The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Gordon Downey

  • PMQT – 20 March 1997

    The text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 20th March 1997.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Mullin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 20 March.

    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. Mullin: Will the Prime Minister confirm that he could, if he wished, without any impact on the date of the general election, extend the life of this Parliament by the few days necessary to allow Sir Gordon Downey to publish his report? If so, I suggest that as soon as he leaves here, he nips down to the palace, has a quiet word with Her Majesty and puts an end to this distasteful business once and for all.

    The Prime Minister: There has already been a Privy Council to determine Prorogation, and I have no intention of changing it. Prorogation always follows within days of an election announcement. When I announced the date of the election and Prorogation, the House was not surprised–[Laughter.] There was no surprise about the date of Prorogation, and when I announced it there was no representation then or at any time in the past, publicly or privately, from the Labour party about changing the date–not once. It was not until the unemployment figures were leaked that this became an issue.

    Sir Jim Spicer: During the campaign, I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will be coming to the south of England and, we all hope, to Dorset. When he comes to Dorset, will he pass on to the people there and all those in the area served by Southern Electricity the good news that, as from Tuesday, they will have had an 11 per cent. cut in their electricity bills during the past nine months, which amounts to £40 to £50 off their bills? Is not that proof that privatisation works, and would it have happened if we had had a windfall tax?

    The Prime Minister rose–

    Mr. Skinner: Do not travel by train.

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member for Bolsover says that I should not travel by train. I understand that the hon. Gentleman has indicated to his constituents that he may be retiring from the House now that he is 65–we shall miss him. If so, he will have plenty of time to travel by train and the fares will be lower, following privatisation, than they were before– just like water–

    Mr. Prescott: There will be no trains.

    The Prime Minister: The deputy leader of the Labour party says there will be no trains. As he is sponsored by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, he knows a great deal about strikes. I did not notice him offering much condemnation of strikes last summer, when they were threatened. He stands for strikes; that is his whole history. The reality is that customers are benefiting from falling prices and the improved service levels created across the board by privatisation. From memory, I think that it was the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) who once said that, after electricity privatisation, there is no doubt that “prices will rise”. Since privatisation, prices have fallen.

    Mr. Blair: May I remind the Prime Minister of his firm and unequivocal promise, made last October, to do all that he could to have the report of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges published? May I suggest to him two ways in which that could be done? The first is to seek a postponement of Prorogation. The second is to agree with the Labour party and other Opposition parties a one paragraph Bill to allow the Committee to sit from now until Dissolution, on 8 April. Will he co-operate and allow us to do that–to fulfil his clear and unequivocal promise to the people of this country?

    The Prime Minister: As ever, the right hon. Gentleman quotes partially, but I shall deal with the substance of what he said. Of course I would have preferred to have had the matter finished. [Hon. Members: “Oh.”] I said that months ago. I would have liked to have had all the inquiries finished. I would have liked to have had the inquiries into the funding of the Leader of the Opposition’s office and the deputy leader’s office finished.

    Sir Gordon Downey’s report is not finished, and it has not yet gone to the Committee. When it gets to the Committee–as the right hon. Gentleman knows–that will be the start, not the conclusion, of the process. It is obviously a complex report–[Interruption.] It has been made clear that there are thousands of pages of evidence; it is obviously complex, and it will obviously take time to consider. Those hon. Members who may be criticised will obviously wish to make representations and give evidence. The thought that that could be done fairly and properly in a few days is improbable in the extreme. The right hon. Gentleman knows that. He also knows that, based on what has happened on earlier occasions, parts of the substance of the report might leak in a prejudicial way before the matter is fairly concluded. That would not be in the interests of the House or of natural justice. I have no intention of changing the Prorogation date of the House.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister says that I quoted partially his comments of last October. Last October, in the “Breakfast with Frost” programme, he said:

    “Well I’ll tell you now, I will tell that committee I believe they should publish the report . . . I want it settled, I want it settled David.”

