The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Lord Mayor’s Banquet

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the 1996 Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 11 November 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech given at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall in London on Monday 11th November 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You set out as the theme of your speech “Making Britain even Greater”. Not just – “great”. But – “even greater”. You acknowledge accurately what we are already and seek to improve it. That is exactly right.

    There is a part of the British character that undersells our achievements and over emphasises our difficulties.

    As a fault it is one on the right side. As a nation, we would not be comfortable with a boastful nationalistic posture, but we shouldn’t let our talent for understatement mislead others either about our prospects and abilities or our national character.

    My Lord Mayor, let me develop your theme. Because it is my theme too.

    Long gone are the days when the British economy was bedeviled by restrictive practices, strikes, high tax levels, runaway inflation and government controls.

    It has taken over a decade and a half to make fundamental, lasting changes to improve our economic performance. But we have done it. Some of it was very hard. There have been setbacks as well as advances.

    In the six years since I first spoke at this dinner, we have passed out of a turbulent recession, and emerged in vigorous economic health.

    We have turned round our economic prospects. We are back in the first rank. We are building a prosperity that will last.

    Too often, past recoveries were derailed by a yawning trade gap or soaring inflation. But not this time.

    All the evidence is that we have moved from a country prone to erratic bouts of high inflation, to one where subdued inflation can be the norm. If that is so, it is a change of historic importance.

    We now have a longer, more sustained recovery than any major European economy, with lower unemployment and inward investment flooding in.

    As a result, we are pulling ahead of the European field. To stay ahead we will need to go on pursuing the policies that are giving us this advantage.

    We have reined back public expenditure to well below the average of our European competitors – a difference worth £2000 to the average household in lower taxes. We now have the lowest basic rate of tax for 50 years, and a lower target still before us.

    Strikes are now down to a twenty-fifth of the 1979 figure. And huge swathes of industry – telecoms, gas, water, electricity, airlines and the bulk of the rail network have been transferred to the private sector, where they belong and are prospering. Daily we see evidence of this in lower prices for consumers, more investment in the future, and increased success in overseas markets.

    That is the argument for privatisation, and we shall look at more areas where private sector discipline can improve economic performance and service to the public.

    My Lord Mayor, the truth is that we may have to brace ourselves to hearing an increasing chorus describing Britain as a success.

    We are not going to throw away those hard won advances. The Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that when he acted on interest rates a week or so ago. And we’ll ram the message home with a prudent and sensible Budget – one that will keep us on the path of growth and prosperity for years ahead.

    Next year our country will have the most secure economic base for generations. We can turn to the future and plan with confidence.

    Ahead of us lie changes that we should embrace with enthusiasm because of the opportunities they bring with them.

    I believe we can expect a tremendous growth in world trade and economic development. Around the world trade barriers are withering.

    The dynamism of the single market is on our doorstep.

    Newly industrialised economies are emerging in East Asia and Latin America.

    The collapse of communism has opened up new markets and new competitors.

    We are well placed to take advantage of these opportunities.

    The world is turning to free trade. I welcome this. It makes countries more competitive, and more prosperous, and it gives consumers a better deal. It is in Britain’s interest, given our potential to win in the world markets of tomorrow. And it is the best way to help the developing world into long term prosperity.

    I have always felt there is something rather objectionable about rich countries grandly handing out aid with one hand, while with the other they block trade access that would enable poorer countries to become more self sufficient.

    Earlier today the Foreign Secretary and the President of the Board of Trade published a White Paper setting out our vision of global free trade by 2020.

    This means free trade in services – especially important for the City – as well as free trade in goods. It goes together with our determination to secure free and open markets for investment and capital.

    Day by day the very nature of trade is changing. It’s no longer dominated by freighters full of coal and steel. Now it’s as likely to be a service like broadcasting or tourism, or some tiny high tech component smaller than a fingernail assembled in four different pieces in four different continents.

    We are well placed to prosper in this new trading environment. In the last great age of British enterprise, the influence of this small island was spread world wide by the efforts of countless men and women, who often risked everything they had to trade and invest around the globe.

    That’s left the benevolent legacy that Britain has Links with nearly every corner of the world.

    They aren’t nebulous links. They have real substance. Britain is second only to the United States in our ownership of overseas assets around the world. Those assets don’t just earn dividends. They give us a vital edge in overseas markets.

    And the City of London remains an asset beyond price, as the dominant financial centre in our continent.

    And, on top of all this, we have the great advantage of the world’s international trading language. Worldwide, one in five people speak some English and it is an official language in over 70 countries.

    Six years of being Prime Minister has shown me these are real assets that can help us to realise our potential as one of the leading global trading nations of the 21st century.

    We are living in a world where the economic centre of gravity is shifting to the massive populations and economic growth of Asia and the Pacific Basin. In the global marketplace, we must compete with these countries in their markets and match their competitiveness round the world.

    We need to raise our eyes to this wider horizon. Some fear the development of global markets. They think it breeds insecurity. They believe that by shutting themselves off they can somehow be stronger. But history shows they are wrong. No country has ever prospered behind closed doors. The free movement of goods, people and ideas has always been a source of wealth.

    Our future economic security and prosperity will come from our success in competing in the free market, not trying to cocoon ourselves from it.

    So I am determined to develop further Britain’s position as the most competitive, low tax, enterprise centre in Europe.

    We have the lowest tax burden on business of any major European country. Low social costs, no Social Chapter and no minimum wage.

    This is what is making us more competitive and marks us out as a prime target for inward investment.

    Today’s investment is footloose and fancy-free. It will go where tax is low and opportunity is high. So it is coming to Britain.

    That’s why we’re bucking the trend and creating jobs, not dole queues.

    So we will continue with those policies and resist proposals that would damage our competitiveness, cost us markets, and lose us jobs.

    That is why the Working Time Directive, on which a European court judgement is expected tomorrow, represents an important point of principle.

    We are in favour of good working conditions in this country. They are very important. But the basic employee protections are long established in domestic law. There’s no case for extra prescriptive legislation from Europe – imposed by qualified majority voting against British objections – on matters that are now best resolved between employer and employee.

    That is why, if the court rules against us, we will require changes in European law to reinforce Britain’s protection from such legislation. Our partners know that. And they know that we shall insist upon these changes before we can conclude any new agreements at the Intergovernmental Conference next year.

    In the next decade the speed of change may worry some people. We British love progress. But we hate change. We shouldn’t – it will bring greater prosperity.

    We must look forward. No one ever reversed into prosperity. Progress will certainly change our lives. Information technology will bring new services available at the touch of a button in the home – banking, buying groceries, booking a flight, access to almost unlimited information and entertainment.

    We will see medical consultants diagnosing and even treating patients through information and pictures piped possibly hundreds of miles to their surgery.

    Dealings with government will be transformed – with services available on a terminal in your library or post office or even in your home.

    Children in schools may be coached at their own pace through a new generation of interactive software.

    These changes will happen. We’re making them happen. And this is a revolution where Britain is well placed to stay in front.

    Our telecommunications and media markets are amongst the most competitive and developed in the world. They will be able to take the new opportunities because two decades of deregulation and privatisation have enabled them to become market leaders.

    We are already one of the leading countries in the use of personal computers at home and in schools. And, by the end of this century, most households will have access to a range of new hi-tech services through cable, satellite and the telephone network.

    We’re becoming one of the laboratories of the world in the development of information technology. All of this means that the new, global information and media industries are truly industries in which we can win – and win handsomely.

    My Lord Mayor, the prospect before us is to become one of the world’s most successful global trading nations in the 21st Century.

    We have been through an industrial and economic revolution. We haven’t been beaten down by that effort. We’ve shown we have the skills and strength to win. But the last crucial ingredient for our future success is national self-confidence. There are always people prepared to write Britain off. They are always wrong.

    Listening to the political debate, you might sometimes get the impression that confidence is something we don’t have as a nation, or even that it’s something that we can’t have.

