? Has he further noticed that there are serious problems here in the House for those who might wish to do that? I particularly refer to members of the press corps who have been cajoled and coerced, I gather, by some strange people: a shadowy figure from Hartlepool and an ex-journalist from Today. Will he join me in encouraging them to break free from that and blow the whistle on that strange shadowy company over there?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Conservative Members have raised it before but no answer comes. Is it the intention of the Labour party, if elected to power, to put Alastair Campbell as a civil servant into No. 10 Downing street to inject Labour party propaganda into the presentation of Government policy?

     

    Q2. Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 14 December.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mr. Cunningham: Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that the £850 million on-going cost of rail privatisation would be better spent on improvements to the west coast main line, which serves my constituency?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: What I do believe is that offering the private sector the chance to provide the cash for the innovation and modernisation that we all want is much more likely to achieve the result than continuing with nationalisation, which I notice, significantly, has not achieved that result over the years.

    Mr. Rowe: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that of all the counties in England, Liberal and Labour-run Kent county council retains the largest share of its education budget at the centre? How does that sit with the oft-repeated complaints from the Opposition that too much is spent by the Government on administration?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: It is wholly consistent with the theme of what the Opposition say. Most conspicuously, they will not say that they will put up taxes but they constantly talk about the need for increased expenditure. They want it all ways, which proves that the sums do not add up and that they are not fit to govern.

     

    Q3. Mr. Keith Hill: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 14 December.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Hill: Does the right hon. Gentleman understand my sense of shock this morning as I witnessed the evidence of wanton destruction and looting in central Brixton and parts of my Streatham constituency? Will he join me, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey) and the vast majority of the local community in condemning those acts of violence? For the sake of Brixton’s reputation and future, will the right hon. Gentleman also affirm that the acts that we witnessed yesterday evening were not a re-run of the events of 1981 and 1985, as has been portrayed, but the actions of a small criminal element? Finally, will he confirm that there is no intention of backtracking on the regeneration funding committed to the locality and that Brixton’s future will be reassured, as is the will of the local people?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I unreservedly join the hon. Gentleman in condemning the violent minority who attacked police officers and property in Brixton last night. I wholeheartedly agree with the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, representatives of the local community and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey), who spoke eloquently this morning in condemnation of those unacceptable acts of violence, which we all deplore. If we are to bring hope and opportunity to those urban communities, it is vital that they become attractive places for people to live, work and invest. All parties have made a massive attempt to bring that about in the past few years, and that process must continue.

    Mr. Luff: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that neither he nor the Prime Minister would ever contemplate threatening the Union by introducing an elected Scottish Parliament? If they were ever tempted by such an idea, will he confirm that they certainly would not think of giving it tax-raising powers and then try to deceive the British people by saying that they would not use those powers?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: It is extraordinary that Scottish Labour Members of Parliament are to contemplate a tartan tax to make taxes higher in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. I also find it extraordinary that English Labour Members of Parliament are prepared to give powers to their Scottish colleagues, which would be exercised by Scottish Members in England, while English Labour Members would have no such powers in Scotland.

     

    Q4. Mr. Raynsford: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 14 December.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Raynsford: Does the Deputy Prime Minister recognise that it is not only with British Rail that privatisation has been taken too far? Is he aware of the anger and indignation felt by people in Britain at the appearance in an estate agent’s brochure of the magnificent complex of buildings in Greenwich currently occupied by the Royal Naval college? Is he also aware that the Secretary of State for Defence refuses to reveal the organisations that are bidding to take over those magnificent buildings? As it comes hot on the heels of the fiasco of county hall, is it not clear that the nation’s heritage is not safe in the Government’s hands?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman believes that, he will believe anything. As the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear, the preservation of the buildings at Greenwich is of prime national importance and nothing will be done to prejudice it.

    Mr. Anthony Coombs: As unemployment has now been falling for 27 months in a row, has my right hon. Friend noticed the recent comments by the Director-General of the CBI, who said that a combination of increasing social regulations from Europe via the social chapter and a single currency would be “an employment-destroying disaster”? Does not that show the importance of the opt-out that we achieved at Maastricht and the hypocrisy of those who talk about creating jobs but then support policies such as the social chapter and European monetary union, as the Opposition do?

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I shall have the opportunity tomorrow to lay the foundation stone of Siemens in the north-east. One of the reasons why a German company comes to invest and create jobs in this country is that we do not have the impost of the social chapter, whereas Germany has. I would have thought that Labour Members, whose constituencies have gained enormously from the inward investment coming to this country, would seek to enhance it, and not to destroy it.

     

    Q5. Mrs. Clwyd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 14 December.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I have been asked to reply.

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

    Mrs. Clwyd: Has the Deputy Prime Minister noted the good news from south Wales that Tower colliery in my constituency, which was bought by the workers a year ago, has made a pre-tax profit of £3.5 million in the first year? [Interruption.] That has been achieved despite the fact that the right hon. Gentleman told those workers that there was no market for their coal. Is not the lesson to be learnt that if the conditions are right–[Hon. Members: “Privatisation.”]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must be heard.