    After Frost asked him whether he hoped it was

    “reported and . . . published before the next election”,

    he said, “Absolutely.”

    Mr. David Shaw: £2 million blind funds.

    Mr. Blair: If the objection is based on time, may I suggest to the Prime Minister that he let the Committee sit? If it cannot finish its report for genuine time reasons, so be it. What is surely outrageous is for the Committee–

    Mr. Shaw: £2 million blind funds.

    Madam Speaker: Order. I call Mr. Shaw to order.

    Mr. Blair: The Committee is able to sit, and the Commissioner’s report will be ready on Monday. The hon. Members concerned want the report to be published. It is absolutely outrageous not to let the Committee have the time even to try. If the Prime Minister continues to stonewall, people will believe that the reason is not technicalities or can’t, but won’t.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is still quoting what I said selectively. I made it clear that although I wanted the report to be published speedily, and I did, it was a matter for Gordon Downey and he would have to take the time he needed to deal with the matter properly. Perhaps his task would have been easier if some people had not delayed handing over important evidence–but that was not the Government. The fact of the matter is that this needs to be dealt with impartially, not in an atmosphere in which it could be selectively leaked to damage people who may have nothing whatsoever to hide.

    The right hon. Gentleman had no interest in this on Monday; he had no interest in this on Tuesday; he had an interest only when he had the unemployment figures leaked to him–to try to hide what is actually happening. This is a matter that needs dealing with fairly in the interests of the Members concerned, not in the way the right hon. Gentleman wishes to deal with it. What he wishes is to let a smear stand, not let justice be done in its own time.

    Mr. Blair: Justice demands that this report be published. That is what justice demands. Any members of the public watching that interchange will conclude that the Prime Minister simply does not want it published because he fears its publication. Has not this Parliament ended as it began–[Interruption.] It has ended as it began, with the Government breaking their word. If the Prime Minister fails to have this report published, when everyone knows that he could, it will leave a stain on the character of his Government that will be erased only by a new Government with a fresh mandate, who will restore confidence in our public life for good.

    The Prime Minister: The stain, if stain there will be, is upon a Labour Front Bench that has smeared and smeared and smeared again. The Labour leader has traded in double standards from the moment he took up office. This is the Labour leader who sells policy to the trade unions for cash–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; who refuses to comply with the code of practice on party funding–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; who calls for party openness but will not publish the secret funds of his own office–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; who attacks share options but takes money from millionaires for his own party–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; who attacks business men and asks them to fund things for him, who flew Concorde and failed to declare it–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; who has a deputy leader who spends a weekend at a five-star hotel and does not declare it–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]; and who flies to the other side of the world to do newspaper deals and never admits to them–[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] If there are any double standards, they sit there–on the Opposition Benches.

    Mr. David Shaw: Game, set and match.

    Madam Speaker: Order. I would like to hear the next question and the next answer.

    Mr. Churchill: Before taking what I hope is only a temporary leave of the House, may I, on behalf of my Manchester constituents, thank my right hon. Friend and the Government for making the United Kingdom the best functioning economy in all of Europe, with half the levels of unemployment of France or Germany? Is it not precisely because those two countries have not had the benefit of a Thatcher-Major revolution that they are suffering from what, in Labour days, used to be known as the British disease?

    The Prime Minister: Before I respond to my hon. Friend, I should like to say that I noticed when I last sat down that my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) is back in the House following his dreadful accident. My right hon. Friend will be retiring at the end of this Parliament, but he will leave behind him reforms to our procedures that have greatly improved the workings of the House. I am delighted to see him here and I wish him a speedy and full return to complete health.

    I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) about economic conditions. We now have more jobs, better education, improving health and falling crime–that is our achievement. While the Labour party spends its time trying to disown its past, I spend my time improving our country’s future.

    Mr. Ashdown rose–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order–both sides.