    But if you lift your eyes beyond the charmed circle of professional pessimists, you get a quite different picture.

    The City of London has the greatest concentration of foreign banks in the world.

    Britain has won more Nobel prizes than any nation except the US.

    As you pointed out, Britain has won a third of all Oscars in the last 30 years.

    Our streets are bustling with foreign tourists.

    Our pubs, clubs and restaurants are packed.

    Our television programmes are in demand worldwide.

    Our education system attracts half a million foreign students a year.

    Our theatres give the lead to Broadway.

    Our pop culture rules the airwaves.

    Our country has taken over the fashion catwalks of Paris.

    And our capital is described in an American magazine as “the coolest city on the planet”.

    So, my Lord Mayor, you are right. We have every reason to believe in ourselves.

    It’s time to parade our virtues as a country. To show – at home and abroad – how far Britain has come in economic progress and in the quality of our life and culture.

    We can surprise others as well as ourselves.

    We have a nation of talent in a world of opportunity.

    Not for a very long time have we been so well placed for future success.

    The fact is: Britain is back in business – and it’s back to stay.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 20 November 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, held in London on Monday 20th November 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    First of all this evening, Lord Mayor, may I thank you and the Sheriffs for agreeing to move your banquet from its traditional date. I greatly appreciate your courtesy in doing so but I must tell you I spent most of last Monday evening hoping that none of you turned up here to an empty Guildhall!

    This evening, I want to talk about some aspects of our nation’s future. I shall not this evening talk of Northern Ireland though I hope very soon to do so with the Irish Prime Minister and the mainstream political parties in Northern Ireland. Tonight, I want to talk about some of the ways in which the United Kingdom as we meet here this evening stands at a crossroads. In the next few years, we, must make choices, choices that may shape our country for generations. So far, debate on these has been limited, too often trivial stories dominate the news, too often the truth gets in the way of a good story. I believe the British public deserves better than that; they need to be told about the prospects and the problems that lie ahead; they need to have the options set out before them plain and unvarnished with common sense answers and in some aspects I will seek to do that this evening.

    First, jobs and competitiveness. Today, the greatest challenge to our competitiveness comes from Asia and from China. The centre of gravity in world trade is shifting, shifting I think perhaps more rapidly than many people realise. Practically half the world’s people are emerging into vigorous industrial economies, they can offer new markets to us, they can offer new opportunities to us provided we are prepared to go out and claim them. But there is downside to those new opportunities because these new countries will also threaten to relegate an uncompetitive Europe to a far lesser role than it is privileged to play today.

    My Lord Mayor, we have no automatic right to prosperity. We must earn it or we will lose it in the years that lie ahead. That is why it is my aim to turn Britain into the unrivalled enterprise centre of Europe. Let me discuss some of the wars we might make that aim a reality.

    The heart of the matter is that there must be a limit to the share of national income that Government spend on behalf of the nation and there must be a limit to what they take from the nation in tax. Today’s fastest-growing economies have a very clear lesson for us: by keeping spending down, they have kept taxes down and low taxes are the best incentives for business to invest and this is our aim, the less we take in tax the more we can encourage enterprise. Enterprise means that employers can afford to employ people and effort is rewarded. That enterprise creates the living standards and funds the public services that we all care about.

    In the mid-1970s, Government spent around 50% of our national income. We have brought that down to around 42% today, 10% below the average for the rest of the European Union. Because of the steps that we have taken to reform welfare and to encourage people to save themselves for their pensions, I expect that gap to widen further over the coming years. So we are doing quite well but not well enough. We cannot afford to compare ourselves with our European neighbours alone. Both America and Japan, crucial world competitors of this country, spend less and tax less proportionately than we do.

    Our aim is to go further still and get public spending below 40% of national income and keep it there and if we are to do that we have to make tough choices between competing priorities. The State cannot – and in my judgement the State should not – try and do everything. We need to find new, more efficient ways of delivering public services and capital investment.

    When the private sector takes responsibility and bears the risk, it is generally more efficient than the public sector. That, of course, is the underlying reason behind the Private Finance Initiative in which the City of London had such a vital role to play. Private finance already is a significant reality. By the end of this financial year, we shall have signed contracts under the Private Finance Initiative worth over £5,000 million. We are applying new ideas of private finance to one area of Government spending after another. It is already, of course, My Lord Mayor, well established in the Health Service for example where 25 schemes of over £25 million each are already in the pipeline.

    Transport, crucial for the City and crucial for the country, is another rich area for private finance. I can tell you we have passed another critical milestone today. Subject to contract, we have selected the winning bid to design, build, finance and operate the upgrade between Newcastle and Carlisle. Another three major new road projects will follow, making a first tranche of £400 million and we have encouraging bids for a further four on top of that.

    So private finance is not a passing fancy, private finance is here to stay; it will play an increasing part in capital investment in the future and I am determined to break down the barriers that currently have existed within Government for too long and enable the City to play the role that it has been denied from playing for far too long.

    My Lord Mayor, an international enterprise economy is the only way we can offer lasting security and prosperity to our people. Free trade is in our blood, it is in the City’s blood and I believe that gives us a unique advantage as we look to the future. To make Britain the enterprise centre of Europe means pursuing our historic role as a global trading nation and that is why developing North Atlantic free trade and strengthening our links with Asia and Latin America are so crucially important to our own future but the market on our doorstep is Europe. Our task is to persuade the rest of Europe to take the enterprise road as well.

    From next spring until probably the summer of 1997, the European Union will again be reviewing the treaties in an intergovernmental conference. Many of you feel, I am sure, that it is too soon after Maastricht for yet another conference. You might say that but I couldn’t possibly comment! So I don’t expect the intergovernmental conference to be a very wide-ranging review. I would like it to focus on specific areas where some modest improvements are attainable. We are already mapping out common ground with like-minded countries. Last month, President Chirac and I identified some areas where the conference should focus: a more effective common foreign and security policy; the reinforcement of subsidiarity, the right to have more decided domestically in host nations rather than at the European level; strengthening of the role of national parliaments and intergovernmental cooperation in the fight against crime and against drugs. These are areas where Britain and France aim to work together and where we also share much common ground with Germany.

    These issues are important but they are not the great issues facing Europe at next month’ s summit in Madrid and thereafter I see three great issues: how to be competitive and to work; how to enlarge the European Union further across the Continent of Europe; and, of course, the implications for us and Europe of a single currency.

    Let me turn first to competitiveness. Britain used to be seen by many as the poor performer. Today we have some of the most successful companies in Europe in steel, cars, electronics and we are attracting by far the bulk of foreign investment beyond Europe into Europe and from Europe into the United Kingdom. Britain leads the world in telecoms and media, we are in the vanguard of information technology and as we meet here this evening, we now have more of our people in jobs and fewer unemployed than any major European country, better than Germany and far ahead of other countries where employers are dragged down by high social costs.

    The Social Chapter is not simply a set of principles, it is a set of policies which, whatever else their supporter may claim for them, add to costs and cost people their jobs. Nor is it a pick-and-mix option. The great bulk is decided by qualified majority voting; that means Britain cannot block proposals on our own even if we are opposed to them, there is no national veto and it is for those reasons that the Government oppose the Social Chapter.

    We need here a climate where business – and perhaps especially small business – can prosper to create new jobs and to help business grow. If Europe competes it can prosper. It will be immensely damaging if Europe ignores the competition from the Far East. That competition is real. We cannot just pretend that it isn’t out there waiting to take our markets from us. To do so would be folly and if we were to do so, then Europe would surely get left behind.

    So My Lord Mayor, if others in Europe bind themselves into uncompetitive economic and social structures, Britain will not join them. We are not going to put our economic success at risk and I shall take that message clearly and concisely to the conference in Madrid next month.