    Mrs. Clwyd: Is not the lesson to be learnt that if the conditions are right, and if workers are given control of the means of production–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. Hear the hon. Lady out. [Interruption.] Order. Hear the hon. Lady out.

    Mrs. Clwyd: If the workers are given control of the means of production they can turn in profits, whereas the capitalists throw in the towel.

    The Deputy Prime Minister rose–

    Madam Speaker: Order. Control yourselves.

    The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not want to intrude on private grief, but perhaps the hon. Lady has not caught up with events. Those words have been deleted from the clause, although I realise that a large number of her right hon. and hon. Friends are just waiting their time to bring them back. The hon. Lady had better have a word with the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) because she has got the language wrong–the soundbite does not fit with the language of those on the Opposition Front Bench. The real message behind what the hon. Lady has just said, the real triumph, is that it is privatisation that has made those profits possible.

  • PMQT – 17 October 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 17th October 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Anthony Coombs: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Mr. Coombs: Even in the light of the recent record fall in reported crime, is my right hon. Friend aware of the great welcome that there will be throughout the country for the additional 5,000 police officers approved last week? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, irrespective of what the Lord Chief Justice might say, long prison sentences which become short as a result of automatic remission undermine people’s sense of justice and do not act as a sufficient deterrent to the criminal?

    The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I entirely support my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary’s strategy to fight crime. The threat of a long prison sentence deters criminals from committing crime. That is not just my view and that of the Home Secretary. That is the view of the police as well. I welcome the fall in crime over the past two and a half years, but we wish to see it fall a good deal further. That is what lay behind our announcements last week.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister will know that the Home Secretary has denied any involvement in the operational matters of the Prison Service, including the Parkhurst breakout. Can he therefore confirm the following facts: that, so far from this being true, the Home Secretary personally told Mr. Lewis that the governor of Parkhurst prison should be suspended immediately; that when Mr. Lewis objected as it was an operational matter, the Home Secretary threatened to instruct him to do it; that when Mr. Lewis further objected, the Home Secretary told the operational director of the Prison Service by fax that he would announce it in the House of Commons that day and duly did announce it in his statement to the House? Is that true or is it false?

    The Prime Minister: The Home Secretary is responsible to Parliament for the actions of the Home Office and for the actions of the governor. He appointed Mr. Lewis to run the Prison Service. The criticisms over the past few days by the Learmont report have been directed at the director of prisons and not at my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I believe that the Home Secretary has acted entirely properly throughout this affair.

    Mr. Blair: I am afraid that the Prime Minister has not answered the factual question. The Home Secretary is sitting a couple of places along. The Prime Minister can ask him whether it is true now. I put certain specific facts in relation to the pressure on Mr. Lewis in respect of the removal of the governor of Parkhurst. Are those facts true or are they false?

    The Prime Minister: I have made it entirely clear to the right hon. Gentleman that I have no doubt that whatever action my right hon. and learned Friend took was entirely proper and within his remit as Home Secretary answerable to this House.

    Mr. Blair: If the facts are true, it was not within his remit as it was an operational matter. That is precisely the issue. Is the Prime Minister aware of the fact that Mr. Lewis has also said this morning that the Home Secretary personally interfered in prison visits, in searches and in disciplinary awards and that there has been greater political interference than at any point in time in the service history? Is it not the case that we do not have a Government governing the country? We have a group of Ministers who will play games with these issues, who take credit when things are going right and refuse to take credit when things are going wrong. That is not a responsible Government for Britain.

    The Prime Minister: We noticed the careful lead-up to the pre- prepared soundbite, as we do each Tuesday and Thursday. My right hon. and learned Friend discharges properly his responsibilities to this House and this country. Were he not to do so, the Leader of the Opposition would say, “Why does the Home Secretary not take an interest in matters that are relevant to the good conduct of the prison service?” But he is not responsible for the day-to-day management of the Prison Service. He is responsible to this House and answerable to this House, and he must take actions in the interests of the Prison Service. That is what my right hon. and learned Friend has done, and he has my full support in having done it.

    Mr. Alexander: Has my right hon. Friend had time to study the proposal that British Telecom should be able to wire up schools to the super-highway in return for carrying television signals? Is he aware that that would run contrary to the well-settled framework for those matters, and would be to the considerable advantage of British Telecom and the considerable disadvantage of the cable companies which have invested a great deal in the procedure so far?

    The Prime Minister: Yes, I am aware of that. Many schools are already being cabled up for precisely those advantages. If the Opposition, who occasionally like to claim credit for the information super-highway, were to examine what was happening–if they took their heads out of the sand and put them in the holes in the road–they would see that it was already being built.

     

    Q2. Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Mr. Campbell: Which has done more damage to the Government: the irresponsibility of the Defence Secretary last week or the Home Secretary’s unwillingness to accept responsibility this week?

    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary was expressing the fears of many people, not just in the United Kingdom but throughout Europe, about the more ambitious federalist plans for the future of the European Union. If the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying that his party’s policy is that the British armed forces should be commanded by qualified majority vote elsewhere, let him say so.