    Mr. Ashdown: We raised this matter on Tuesday and I am raising it again now. Can I bring the Prime Minister back to the central question? There is clearly both provision and precedent to give the House the opportunity to clear up the cash for questions scandal once and for all next week if the Prime Minister wishes it, but he does not. Sir Gordon Downey regrets that, the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges regrets it, Conservative Members who are still under a suspicion of sleaze regret it and the nation no doubt deeply resents it. Is the Prime Minister to be the only person who will use a technicality to stand in the way of truth? If he does, he should not be surprised that the country will conclude that he enters the election as he conducted his Administration–on a broken promise, on a slippery evasion and with his party mired in accusations of sleaze.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman ends as pious and pompous as he has been throughout this Parliament. If what he said were correct, why did not his member of the Committee ask for what the right hon. Member for Sedgefield asked for–for he did not? Why did not the Labour members of the Committee ask for what the right hon. Member for Sedgefield asked for–for they did not? This has been a political stunt by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield and the leader of the Liberal party and they both know that it has been a political stunt from the moment they learnt what the unemployment figures were.

  • PMQT – 18 March 1997

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 18th March 1997.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 18 March.

    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. Hughes: The Prime Minister yesterday made the uniquely personal decision not only to have a general election on 1 May and to dissolve Parliament on 8 April but that Parliament should be prorogued and sent away this Friday. [Interruption.] Is it not obvious that one of the reasons for that decision and for the unprecedented gap between prorogation and dissolution is that–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. This is so time-consuming. Come on, Mr. Hughes: spit it out.

    Mr. Hughes rose–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. There is no point in waiting for silence: the hon. Gentleman will not get silence. Produce your voice, Mr. Hughes.

    Mr. Hughes: One of the reasons for that decision is that the Prime Minister knows that the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards on cash for questions will be ready on Monday or Tuesday. That report will therefore not be seen by hon. Members in this Parliament and will be hidden until after the general election.

    The Prime Minister: One of the reasons for making the announcement on Monday and arranging for Parliament to be prorogued on Friday was to give the hon. Gentleman time to finish his question. As for Sir Gordon’s report, I have no knowledge when it will be presented.

    Sir Cranley Onslow: Following his successful visit this morning to the headquarters of the McLaren formula 1 team in my constituency, does my right hon. Friend agree that what counts is not who is ahead at the first corner, but who has the skill, expertise, stamina and nerve to see the race right through to the winning post?

    The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. The purpose of going to see the McLaren team was rather wider than that. I wanted to draw attention to a tremendous British success story, of which there are many. McLaren and the British motor industry have been a huge success. Of the 20-odd cars that lined up at Melbourne for the grand prix won by David Coulthard, 20 would have been built in the United Kingdom.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister agree that a situation where two thirds of health authorities and one third of hospital trusts are in deficit to the tune of £300 million is grave, and potentially disastrous for many parts of the national health service?

    The Prime Minister: I find it odd for the right hon. Gentleman to talk about funding in the health service, since he has declined to increase funding, whereas we have given a commitment to do so. In any event, the figures that he uses are blown out of all proportion. The forecast deficit is a relatively small fraction of the national health service budget and, of course, in less than two weeks’ time, funding for the national health service will rise by £1.6 billion, a multiple of the deficit to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.

    Mr. Blair: Is the Prime Minister aware that many health authorities have deficits this year that will not be met by real-terms growth next year? To give one example, in north Essex, the deficit is £10 million and the real-terms growth that he is promising is only £9 million. He is not keeping the promise that he says he is making. He may believe that this is a matter of no account whatever, but is he aware that non-emergency surgery is being cancelled up and down the country, that accident and emergency departments are closing, that waiting lists are up and that there are bed and staff shortages in many parts of the national health service? Is that not a real tragedy, and disgraceful handling of the NHS?

    The Prime Minister: Some time ago, the answer to the question whether the NHS was working was set out by the shadow Foreign Secretary as whether more people were treated, and treated well. Since then, an extra 1 million people are being treated, and treated well, in the NHS. The number of consultants in accident and emergency departments has risen by 40 per cent. over the past few years. The right hon. Gentleman does not mention that. He does not mention the fact that we have committed increased resources over and above inflation to the national health service every year since 1979, and will do so throughout the period of the next Parliament. That is a record that would not have been met by any previous Government, and cannot be met by any other Government, because they would not have delivered the growth in the economy that we have achieved.