    My Lord Mayor, too often and too simplistically that sort of message is taken as anti-European, nationalistic, seeing Europe as a trading area and no more. I say to you, My Lord Mayor, it is none of those things. I want Europe to succeed. We have gained greatly by being part of the European Union and there is a great deal more for this country to gain as a member of that great Union but I believe to maximise the benefits for us and for the rest of Europe it is right to set out the difficulties and to set out what needs to be done.

    That brings me to the second question, enlargement of the European Union. I believe that we must spread stability and democracy across a wider Europe. Eastern and Central Europe have been the cockpit of war throughout the centuries but now we have an historic opportunity to bind them into a single market and the democratic embrace of Western Europe and if we are able in this generation of politicians to achieve that, we will bring for our children and our grandchildren a security and prosperity that our fathers and our grandfathers could only have dreamed of. That is the possibility that lies ahead of us and that is why enlargement of the European Union remains a vital objective. Europe has agreed this in principle, now it must face up to what it means in practice.

    The problems are formidable. As Europe enlarges, the Common Agricultural Policy as it stands will be increasingly unaffordable. I put it mildly, reform will not be easy in the European Union of the Common Agricultural Policy but it is essential. The fledgling economies of Eastern Europe have already come a long way in a very few short years yet they will still need help to develop, still need help to survive alongside the competitive aspect of a free market in the single market of Western Europe but if help is to go to these newcomers, where will the help come from? How will it be accepted if some existing member countries of the Union are told there is less help for them or if other Members are asked for larger contributions to assist the new members? These issues must be addressed, they must be addressed if Europe is serious in its promises to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Cyprus and the other aspirant nations waiting to join the European Union.

    Enlargement is complex enough on its own but at the same time we must grapple with an even more complex and politically-charged debate – the question of a single currency. Some are passionate about this, others have profound doubts. Britain, I am glad to say, has a choice. We can decide whether to stay out or opt in but whatever choice we make – in or out – one thing is certain: if there is to be a single currency, it will affect Britain and it will change Europe fundamentally. Not all members will join or could join. Only a minority could meet the criteria on the present timetable – a point I think that is now accepted right across Europe – but if some went ahead while others did not, the Union would be divided between those countries which adopted the single currency and those which remained outside it. In some areas of policy, such variable geometry may be sensible, indeed inevitable, but it needs to be thought through and so do its implications.

    For instance, how would a single currency and the currencies or the rest of the Union co-exist? How would Europe’s institutions serve the interests of those countries which adopted the single currency and of those who did not? What would it mean for the Community budget? What would its implications be for the single market that has been of such benefit to every member of the European Union?

    Attentive listeners will notice I did not ask what will be the name of the single currency; I left that question out because it is, to be frank, a convenient distraction from the issues that matter most and those issues must be answered before a single currency goes ahead. The price of error would be too high for Europe individually and collectively. This is something all of us, even the most enthusiastic advocates, need to consider. The time has come to answer these questions so that the Union can expand and reform successfully, so that stability and democracy are extended to millions more Europeans who are desperate to move from Central and Eastern Europe into the embrace of the European Union and to whom we have made a promise that in due time they will be welcome and they need to be answered so that Europe can compete with the rest of the world and win because our living standards today and our children’ s living standards tomorrow depend upon us successfully meeting that challenge.

    Europe must not become an economic museum; it must and it can become a power-house and that is the purpose to which we must drive our policy and European policy as a whole. There is no point standing on the sidelines carping and moaning about things we don’t like. When I said we needed to be in the heart of Europe, I meant it for this reason: if we are in the Heart of Europe we can influence Europe, from the sidelines of Europe we cannot and we need that influence in Europe in the interests of every single member of this country.

    My Lord Mayor, I said there were choices to be made. They must be made on the basis of a cool assessment and clear facts. Emotion is heady stuff but it often makes for poor policy. A cool assessment and clear facts is what we must look at and that is the basis upon which the Government will approach European policy, the only basis that is undeniably in the British interest.

    These challenges are real, complex and often uncomfortable but they are at the centre of the choices that we face about our nation’s future; they must be addressed and they must be at the centre of our national debate and I, My Lord Mayor, intend to ensure that they are.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 14 November 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London, held on 14th November 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is now some 80 years since the then Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, looked out from his office across St James’s Park and wrote these famous words in his diary: “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetimes”.

    He was right. The War brought horrors no-one imagined; and changes which have shaped our century. It led to economic crisis, to dictatorship in many countries, and finally to a tense peace in an armed and divided Europe.

    And yet, as our century draws towards its close, these changes are being reversed. The lights have come on again all across Europe.

    As they have done so, they have illuminated some dark corners of the Cold War. Ethnic tensions, seen at their worst in the country that used to be called Yugoslavia.

    But overwhelmingly the ledger is favourable. East/West relations are no longer conducted through the balance of nuclear terror.

    Europe has become, not two blocs, but a single Continent.

    The Soviet Empire has gone, ancient states have reappeared, subject nations have gained freedom.

    In South Africa, apartheid has gone and majority rule has been established.

    In the troubled Middle East a settlement of the Arab/Israeli conflict seems at last genuinely at hand.

    All around the world, democratic multi-party states are appearing in countries which previously only knew despotism and one party rule.

    In our own kingdom the guns are silent in Northern Ireland. The talks which once seemed impossible may now start within a few weeks, and the demand for peace is deafening.

    Two months ago, as I watched the last of our troops leave Berlin after fifty years, I said “We have before us possibilities of peace, freedom and friendship that we have never had before”. If we are wise, Europe can enjoy a new Age of Reason.

    Lord Mayor, problems that seemed likely to be with us for ever are being solved. We have good cause for hope and optimism.

    The world economy is recovering. Our markets in Europe are growing. At home we have the possibility – probability – that we may at last have broken the inflationary psychology that time and time again has dragged down our prospects and held back our living standards.

    You might be forgiven for thinking this must be an illusion. This is not the way people think. This is not the message we hear daily. But perhaps we are too ready to believe the worst of ourselves, of each other, of our institutions.

    I believe we need to overcome that. Let us by all means judge ourselves sternly. But let us do so with balance and perspective.

    Nolan

    Recently, a series of events have cast doubt over standards in public life. The attention given to them must have led people to wonder whether those in public life are there only to serve their own interests.

    I don’t believe they are.

    But we do need to re-assure people that public life is not self serving.

    The committee chaired by Lord Nolan will help with this.

    If the rules governing conduct in public life are vague or unsatisfactory, Nolan will clarify them. But his task is not just to meet immediate questions. It is to act as a running authority of reference – almost, you might say, an ethical workshop called in to do running repairs.

    Parliament

    We need the best people to serve in our institutions. In my own trade, in Parliament, I shrink from the notion of the wholly professional politician, whose expertise is honed only to the pursuit of power, preference and political ideology.

    We would not benefit from a monastic Commons, a chamber of high minds, a conventicle of saints, grateful that they are not like other men and women, 650 lives devoted to jumping ever and again over the hurdles and fences of standing and select committee and the chamber. That wouldn’t be a real Commons: it would be a sort of Bore of the Year show.

    We politicians are in this world and we must know how this world works. The solicitor, the accountant, the shopkeeper, the trade unionist certainly, the farmer, the stockbroker, the journalist comes equipped with that knowledge.

    Why on earth hang it up like the boots of a retired sportsman?

    Consistent with the priority of Parliamentary duties, it must be right for MPs to have other interests, but parliament should not be, as frankly it sometimes has been, a way to other jobs. The Commons is an assembly, a forum, above all, a legislature. It needs all trades, but it should not be a hiring fair.

    Standards

    Our standards are stricter today. Some nostalgics may doubt that. If they do, I invite them to look at history. Can you imagine the current coverage if the Prime Minister of the day disappeared for hours, toured Soho, and returned to Downing Street with a galaxy of ladies and held an impromptu prayer meeting in the front hall of Number 10? In Gladstone’s days, people knew nothing about such activities. They would now!