    Mr. Dunn: Conservatives welcome the decision to expand the assisted places scheme. Will my right hon. Friend compare our policies of maximising parental choice with those of the Opposition, which would destroy the city technology colleges, grammar schools, the assisted places scheme and grant- maintained schools in the interests of equality, justice and social engineering?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is entirely right. We seek excellence in education and choice for all parents in the interests of their children. I very much regret that the Opposition–except perhaps the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth)–oppose the assisted places scheme.

     

    Q3. Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Mr. Kirkwood: Does the Prime Minister share the fear that has been expressed that the privatisation of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office later this afternoon will lead to commercial motives overriding the public interest in making official information more freely available to the general public, as it is in other countries? Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that it is clearly in a privatised HMSO’s interest to resist free electronic access to Government publications protected by Government copyright? How does that square with the Government’s commitment to a freedom of information policy and to extending the information technology revolution to the rest of the country?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman will know, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is answering a question later on this afternoon. I do not wish comment in detail on the substance of his question but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend will ensure that the needs of Parliament and other customers are satisfied for openness, for improved access to information technology, for value for money, for flexibility and for security of supply. The record of privatisation over recent years is that it has improved, not damaged, service.

    Mr. Garnier: My right hon. Friend will have heard this morning of another terrorist bombing in Paris. Will he use this opportunity today to reaffirm his Government’s policy on border controls and to make sure that they are never loosened so that terrorists may not get easy access to this country?

    The Prime Minister: I am happy to confirm the Government’s policy on border controls. We need those border controls. We intend to keep them, and they are not negotiable.

     

    Q4. Mr. Michael: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Mr. Michael: Can we now hear it straight from the Prime Minister: just how bad do things have to get at the Home Office to require a ministerial resignation?

    The Prime Minister: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads the Learmont report, and after he has done so he will be better informed and he will know that the criticisms were directed not at my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary but at the Prison Service. My right hon. and learned Friend acted properly in those circumstances.

    Mr. Marlow: Given that a report has been issued today by the Labour party–the blueprint for the dismemberment of the United Kingdom–could my right hon. Friend tell the House how it could be possible if there were a Parliament in Scotland, that a party with a majority in the United Kingdom but not in the majority in England could govern England?

    The Prime Minister: I have not yet had the opportunity to consider the document that has been published today but I am certainly aware that one was scheduled to be published today and I am aware of the policies of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party on the subject of devolution in Scotland. There is no doubt whatsoever that those policies, if carried out as at present intended, would have a very damaging effect on the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] Although the leader of the Labour party shouts something at me across the Dispatch Box, it was he who referred to the tartan tax–an extra £6 a week, which he seems to think is an accountancy detail.

     

    Q5. Ms Quin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Ms Quin: Given the widespread public concern expressed over the summer, will the Prime Minister take the opportunity, particularly before the Commonwealth conference next month, of condemning the French nuclear tests in the south Pacific?

    The Prime Minister: No, I will not.

    Mr. Michael Brown: The Prime Minister spoke with the Home Secretary last week in the Winter Gardens at Blackpool where the subject of closed circuit televisions to deal with law and order was raised. Is he aware that in Cleethorpes we have a Winter Gardens, but we do not yet have closed circuit television. The Minister of State was unable to accede to my request earlier this year. Can my right hon. Friend assure me and the people of Cleethorpes that this time round Cleethorpes will be considered for closed circuit television in the high street and on the sea front where we have a problem with the youths and yobs who cause such distress to our retired people in Cleethorpes?

    The Prime Minister: I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be provision for a further 10,000 such closed circuit television cameras over the next three years and I have no doubt, as we consider where those should be, that my hon. Friend may from time to time mention the particular concerns of Cleethorpes.

     

    Q6. Mrs. Clwyd: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 17 October.

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

    Mrs. Clwyd: Is the Prime Minister aware that there have been angry reactions throughout the country to reports that overseas aid is to be cut by 12 per cent. over two years? Does he not care that such cuts would have a catastrophic effect on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world? Is he aware that 79 per cent. of the British people find such cuts repugnant when they will be used for tax cuts in the run-up to the general election?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Lady knows, at something more than £2.2 billion, we have the fifth largest overseas aid programme in the world. It is not only one of the largest aid programmes in the world but, as the hon. Lady herself has acknowledged in the past, one of the best. I assure the hon. Lady that, after my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor’s Budget, we shall continue to have a highly effective aid programme.

    Mr. Duncan Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concept of fundholding is right at the core of the success of our reforms in the health service? Has he noticed that doctors who are fundholders have, in the past two days, roundly attacked Labour’s proposals for the sham that they are and have said that they will destroy the very success that we have created? Will my right hon. Friend now take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to fundholding status and to point out the disastrous concept of Labour policy?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The report by the GPs sets out what we have said consistently about fundholding–that our reforms are benefiting patients and delivering to them the service that they deserve. If the Labour party seriously intended to turn the clock back and to abolish fundholding, it would create chaos and confusion, and would damage the service for patients. The fact of the matter is that Labour is more concerned about political gestures than about care for the patient, and that has always been the case.