    Mr. Blair: The contrast is between the Prime Minister’s complacency and what people know is happening in the national health service the length and breadth of this country. Is it not the case that in, the past six years, there has been an increase in administration costs of more than £1.5 billion a year, with 20,000 more managers and 50,000 fewer nurses? Is not the truth that the real challenge of the national health service is how to get money out of invoices, contractors, managers, company cars and pen-pushers and into front-line patient care so that we can rebuild the national health service that the Labour party created?

    The Prime Minister: There are elements of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say with which I would agree. That is why we support compulsory competitive tendering, which he does not support; that is why we cut a whole tier of management that he voted to keep; that is why we have cut management costs by 10 per cent., £340 million, in the past two years. He cannot do that.

    No one is being complacent about the need to improve the health service: that is why we are providing more resources; that is why I mentioned the extra doctors in accident and emergency; that is why 1.5 million more patients are being treated, with more than 10 million more in-patients every year, 3.5 million day cases a year and 14 million out-patients a year. Health service hospitals are now dealing with 75,000 patients every day of the year–£730 for every man, woman and child in the country, very nearly double the amount when his party left office. The Labour party may have set up the health service, but we have built it up.

    Mr. Sykes: When my right hon. Friend comes to choose his new Cabinet on 2 May–[Interruption.] Listen to the page three boys shriek, Madam Speaker. I remember when they were shrieking in Sheffield the week before the last general election. I should like to hear them shriek after this election, every single one of them. What would my right hon. Friend say if all that he had to choose from after the election was a group of failed teachers, a bunch of ex-trade union officials, one television director and a bar steward? That is all that the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has to choose from.

    The Prime Minister: I think that it would be a kindness to protect the right hon. Gentleman from ever having to make such a choice. Who is meant by the bar steward, I cannot imagine.

     

    Q2. Mr. Wareing: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 18 March.

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

    Mr. Wareing: How did the Prime Minister have the audacity at the weekend to tell Tory central council that his type of Conservatism aimed to help the struggling classes–the have-nots? In 18 years of Tory rule, what did his Tory party ever do for the homeless, the sick and the disabled? The Prime Minister is not only past his sell-by date, he is well beyond his use-by date. It is time he went.

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is unusually animated on this occasion, for reasons that I do not understand. I suggest that he asks the millions of council tenants who would never have become home owners but for the activities of the Conservative Government or the millions of people who now have savings, shares and pensions that are owned by them rather than held by a Labour Government, as they were in the past, on their behalf. We believe that, in the late 1990s, people should have the right to personal ownership for themselves and their families, and that is what we are building. We apply that to everyone, not just middle-income earners such as the hon. Gentleman.

    Mr. French: Did my right hon. Friend see the reports at the weekend that 40,000 people took to the streets of Paris to protest against the rising tide of European unemployment? Can he explain to the House why the same thing has not happened here and what will be the quickest way of making it happen here?

    The Prime Minister: I saw that, and I have also seen the trend in unemployment in many countries across Europe. The Labour party is keen that we should sign up to a 48-hour week, the minimum wage and the social chapter. Perhaps Labour Members should hear what the United States Chamber of Commerce had to say about the 48-hour week. It has just told the Irish Government:

    “It is no exaggeration to say”

    that it would be

    “the single most negative change in the last 20 years.”

    We intend to continue to put people back to work, as we have done in spectacular fashion in the past 18 months. Policies such as the social chapter, the minimum wage and the 48-hour week–however glib they may sound–are a recipe for putting people out of work if they are in work and, if they are out of work, making sure that they stay out of work for a long time ahead. That is the poison pill of the Opposition’s policy.

     

    Casualty Units (London)

    Q3. Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to pay an official visit to a London NHS hospital to discuss the operation of casualty units.