    We no longer live nowadays, thank goodness, in a “deference society”, where you are respected for who you are, not what you are. I welcome that. But let’s not swing too far in the other direction.

    The freedom to comment, to attack, to condemn, to expose public institutions and public figures, is very great. In a free society such as ours it is very important. But such power should only be used with responsibility.

    Most people in public life are there because they want to do something for others. What we must be concerned about is that their motives are not so denigrated; that they are not so unreasonably subjected to scrutiny and pressure that their successors will not come forward. We must ensure that we do not reach a situation where people are not prepared to serve the public good because the price of doing so is so high.

    Public Sector

    We not only need the right people in public service.

    We also need to improve the accountability of public service.

    It is damaging if there appears to be some kind of inside track – a gulf between those who know how to play the system and others who do not. My sympathy is with those who sit on the outside track.

    That is why, when I became Prime Minister, I brought in the Citizen’s Charter – to give power and, as far as possible, choice to the people who use public services. They pay for them with their taxes and they are entitled to the same courtesy and service they would expect if they were cash-on-the-nail private customers.

    That is why we are telling people what they should expect from public service and then giving them the information to judge whether they are receiving it.

    This new accountability, new openness, in public service shows up deficiencies more readily. This is uncomfortable but it is right.

    Government has been too secret too long. That is why we launched a code of practice on access to Government information, with statutory access rights to personal records and health and safety information. That is why I published “Questions of Procedure for Ministers” and the membership and terms of reference of Cabinet Committees. And that is why I have opened up greater access to public records.

    I am sure this is right and we will continue with it.

    Business

    Business, too – like public service – is now held up to greater public scrutiny. British capitalism has become capitalism with a conscience. For some, it always has been, but now it is for most. Businesses up and down the country recognise much wider responsibilities than to make profits for shareholders.

    To the Cadburys and Frys we add the Sainsburys, the Clores and the thousands of corporate business donors in Charities Aid Foundation reports. Round the country – including here in the City – we see businesses involved in the local community, in crime prevention schemes, helping young people in inner cities, improving the environment and much more besides.

    But there is more that business can do to further improve its image.

    There is no doubting the resentment that large and often unjustified pay rises can cause. So I welcome what Sir Bryan Nicholson, the President of the CBI, had to say about the need for responsibility in setting the pay of company executives.

    The power is there to control this. I hope it will be used.

    Economy

    My Lord Mayor, right across the economy the reality is turning out to be the opposite of what so many pundits predicted.

    We were told when the recovery came, we’d see a widening trade gap. Wrong, the trade gap has been shrinking.

    We were told manufacturing investment was a thing of the past. Wrong, manufacturing investment is growing healthily.

    We were told we couldn’t break out of the inflationary stop-go cycle. Wrong, inflation and pay settlements are at their lowest level for a generation.

    We are hugely competitive. And with the markets for our goods moving from recession to growth, the export outlook has rarely been rosier.

    We’re exporting nearly 40 per cent more telecoms equipment, nearly 40 per cent more microchips. British Steel, an industrial basket-case in the early 1980s is now one of the most efficient steel producers in the world.

    Nor is it all that long ago that the British motor industry seemed to be in terminal decay. We heard more of strikes than successes. Now it is set to become a net exporter of cars. And Triumph Motorcycles – that illustrious name, dead in the water in the ’70s – is now exporting top of the range British motorcycles once more to Japan, Germany and Italy.

    The people who say we can’t make things are the people who are out of touch. They should get in their British car, on their British motorbike, on their British bicycle, and go and see for themselves how British industry is making more and selling more, all round the world.

    Day by day we see the evidence. Low inflation, falling unemployment, rising investment, increasing competitiveness, more modern and efficient management. This is the reality of the changing economic and industrial face of Britain today.

    Northern Ireland

    My Lord Mayor, on this occasion a year ago I said that we had a better opportunity for peace in Northern Ireland than for years. One month later, we launched the Downing Street Declaration. Since then, the opportunity for peace has begun to turn into reality.

    The reality of border crossings reopening; fewer troops on the streets; turnover in High Streets rising sharply; people going out at night rather than staying at home.

    Few people would have forecast all this a year ago. Yet, today, hope is abroad, and any group that imperils progress will not carry hearts and minds in Northern Ireland.

    The deplorable murder of a Newry postal worker, Mr Frank Kerr, last week has shown what risks still abound. Revulsion and anger at this murder reinforces the need to deal with the weapons held by both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries.

    That is one of the purposes of the exploratory dialogue which we are ready to begin with Sinn Fein before the end of the year.

    Tonight, I can tell you that we have decided also to hold exploratory talks with Loyalist political representatives. I hope that these talks too will open before the end of December. The purpose in both cases is the same: to draw them into democratic politics and out of violence.

    The Downing Street Declaration laid out a level playing field for the politics of Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein and the Loyalists can take advantage of this. They can assert their point of view freely and fairly.

    But they must accept democratic practice. Illegal weapons and explosives must be taken out of commission. There must be an end to intimidation and punishment beatings. Racketeering and criminality must end as well. These are the essential conditions for democratic legitimacy.

    In the months ahead, attention will focus on political developments. But peace will also unlock an economic transformation: the jobs, the companies, the investment that Northern Ireland needs.

    So, my Lord Mayor, in a month’s time, we shall be holding an international investment conference in Northern Ireland.

    It will be the largest that Northern Ireland has ever seen.

    We intend to make sure that investors around the world know about the new opportunities that are now opening up. To give just one example, new air routes are opening up. Two new routes from Belfast have started since the ceasefire, and two more are under trial – one from the City Airport to Londonderry. People are already coming into Northern Ireland. Hotel bookings are up, and enquiries to the Tourist Board rose by nearly 100% in October.

    Such economic growth can help cut off the oxygen of terrorism.

    My Lord Mayor, I am delighted that you have accepted my invitation to this Conference. The City has itself suffered grievously from the hatred unleashed in Northern Ireland. It can now play a part in ending this for good.

    Peroration

    My Lord Mayor, it’s been quite a day. Breakfast at the Tower and dinner in the Guildhall.

    And as I got up to launch the new National Lottery, the first fare paying passengers were boarding the new Eurostar train service to Paris and Brussels through the Channel Tunnel.

    Both projects have long histories. We have had previous failed attempts at building a Channel Tunnel. And we have had previous National Lotteries – in one of which Treasury officials walked off with the prize money.

    But today, both projects have been brought to fruition.

    We should be more self-confident as a nation – in what we have achieved and will achieve: more confident in our institutions: in our way of life; and in our capacity to win in this fiercely competitive world.

    Let us concentrate on the things that really matter. Build up the present renaissance of our industry. Capitalise on this the finest financial centre in the world. And exploit the great economic opportunities before us.

    My Lord Mayor, today our future is in our hands. I am reminded of those lines of Wordsworth’s:

    “Enough if something from our hands have power to live, and act, and serve the future hour.”

    The Channel Tunnel; the National Lottery; the opening up of Government; the economic transformation in Britain; the end of violence in Northern Ireland; the hopeful sight of a New Age of Reason. All these will serve not just this passing hour, but lay down lasting foundations for the long-term strength of our country.

    My Lord Mayor, I believe in this country’s future. It is a time for hope, and a time for confidence. Let us show those qualities and there will be few limits to what this country can achieve.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the 1993 Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 15 November 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the 1993 Lord Mayor’s Banquet, held in London on Monday 15th November 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    My Lord Mayor, My Late Lord Mayor, Your Grace, My Lord High Chancellor, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Aldermen and Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    I wish to begin this evening, My Lord Mayor, by thanking you for your generous hospitality. Such warmth is traditional to Lord Mayors and on behalf of all your guests this evening may I say we are in your debt.

    You spoke, My Lord Mayor, of many things, you spoke of St Paul’s Cathedral. In the mind’s eye of we Londoners, and I too am a Londoner, My Lord Mayor, in the mind’s eye forever is the is of that great dome defiant in the blitz. It is I believe an enduring symbol of London.

    I hesitate to say this in the presence of the Archbishop, but the problem at St Paul’s is reconciling its twin roles as a place of worship and as a tourist attraction. And there is, I must tell you Archbishop, a sign at the door which reads “No eating in the Cathedral, this means thou”. I am not sure if it is endemic, St Paul’s tends to have trouble with signs. A previous Dean anxious, understandably anxious to capitalise on the Cathedral’ s position, is said to have put up a sign that perhaps, My Lord Mayor, is not entirely flattering to the City. It read as follows: “Last chance to pray, pray now before you enter the city”.

    But I wonder whether St Paul’s would have been built today. You mentioned the Great Fire and what sprang out of it in terms of that remarkable building. But would it have been built today, I wonder? Christopher Wren, after all, was a difficult man, he kept changing the design, the planning committee would undoubtedly have had a fit. We would nowadays get an enforcement notice.

    And what perhaps is even worse is that it took 44 years to complete. Now if it were a public building would Parliament wait that long? If it were a private venture, would there not be pressure to change it to a hotel or an office block? Very probably.

    And I think with such difficulties, My Lord Mayor, you are absolutely right to seek to preserve the assets that London already has. But not only preserve them, to capitalise them, because no other city in the world has more to offer in terms of art, recreation, music, theatres, museums, parks and gardens, the list is endless.

    I wish to see us parade those virtues more often and more loudly. The government proposes to spell them out next week in a document we are publishing that will celebrate London, it will emphasise the best assets of our capital city, it will contain a questionnaire asking Londoners how we can make our city a better place to live and work in, it will be the biggest consultation exercise ever in London.

    And what Londoners tell us will help the government and the partnership working on London Pride, the prospectus for the capital. We have invited the Corporation of London and the London boroughs to work with the private and the voluntary sectors to prepare this with Alan Shepherd, the Chairman of London First, bringing the team together. If London is to stay ahead it must develop and compete and it is doing.

    Transport, My Lord Mayor, has often been a theme of this occasion and it was again this evening. Well work has begun on the Heathrow Express. Last month we gave the go ahead for the £1.9 billion Jubilee Line extension; we are working urgently to bring private finance into the Cross-rail project and we are seeing improvements to the East Thames corridor and the Lee Valley. When next year Parisians come to London in three hours they will come to a great city determined to be greater still.

    And more and more businesses are already coming here, they are welcome and so are the jobs and so are the growth that they bring with them. The Corporation of London and others intend to set up an inward investment agency for London and I can promise tonight that the government will help make that a reality.

    But while we tonight can perhaps be misty eyed about the glories and opportunities of London, let us not forget the flip side. As we dine in white tie off gold plates other Londoners do not and nor do many others across the country.

    The recession is over but it has left its scars. We are on our way to rebuilding prosperity but we must also rebuild confidence and that feeling of security that is so important to individuals and to their families. What they are concerned about is their livelihoods, their security, their families and their prospects and we must never forget that that is the case.

    I have spoken about getting back to basics. That is not nostalgia, personally I have no reason to be nostalgic, it is the future that concerns me. In fashioning policy for a world that is swiftly changing we must have an eye to the underlying values and instincts with which as a nation we are comfortable. Basic economic values like low inflation, free markets and a climate we decline. Basic social values like self-discipline, respect for the law, concern for others. A greater acceptance of personal responsibility and family obligations. A concentration on education with an understanding that it is not just about training for work, it is a wider perforation for life and it involves parents as well as teachers, it means learning the values of our society as well as the rules.

    Some will say the values are obvious. I would say if so then why have so many people forgotten? We made huge strides towards common sense policies in the 1980s. Many problems were overcome but others remained and new problems have arisen. We must now move on and tackle the most urgent tasks for this decade.

    And most urgent, most immediate of all, we must complete the GATT round of world trade talks. It is not going to be easy. We nave only 30 days left, 30 days in which over 100 countries must put their weight behind GATT and get the deal done. There is no certainty of success. The United States administration has seen preoccupied with the Congressional vote on the North American Free Trade Area; in Japan there are problems in the Diat; in Europe the French have problems with agriculture.

    I understand how hard it can be to pursue the greater national interest against tough political opposition. But a GATT deal would be good for French industry and for the European economy as a whole. Nothing will do more to increase world trade than a success in this round, and conversely nothing would do more damage to world confidence than a failure to agree in these Uruguay world trade talks.

    Free trade will not on its own be enough to build prosperity in the 1990s, particularly in Europe. There are some uncomfortable issues we must confront. The plain fact is that much of Europe is becoming uncompetitive. During the 1980s labour costs in Europe rose by 50 percent; in the United States the increase was 10 percent; in Japan there was no increase at all. The result has been predictable, fewer jobs in Europe and 18 million of our fellow citizens unemployed. If Europe had done as well as others in the OECD there would be 9 million more people at work in the Community today. And if the Community continues to lose its share of world trade at the present rate, by the turn of the century Europe will have been overtaken as an economic power by the countries of the Pacific Basin. My Lord Mayor, it is time, past time, to sound the alarm.

    Against that background our competitors in Japan, South East Asia and America must be astonished at the calls in Europe for the introduction of a 35 hour or 4 day week and I must say it takes my breath away as well.

    And, that message is beginning to be understood in the Community. At Copenhagen we put competitiveness at the top of the agenda and we asked the Commission to produce a White Paper. In Brussels last month I found more agreement than ever before about the fundamental problems that Europe faces.

    In December we will discuss the Commission’s White Paper. Let me tell you what I believe it needs to contain. It needs to set out ways to make labour markets more flexible; ways to improve skills and control costs; ways to create a climate for enterprise and to cut red tape. We must find ways to make Europe more competitive and stop taking measures which unnecessarily destroy jobs, for that is what has been happening in recent years.

    And if we do not, if that challenge is not picked up and taken by the leaders of all the European Community nations, if we do not then that 18 million unemployed will become 20 million, then 25 million, then 30 million and the hopes and prospects for Europe will be smashed. That is what is at stake and that is why all argue so fiercely and so frequently for the sort of changes in European policy that I have advocated this evening and that I believe are so necessary to make a success of the European Community.

    In the United Kingdom unemployment has steadied and is now gently falling. But the policy prescription that we offer to Europe is right for us domestically as well. Not only must we work for enterprise in creating the right framework, we must also work with business. We do not want to prop up or bail out, we do want to build a partnership with industry.

    Let me tell you what has been happening since I spoke to you last year;

    We are giving much greater support to British exporters, including access to credit on competitive terms. Ministers have led delegations of industrialists around the world. I have myself led groups to India, Japan, Malaysia and the Middle East and on those trips we have won confirmed orders for over £7.5 billion for British industry.

    We are determined to use private finance to help bring about the capital and infrastructure projects that both the Government and industry want. We have ripped up restrictive Treasury rules but some blockages still remain and so the Chancellor has today appointed Sir Alastair Morton to chair a working group charged with removing them.

    The opportunities are immense. We are already seeing private finance for rail, for roads, for prisons and for hospital buildings. If we can fully mobilise the power of private finance then we will have taken a giant stride towards the infrastructure development that we need in this country for the turn of the century and beyond but for industry and the economy to prosper we need another basic ingredient, a well-educated, skilled workforce. The best of our schools produce pupils educated as well as any in the world – we can be proud of them – but too many do not and as a result standards have slipped below those of our competitors.

    Let me give you just one example. In arithmetic, 13-year-olds were asked to multiply 9.2 by 2. 5. In Korea and Taiwan 70% got it right, in Western Europe 55%, in England 13% and against that background, my Lord Mayor, I cannot understand opposition to simple tests in maths [Applause]. If we allow Korea and Taiwan a competitive advantage in schools today then we are handing them a competitive advantage in industry tomorrow.