    The Prime Minister: We have made an extensive investment in recent years in London’s accident and emergency services as part of a £400 million capital investment to provide the highest-quality and up-to-date facilities. I hope to have the opportunity to see some of them before too long.

    Mr. Corbyn: When the Prime Minister finally gets around to visiting a casualty unit in a London hospital, what answer will he give to staff who have seen one in seven of all the acute beds in London lost, 12 of the 46 casualty units closed, huge waiting lists, people waiting on trolleys, loss of morale among staff and the recent resignation of the consultant in charge of the casualty unit at Queen Mary’s University hospital, Roehampton, who left because he could no longer run it within the budget provided and did not feel that he was giving people a decent service? Is that not the reason why nobody trusts him and his Government on the future of the national health service and will accordingly vote him out?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the first advice that I would give them is not to vote Labour, because they are getting more money from this Government than they would from any putative Labour Government. I would tell them that the number of consultants in A and E departments has risen dramatically by 40 per cent. I would tell them that the number of nurses appointed had risen by 21 per cent. I would tell them that more patients are being treated. I would tell them that the hon. Gentleman is living proof that old Labour lives, because, while the Labour Front Benchers are saying that they will not raise taxes, he is saying:

    “What . . . many”–

    including the hon. Gentleman–

    “have been talking about is the need to raise taxation for the above average income people in order to pay for the rest. I see a moral justification for that and I think it is the right thing to do.”

    That may be what he tells the consultants, but it is not what the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) tells the consultants.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Malcolm Rifkind – 5 October 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, held in Dublin on Saturday 5th October 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me just say a word or two at the outset about the discussions we have had today. The purpose of today’s discussion was to look particularly at the Intergovernmental Conference and the progress that had been made thus far. As with any negotiation of course, the real substance of the negotiation is likely to be done pretty near the end. We agreed today that we would seek the end the negotiation in June next year under the Dutch Presidency. We have also agreed, on a suggestion that I had made some time ago, that it would be helpful to see a draft treaty, perhaps in many cases with alternatives clauses for examination, at the December meeting in Dublin.

    A number of purposes of the IGC: firstly, to prepare for enlargement; secondly, to make the European Union more accessible to its citizens; thirdly perhaps to improve the efficiency of the European Union. I am bound to say for different members of the European Union that tends to mean at the moment rather different things. For some of our partners that means more majority voting, it means more powers for the European Parliament and more powers for the European institutions at the expense of national governments. Others have a different view of what it means.

    Let me make this point to you. The British are good Europeans. By good Europeans I mean that our record in implementing European law, our dedication to a liberal trading policy and our leading role in European defence, in all of those ways, if we enter into a commitment, we deliver upon that commitment. But I think that “Look before you leap” is a far better watch-word for the European Union than “Leap before you look”. And I made the points this afternoon that upon many of the issues to be discussed, it is no good just simply saying what the aspiration is, and what people would like to achieve, it is necessary to examine how you would get there and what it would actually mean for the member states if you did.

    I have tried to attest some of the assumptions that our partners have made. Let me perhaps give you a couple of examples. There is some suggesting amongst some of our colleagues that we should have a European Employment Charter in the Treaty. I wonder whether that is a good idea? We already have in the European Treaties a commitment to a high level of employment. But a treaty isn’t just a declaration, it is not just a declaratory document. A treaty creates rights, it creates obligations, it is justiciable before the European Court. I believe it would be cynical to write in obligations that cannot be met, and I made that point to our partners this afternoon.

    The second example I will give you, there could certainly be others, but the second example I will give you is defence. We can have a European defence identity through the Western European Union and through NATO. And of course that is the only credible way in which we can use NATO defence assets to carry out European initiatives. If we made the Western European Union subordinates to the European Union – as some colleagues in Europe wish us to do – then those NATO assets would be denied to us. I must say, I want a real defence, not one on paper only. So clearly there are difficult hurdles to overcome in that aspect of the negotiations.