    Raising standards in education will be difficult but our children must be taught what they need to know to succeed in later life. That is why we need rigorous inspection, a national curriculum, national testing and openness about results. Later this week, we will publish this year’s public exam results for all schools and for the first time national tables on truancy. They will point to an alarming problem, one which many determined head teachers have shown can readily be solved; we must help them to make sure that it is.

    My Lord Mayor, you have already paid tribute to the work of the City police. I fully support that but I would also applaud the quiet but effective way the City responded to the Bishopsgate bomb. Business life went on and practical measures were taken to reduce risks in the future. The fact that terrorists bombed and murdered on the mainland make us much more aware of the feelings of people in Northern Ireland as they contemplate the horror of the terrorist murders in their community and make us acknowledge even more the bravery of the security forces there. [Applause].

    There may now be a better opportunity for peace in Northern Ireland than for many years. There are several important elements coming together. First, there is the burning desire on each side of the community for peace, not a peace at any price but peace that is fair and just. This strength of feeling is far more intense than ever we have seen before. No-one wants to continue living with death and terror and fear for another twenty-five years. This desire for peace gives an opportunity we must try to take.

    Second, the Irish Government have shown a new understanding of the rights and concerns of Unionists. They are willing to reach out to them and I believe to make constitutional change a part of an overall settlement. They accept, rightly, that it is for the people of Northern Ireland freely and democratically to determine their own future.

    Third, most of the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland are engaged purposefully in discussions about a political settlement. They accept that flexibility is needed to achieve that settlement but some cherished positions will have to be modified. All accept that no change can be made to the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of its people.

    These elements present the opportunity we are determined to pursue. Against the sombre history of Ireland, many will say that the odds are against us. I accept that. I accept that all concerned will have to show courage, court unpopularity, break down old barriers and take risks. That is why we are for our part now actively seeking a framework to deliver peace, stability and reconciliation.

    I shall not raise false hopes or set deadlines. We need both a permanent cessation of violence and intensification of the political talks. These objectives are complementary. We shall press forward in all three areas of the political talks in developing democratic and accountable structures within Northern Ireland in the search for new relationships between the North and the South of Ireland and in building closer cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and when a true basis for an agreed passage is established, we aim to bring all participants back around the table to secure a lasting settlement. We shall work to protect all the people of Northern Ireland and of Britain from terrorism and to convince the men of violence in both communities to end violence unconditionally and for ever and to choose instead the path of legitimate and democratic political activity. Some would deny them that path on account of their past and present misdeeds. I understand that feeling but I do not share it.

    Let me tonight make explicit what has always been implicit: these who decline to renounce violence can never have a place at the conference table in our democracy but if the IRA end violence for good, then after a sufficient interval to ensure the permanence of their intent, Sinn Fein can enter the political arena as a democratic party and join the dialogue on the way ahead. [Applause].

    There can be no secret deals, no rewards for terrorism, no abandonment of the vital principle of majority consent but there is the incentive, the incentive that peace would bring a new and far better way of life to all the people of that troubled land.

    It is, of course, my Lord Mayor, not only in Northern Ireland that we search for peace. The end of the Cold War may have lifted the threat of a nuclear holocaust but it also brought great political and economic uncertainty. In the former Yugoslavia, that uncertainty has turned to tragedy, human suffering on a scale unseen in Europe since the Second World War and not only in Europe, Every night, the television brings us images of tragedy in Africa, in countries of the former Soviet Union and right across the world.

    We cannot ignore the suffering and the conflict. The United Nations is striving to help keep the peace and aid the afflicted. Frankly, its record has been mixed. It has no troops and no money of its own. It relies on the contributions of member states whose governments are bound to weigh the national interest before they commit their own people to the expenditure of blood and treasure but the world community is learning slowly and painfully how to cope with the tragedies and challenges of uncertainty. So too are the Europeans. Those of us who were fortunate enough to preserve our liberty and prosperity during the Cold War have a duty towards our fellow Europeans who were less fortunate and that is why I hope that the new democracies of central and eastern Europe can qualify as members of the European Community in the not too distant future.

    We won the Cold War because the Americans were willing to commit themselves to the defence of Europe. That commitment is just as important today. In January, the leaders of the NATO Alliance will meet. NATO’s transformation has gone a long way and it will go further. At the summit, we must adapt the Alliance; it must be able to contribute to peace and security in a wider world; we must bring our fellow Europeans into new kinds of partnership. Today’s uncertain world offers opportunities as well as challenges and we intend to grasp them.

    My Lord Mayor, this week sees the beginning of a new parliamentary session. Tonight, let me tell you what will dominate the political debate:

    First, there will be a wide-ranging Criminal Justice Bill to tackle crime and to strengthen the powers of police and courts in catching, convicting and punishing criminals. [Applause].

    Second, we will be introducing a substantial Bill to cut red tape and bureaucracy [Applause]. It will give us powers to scrap unnecessary or burdensome rules more easily.

    Third, we will be introducing a Bill to reform the training of teachers. We intend to increase the school-based element in teacher training and encourage more graduates to come into the profession.

    My Lord Mayor, much else of course will be done as well but I believe it is right to concentrate on these core issues. We have an enormous task ahead to make sure that Britain and Europe can meet and beat the competition but in Britain we start today from a sound base. If I had predicted on this occasion last year that by now we would have had inflation below 2% for nine successive months, that interest rates would be lower than in the rest of Europe, that unemployment would be falling, that output would rise by 2%, that British industry would be cutting its unit costs and that Britain would be set to grow faster than any of our main competitors in Europe, you would not have believed me yet that, my Lord Mayor, is where we are. I believe, my Lord Mayor, this is a basis for sustained recovery. It is a beginning of renewed prosperity. It is an opportunity for the future and we must take it. [Applause].

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 16 November 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech in London to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, held on 16 November 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    My Lord Mayor, My late Lord Mayor, Your Grace, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    May I begin by thanking you for the toast this evening and congratulating you on your election. Let me give you a message of good cheer. I hope the six months after your election are less eventful than the six months after mine. And may I say, on behalf of all of us here, how glad we are to see the Lady Mayoress at your side tonight, and how much we admire her courage after her recent accident.

    It is a time-honoured tradition to speak to this audience about foreign affairs. I can imagine how much you are looking forward to a detailed exposition of Title 6, Article KI, Clause 2, Line 3 of the Maastricht Treaty.

    But tonight I would like to break with tradition. I will talk about the international situation for a while, but primarily I intend to talk about confidence. About recovery. About the future of our country. About how to generate growth and bring lasting jobs and prosperity.

    It is fitting to do so here – surrounded by so many who have a leading role in commerce, in industry, in the media, in the professions. All have a vital part to play in building up our confidence in our country and our future.

    It is only three years ago that Western leaders spoke with euphoria of a “New World Order”. They looked forward to a new age of prosperous, stable democracies.

    The Cold War has gone. The Soviet Empire has gone. The Berlin Wall has gone. But so have their simple certainties. The collapse of the Communist system has left a vacuum and it will take time for freedom and the market to fill it. Throughout history, such circumstances have been fertile breeding ground for extremism and unrest. We must work to ensure the late twentieth century is an exception. But the genie is out of the bottle, and that narrow line between patriotism and nationalism is in danger of being overstepped in many countries.

    So there is great hope – but greater uncertainty. And we are living through a fundamental reappraisal of how the West should respond in difficult economic circumstances.

    Britain is in a unique position to influence that response. As a permanent member of the Security Council, as a member of NATO, the CSCE, the Commonwealth and the European Community, we are at the centre of the overlapping groups of nations which seek to order the world’s affairs. Our role as a leading power in Europe has brought added value to our relationship with the United States.

    And let me pay tribute here to President George Bush. There are many dangers in today’s world. But the world is safer today than when George Bush first took office four years ago, and much of that is due to his leadership and his values. As we congratulate President-elect Clinton, let us not forget our old friend George Bush, and say to him: you have been a true friend to our country and you will always be an honoured guest here.

    As we look at our overseas responsibilities we know we have a special responsibility for Hong Kong. There is no one better than Chris Patten to lead Hong Kong through to 1997 with energy, skill and wisdom. I hope the Chinese Government will look at his proposals for Hong Kong, not with suspicion, for which there is no cause, but in the spirit that we and he intend. “One country, two systems”, was what Deng Xiaoping promised. Our proposals are entirely consistent with that philosophy. They do not threaten China. They do benefit Hong Kong. And we want a happy, prosperous and confident Hong Kong to be our enduring legacy to China after 1997.

    There are few greater human tragedies than in Yugoslavia. Over recent months Britain has led the international community in a search for a peaceful settlement and in efforts to bring humanitarian relief to those in need. We have sent trucks, mechanics, winter shelter, medicines, food and clothing. And our RAF pilots have led the repeated air lifts into Sarajevo with great courage and tenacity for many months. In August we mobilised the world community on behalf of peace in Yugoslavia. We have sent British troops – the Cheshire Regiment – to help deliver humanitarian aid in difficult and dangerous circumstances. We owe that help to the innocent victims of the conflict. We owe it also to ourselves, for if the conflict spreads it could spread far beyond the borders of the former Yugoslavia itself.

    It is a moot point whether the Yugoslav war would have begun if the Soviet Empire had not collapsed. But it is in our long-term interests that a new democratic Russia emerges confident and free. Last week President Yeltsin visited London and agreed a Treaty of Friendship and five other agreements. It was the first such Treaty between our countries since George III and Catherine the Great.

    President Yeltsin sees clearly that Russia’s future can only lie in democracy and a free market. There are powerful forces ranged against him. No one alive in Russia today knows first-hand what a modern market economy is. The Russian people are being asked to make enormous short-term sacrifices for the longer term gain.

    The route mapped out for them by Boris Yeltsin is a hard one, but it is the only one. The alternative would be to turn the clock back to the grisly apparatus of repression. Back to the old structures which once supported the Soviet State and have now gone, and – hopefully – gone for good. I hope that for their own sake as well as for ours, the Russian people will follow the lead that President Yeltsin has set them. It will not be easy. We cannot bear their sacrifice for them. But we can help them. Support them. Encourage them. And so we shall. Because we have the chance in our generation to fashion a new Europe from West to East. One where inter-locking trade interests enable future generations to live in greater security than we have known before. There is no greater prize than that.

    Of course the Russians and others are struggling to reform against a uniquely difficult background of world recession. In America – as in Britain – consumers and businessmen have been battling to reduce their burden of debt, built up in the boom years of the late 1980s and impeding recovery today.

    In Japan, growth is stalling. In Germany, people are facing what Chancellor Kohl recently called the “hour of truth”. In Italy, the Government has had to take drastic measures to restrain the growth in public debt. In France, unemployment exceeds 3 million and yet their real interest rates are nearly twice as high as ours.

    There is evidence of an instinct that is dangerously strong in times of economic difficulty: to look inwards, put up the shutters and slam the door on the free trade that has brought prosperity to the post-war world.

    My Lord Mayor, you referred to the GATT round. I agree with you. It is vital we get an early and comprehensive settlement. It is not tolerable for the world to fail to agree. We cannot let a handful of oil seeds or a sack of grain get in the way of the boost such a settlement would give to the world economy. At a conservative estimate, it would add nearly 200 billion dollars to world output. Two hundred billion dollars of prosperity, income and jobs.

    Nor is an agreement merely an economic necessity. It is a moral imperative. Because it is not only the businessmen of Europe and America who stand to gain from the successful completion of the Uruguay round. Developing countries in the third world, aspiring market economies in eastern Europe: both need the opportunity to sell, so they can earn their way to the prosperity we tell them will follow from economic reform.

    We, too, stand to gain enormously from a successful outcome. The stakes are high. Of all the successive rounds of negotiations to liberalise world trade that have lubricated post-war economic growth, this is the most ambitious. It needed to be, because trade today takes new forms, susceptible to new and less visible barriers. Of course, the old battle against tariffs is not over. British manufacturers still face some swingeing imposts, not least in the United States, where a successful Uruguay round will open up new opportunities to our textile, chemical and ceramic industries.

    As the City well knows, British financial services meet more subtle but no less damaging national restrictions. Our “intellectual property” – books, cassettes, discs, software – is still counterfeited in many countries. Our foreign investments are hampered by some countries’ dog-in-the-manger restrictions on the repatriation of profits. All these trade barriers and abuses are being tackled in the Uruguay round that now hangs in the balance.

    What is true for Britain is true for Europe. The European Commission has suggested that the Community could quadruple its exports of services with an agreement. European industries have much to gain from success. That is why, during our Presidency of the Community, I have put Britain’s weight behind the effort to secure agreement; supported the Commission’s negotiators; constantly warned our partners of the danger of delay. We have lost no opportunity of pressing for a settlement.

    But, even as President of the Community, Britain is now able to conduct the negotiations. That is the duty of the Commission. Responsibility for trade matters cannot be escaped or buried behind newer preoccupations. Brussels must not fail in this fundamental duty. Britain will give every support to a settlement. Nothing would break the clouds of world recession more surely than the boost to confidence of a successful Uruguay round.

    The GATT settlement is a vital complement to the opportunity opening before Britain in the single European market. 1993 will see the culmination of a European effort in which Britain has taken the leading part. It is a clear example of the cold, hard common sense and commercial self-interest that lies behind our decision to be part of Europe.

    Well over half of all our trade is with the European Community. Inward investment flows here to take advantage of British skills and a flexible British labour market – and Britain’s opportunity to sell into the biggest free trade area in the world. We have the lion’s share of inward investment into the Community; but we get it because we are in the Community.

    The single market in Europe is an opportunity for which Britain is uniquely well placed. We have now put in place the policies and the measures. We must now ensure Britain takes full advantage to advance the recovery we all want to see. As more and more people – businessmen, consumers, house-buyers, investors – start to look forward with more confidence to what the future offers, that will itself provide the engine for recovery.

    Our economic policy objective has always been the same: sustainable non-inflationary growth.

    The essential precondition – lower inflation – is now clearly in place. When I became Chancellor three years ago inflation was rising towards 11 per cent and many feared it would rise still further. Interest rates were 15 per cent and seemed stuck there. How easy it is now to forget the perils of that position. That was why we joined the ERM. For two years that policy succeeded beyond all expectations: inflation fell to under 4 per cent, and interest rates fell from 15 per cent to 10 per cent.

    Our commitment to maintain low inflation remains as strong as ever. Inflation ravages peoples’ savings. And if people cannot be confident even in the value of money, how can they be confident about their economic future? But we now face a world where the inflationary pressures are weak. And that has given us the opportunity to loosen monetary policy and create a more competitive environment for business and industry.

    Since we left the ERM, we have reduced interest rates by a further 3 per cent. Down to 7 per cent, the lowest in the European Community. Down by 8 per cent over the last two years. Down to the lowest level for nearly 15 years.

    This should provide a huge boost to industry. The cut last week will take a further £1 billion off industry’s interest costs – provided it is passed on to borrowers, to small businesses as well as large, as I trust it will be. This brings the total saving to industry to over £10 billion a year. And low interest rates also provide additional spending power for consumers: £145 a month off repayments on an average mortgage.

    In addition, we now have an exchange rate that is fiercely competitive. Not just in export markets but here at home too. And the Government is determined that that competitive advantage should not be frittered away by higher inflation.