    There are also some issues, as I indicated to colleagues this afternoon, where we shall require solutions to very serious problems. We reached an agreement to Maastricht some years ago which means that British companies are not saddled with job-destroying burdens. I shall expect our partners to stick to the letter, and to the spirit, of that agreement. And if the European Court decides against us in the Working Time Directive, I shall require treaty amendment to return the situation to what it was at the end of the Maastricht negotiation.

    I made clear to our partners this afternoon that it is also necessary to resolve the very serious question of quota hopping. National fishing quotas are meant to benefit not just the fishermen who catches the particular catch, but the fishing communities of each member state. If the present treaties don’t allow us to correct the abuses that presently exist under the Common Fisheries Policy, then the treaties must be changed, and that is another subject for discussion in the weeks and months that lie ahead.

    In many of these areas I expect there will be quite a lot of tough negotiation. On some of the issues we will find allies; on others, perhaps at the outset at least, we may be alone. But I shan’t hesitate to say no to the ideas that I believe are wrong for Europe as a whole or wrong for the interests of the United Kingdom.

    I want to add another point if I may. There are more important matters at stake for the European Union than treaty changes. I prefer creating jobs than writing an employment chapter into the treaty that would not create jobs. I prefer real defence to defence on paper. I prefer practical cooperation on drugs and crime, not a theoretical arguments about Community competence. I know Community competence is a very fascinating subject for the cognoscenti, but competitiveness is a much better one for those people who don’t have jobs and would like to have jobs.

    When we had finished the discussions, and they were very much preliminary discussions, on the Intergovernmental Conference, we spent time, both over lunch and later in the afternoon, on the Middle East peace process and the Foreign Ministers spent some discussing that as well. The important issue essentially is that we continue to offer support to the Middle East peace process, vital we encourage people to negotiate, vital we ensure that nothing we can say can be seen as boxing people in corners and making it more difficult for them to try and reach an agreement with one another.

    I also took the opportunity of being here to have a brief discussion with John Bruton about the Northern Ireland peace process. We reviewed the position that we have currently reached in the Belfast talks. Both of us believe that progress is not remotely as rapid as we would have liked and we would like all parties to redouble their efforts in the talks. We clearly need to discuss the question of decommissioning further. We are certain that progress in the decommissioning talks should be made on the basis of Senator Mitchell’s report. We are agreed about that. We will of course keep in very close contact. Today wasn’t the day for making decisions, it was just an occasion to review the present state of play in those negotiations.

    So those are the matters we have touched upon today and the Foreign Secretary and I will happily answer any further questions you may have about any of those matters.

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Hugh Pym, ITN):

    Prime Minister, did you register your disapproval of Dr Hansch’s remarks in his speech in Cork, and remarks after that that he made in a debate last night?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes I did. Yes I did. I told him his remarks were offensive, and I think he knows that. I suggested in particular that it was apparent some members of the European Parliament, senior members, senior representatives of the European Parliament, clearly did not understand what British policy was. He took the point very clearly that I was talking about him and not other people. I think the points I made to him had some impact.

    QUESTION:

    Are there specific areas that you would like the Irish Presidency to deal with in the coming months that have not been addressed to date?

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    I think it has been rather a good Presidency. Having the Presidency of the European Union is not the most attractive job in the world, it is trying to reconcile 15 different competing interests across a whole range of subjects. I think they have done rather well. They assembled an agenda for today. I think there were mixed feelings about whether there was any practical purpose in having today, but the Irish had no choice but to proceed today.

    That was a decision that was taken some time ago, and they have done so. They are working extremely hard to produce a draft treaty, albeit with alternatives for December, and that is a pretty massive job and I think they are doing it pretty well. So I have no criticism at all to make of the Irish Presidency. I think they are doing well and I am sure they will continue to do well.

    QUESTION (Hosni Imam, Kuwait News Agency, London):

    I wonder if you could put some gloss on the decisions you have taken on the Middle East, particularly about sending an envoy to the region?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    This was discussed both amongst Foreign Ministers and amongst Heads of Government. If I could make a general point about that first. Progress in the Middle East talks will be made between President Arafat and Prime Minister Netanyahu, or it won’t be made. Let us not believe that the European Union, or indeed anybody else, is going to determine that progress. What will happen is that Dick Spring, representing the European Union Foreign Ministers, will be going, probably on Monday I think and will meet Mr Netanyahu and also meet Mr Arafat to express the European Union’s concerns, and of course to offer any assistance that we can perhaps provide. But essentially we can do a little more than continue to assist in material matters, as we do very much with the Palestinian authority, quite a lot of cash from countries within the European Union and the European Union collectively, and quite a lot of important relationships with Israel through the Cooperation Agreement. So I think we are in a position to apply some pressure, but we ought not to let anyone misunderstand how much we can do. We can apply pressure but it is the Israelis and it is the Palestinians that will determine whether progress is going to be made or not. The Foreign Secretary may want to add something about his talks?

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    No, I have nothing to add to that, Prime Minister.

    QUESTION.

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    He is going on holiday.

    FOREIGN SECRETARY:

    That is Dick Spring. Dick Spring will be going on behalf of the European Union.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    And he is probably going on Monday, as I said.

    QUESTION (Polish News Agency):

    Both Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac said that enlargement to Eastern Europe would happen by the year 2000. Would you consider this date unrealistic and in what context was enlargement discussed during today’s talks?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    On the first point, you will recall it was the United Kingdom and Germany who were the foremost advocates of enlargement to the East. I passionately believe that the most important thing that the European Union ought to be doing at the moment is not institutional change, which often takes so much time, but enlargement to the East. We have an historic opportunity in this generation of politicians to extend the European Union to the East, which I think has great security advantages and will have great advantages in removing the economic Iron Curtain that has also been set right across the middle of Europe. So I am very much in favour of that and we were one of the great advocates of Poland and the other Central and Eastern European countries coming in, and we still are. I would add we are also more enthusiastic to open European trade borders to the Central and East European nations than most of our colleagues as well.

    Can it be done by the year 2000? If it can, no-one would be more pleased than us. It is an ambitious target but it is not a target that would be delayed as a result of any policy inhibition on the part of the British government, we would welcome it.

    As to the context of enlargement, enlargement is going to involve institutional change and it was in that context predominantly that it was discussed.

    QUESTION (RTE News):

    On Anglo-Irish matters, you had a brief discussion with the Taoiseach, but in essence the peace process in Northern Ireland is dead in the water. For three and a half months nothing has been achieved at the Stormont buildings, how are you going to put new life back into the process between you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t agree with your assessment, with respect. I am something of a veteran over the past four years of being told that the peace process is dead. I have been told that on many occasions. But I don’t believe it. The peace process does often take two steps forward and one step back. If often gets into a phase where suddenly everyone is very optimistic because quite a lot suddenly seems to be being achieved and then suddenly it grinds to a halt while each of the respective negotiators goes back to their grass roots, assembles views, assembles feelings, and decides how they can move forward. We have been in a frustrating stop period for some time, it has got bogged down, I think that is absolutely true. But I don’t think, because it has been bogged down for a period, that one should assume that it is dead.

    And the reason I don’t believe you should assume that is not because there are not difficulties about, self-evidently there are, it would be foolish to deny that there were not difficulties. But the overwhelming wish, the overwhelming will, of the people in Northern Ireland, is to push the politicians further into making an agreement. And I think that is very important.

    The process was dealt a very savage blow indeed when the IRA returned to violence, there can be no conceivable doubt about that, not just because they had returned to violence, but because it fractured any embryonic belief that existed amongst any Unionists that they ever were serious about giving up on violence. So we must judge them on their actions. I hope we are going to get another ceasefire. There is no sign of it. We occasionally get talk of it from Sinn Fein/IRA circles, but that is all thus far it has turned out to be.

    But the peace process itself will continue and there will be set-backs. I have no doubt on future occasions people will say to me this is dead.

    But for so long as I can push it forward I will continue to try and do so and I believe that would be John Bruton’s view as well.

    QUESTION (Spanish News Agency:)

    When you say that you are not happy with the quota fishing system, because it does not benefit the community, do you mean that it is necessary to change the treaty, do you mean that it is necessary to change the distribution within the treaty, do you mean that it is necessary to change the distribution with the quota, or you are completely against the system of quotas?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We discussed quotas in a different context at one stage in terms of asylum, so I wasn’t quite sure which element you were talking about. As far as quota hopping is concerned, the principal problem is this. When the Common Fisheries Policy was first determined, there were quotas determined for each national country. And the expectation was that the fish would be caught by the national fishermen, and then docked in the national ports, and create the growing employment for the fishing communities that results from the fish going back to its own domestic port. What has happened subsequently, with quota-hopping, is that national quotas have been purchased by another nation and that has had a very severe impact upon the fishing industry ashore, and upon fishing communities. And what I have said to my colleagues is that that was not what we intended when we agreed the Common Fisheries Policy and it has very severe effects on particular parts of Europe, and particularly particular parts of the United Kingdom, and it is no longer tolerable for the system to continue as it is.

    So we have tabled a Protocol to change the circumstances on quota-hopping and we will be looking at that, and other issues, to see what can be done to ensure that the original intention of the treaty becomes the current operation of the treaty.

    QUESTION (Tom Burrows, Market News):

    Although it was not on the official agenda, was in any shape or form EMU discussed; and secondly, was the EU’s trading relations with other blocs discussed, for example in the context of the work the Foreign Secretary has been doing on improving trade relations with [indistinct] and North America?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No. On the second point, no, trading blocs were not discussed on this occasion. They are very important, but they just weren’t on the agenda today. As far as EMU was concerned, it wasn’t discussed. If I might say, it was mentioned but not discussed. People made passing references to it, I made passing references to it, but it wasn’t a subject of discussion. I hope that is not thought to be an odd difference to draw, but that is actually what happened, some people said we must go ahead with it; other people pointed out the timetable was at risk; other people said there are difficulties that haven’t yet been confronted. But that was all that was said, not discussed.

    QUESTION (John Palmer, Guardian):

    In common with a limited number of other senior Privy Councillors, you have received a letter from the Editor of the Guardian containing prima facie evidence alleging a government cover-up in reaction to the recent corruption scandals which are being investigated. What is your reaction to the evidence that you have been presented with and can you give a clear and unqualified assurance that no member of the government has been involved in any such cover-up or has in any sense misled the House of Commons?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    For some time the Guardian and other people have been running the most extraordinarily suggestive stories. Let me say to you absolutely clear that I am determined that the House of Commons investigates properly and fully the allegations that have been made. I might perhaps remind you that, against the opposition of many people, I was the person who set up the Nolan Committee. Many people didn’t like that, but I was determined that Parliament should be clean and above suspicion and I established the Nolan Committee. Sir Gordon Downey sprang out of the Nolan Report. I asked Sir Gordon Downey, I was not asked by Sir Gordon Downey, I said to Sir Gordon Downey that he might have all the documentation that he requires to carry out the inquiry that he needs to carry out.

    And I went further. I said he can also see all the documentation that was provided for the court case that did not take place, so that he – Sir Gordon – can satisfy himself he has every document that he needs to carry out his investigation. When he has investigated, he will report to the appropriate Commons Committee on members’ interests. I have no doubt they will follow their previous practice of publishing his report, and that is what I would expect them to do. What I am not going to do is to respond to a whole series of individual allegations, upon which a particular spin may be put, until this investigation is completed.

    I have made sure that the investigation has full cooperation, I am sure the investigation will be comprehensive, I have no doubt it will be properly considered by the appropriate House of Commons committee and I have no doubt the report, at their instigation, will then be published. And I would think that people, since they have such a comprehensive report, might wait for that report before they make comments or publish articles that may mislead and encourage other people to misunderstand.