    It was against this background that Norman Lamont presented his Autumn Statement last Thursday. And what he set out to do was to demonstrate how the Government’s commitment to industry is right at the heart of our policies. To demonstrate that not just by words, but by decisions. Decisions to give priority to industry in the Government’s spending plans and in our tax policies.

    Support for industry is not – indeed could not be – our only priority. I believe that people right across the country share my view that the poorest and neediest members of society must be protected. So we honoured all our commitments to uprate pensions and other benefits, in spite of the heavy financial cost.

    But this does mean we have to look for some sacrifice by those in work. We cannot turn our back on our responsibilities to those who are not. That is why we have decided to restrict pay settlements in the public sector to a maximum of 1.5 per cent next year. I know that is tough for some. I do not like doing it but I believe it is necessary. I am asking for sacrifices by those in work to help get others back into work. And I believe there is an instinct for fairness in the British character that will understand that and accept it.

    Ministers and MPs should make their contribution too. There will be no increase at all in Ministers’ pay next year and we shall introduce a Resolution in the Commons to provide for no increase in Members’ pay either.

    Salaries in the private sector are for the private sector to determine. But it would be wrong of me not to use this gathering tonight to say very frankly that costs must be controlled everywhere, not just on the shop floor but in the boardroom too. We have set a lead in the public sector. I hope we will see that mirrored throughout the private sector.

    In his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced a wide range of measures to help business. We listened to what industry was saying. Industry can only succeed if it is able to adapt to changing circumstances. And Government must be ready to do so too.

    So, for example, Norman Lamont announced huge changes to the rules on private finance for capital projects, giving new encouragement to joint ventures between the public and the private sector. Joint ventures that should help to bring forward infrastructure projects in Scotland, in the Midlands, in the South East, in London, and indeed right across the United Kingdom. Lord Mayor, I welcome your theme of “the City and industry in partnership”. But we should go further: my theme is “the City, industry and the Government in partnership”.

    It was essential that, in settling public expenditure, the Government did not spend more than could be afforded. Industry would not have thanked us for that, if the result had been higher taxes. So it was vital to stick to the remit set down by Cabinet in July. The Autumn Statement did just that.

    It required some tough decisions. But we had to give priority to capital spending and to the needs of industry. So we have provided for the Jubilee Line extension to go ahead, and for British Rail to invest £1 billion next year. We have protected the roads programme – and lower tender prices should permit nearly twice as many new roads projects to be started next year. And there will be record capital spending in the health service.

    Norman Lamont also announced extra help for the housing market and the construction industry. £750 million to buy up empty properties that are overhanging the housing market. And a relaxation of the rules on local authorities’ receipts, to stimulate an extra £1.75 billion of capital spending.

    He also increased ECGD cover for exporters by £700 million, to ensure that they really can take advantage of the competitive opportunities now open to them.

    On the tax side, he announced an increase in first year allowances for investment by industry. And the complete abolition of the car tax. These are measures that industry had been seeking. Measures that will help generate confidence and underpin the economy.

    Lord Mayor, we need to build up our manufacturing base to meet the demands of today’s markets. I do not regard manufacturing industry as a marginal add-on optional extra – it is fundamental to our future prosperity. That does not mean supporting industries whose markets have been irretrievably lost – lost because developing countries now manufacture for themselves what they once imported from us.

    What it does mean is to provide the sort of environment that encourages modern, well-equipped British industry to compete with the best in the world. Our supply side reforms continue to transform industrial relations and strip away many of the inefficiencies that had dogged British industry. We now have an industry that can compete with the best – and beat it.

    My Lord Mayor, I do not have too many prejudices. But let me share with you one that I do have. I am sick and tired of hearing people talk down our country and play down our achievements.

    Modesty may be an attractive quality. But as a nation we carry it too far. Too often we slip from healthy self-deprecation into an unhealthy, self-denigration. I know of no country more tolerant, more free, more open. Too often the Britain I read about is not the Britain I see when I travel around the country. Too often the views and opinions I hear quoted are not the views and opinions I hear direct from the lips of ordinary Britons.

    So let us have confidence in our skills, our design, our ingenuity and – yes, our achievements.

    – With low inflation;

    – With the lowest interest rates in the European Community;

    – With a very competitive exchange rate;

    – With the Single Market on our doorstep;

    – With a GATT deal tantalisingly close,

    There is a great opportunity for British business.

    The Government has listened to what industry has been saying. It has introduced the policies and the measures that industry has been seeking. So let us capitalise on our assets. Throughout this country there is a deep sense of national pride. An overwhelming desire to pull together and work together. We have done it often enough before in our history. Now, in order to recreate confidence and lift us back into growth and recovery we must do it again, in a true partnership for prosperity.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet – 11 November 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, held at the Guildhall in London on Monday 11th November 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    My Lord Mayor, My Late Lord Mayor, Your Grace, Lord High Chancellor, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    May I begin by thanking you for your toast this evening to Her Majesty’s Ministers. And My Lord Mayor, I would like if I may also to congratulate you both on your recent election and on your speech, nothing I believe could be more apt than the theme that you have chosen for your Mayoralty – serving Europe.

    You said a few moments ago that you had started in the City in 1960. I started in the City in 1959, alas my career never took off. I enjoyed your joke, My Lord Mayor, about Arthur Wood, but I hope you will forgive me if I finish it. He did get to the wicket with 770-odd runs on the board, he then scored half a century, as I recall, and returned to the pavilion when the score had advanced around 870-odd for 7. He then turned round in the dressing room to the England team and said: “Fifty-three runs, always at my best in a crisis.”

    My Lord Mayor, we owe Sir Alexander Graham a very special debt of gratitude for hosting the welcome home parade for our troops who performed so magnificently in the Gulf. It was a day I believe that the City can look back on with pride and your predecessor can look back on his whole year of office with equal pride, he has served London magnificently.

    I am delighted to make my debut on this platform with His Grace, The Archbishop of Canterbury. Our predecessors forged a long and popular double act, may we too be yolked together for many years to come. Your Grace, if you speak for God I promise to speak for Mammon, and I must say, I wonder which of us has a majority here this evening.

    My Lord Mayor, you have expressed your determination to safeguard the economic prosperity of London and of those who live and work in our great city. London is by far the largest city in Europe, its population three times that of Paris. It is a giant in the world of finance, it is Europe’s largest equity market, leader in the Eurobond market and the world’s largest foreign exchange market.

    It scores also in its variety of attractions, its theatres, its music, its galleries and museums, its historic buildings, its parks, its shops. It is the most visited city in the world, overseas visitors spent 4 billion pounds here last year.

    You spoke, My Lord Mayor, of transport. In the last few years the government has approved plans for eight new rail and tube links for London – the East-West crossrail, a new line for Heathrow, the Jubilee Line extended to Docklands, and in addition we have chosen a route for the Channel Tunnel rail link which approaches London from the East, and that I believe is where so much of London’s future development will lie.

    Tonight I can announce one further step. Less than three miles from here a third London city is rapidly emerging in Docklands, its success depends upon good transport, the immediate key to this is the Docklands Light Railway. The best way to put the DLR into the hands of a body with a single clear objective – that is the way forward, that is the way to make a success of Docklands – and we have decided therefore with that in mind to transfer responsibility for the DLR to the London Docklands Development Corporation. And I am delighted to tell you this evening that one of your Aldermen, Sir Peter Levine, has agreed to take over as DLR’s Chairman in addition to his other responsibilities.

    And this transfer has another advantage, it will enable London Transport to concentrate on its massive investment programme, now totalling 3.5 billion pounds over the next three years. My Lord Mayor, we are determined that London shall have a transport structure which meets its needs and marks its status as the world’s finest city.

    Just a few days ago the Chancellor delivered the traditional Mansion House address on the economy. Many of you were in this room to hear it then so I will be brief this evening in case I say too many of the same things or perhaps, even worse, say something different.
    In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor set out our spending plans for the next three years. He was able to announce some carefully targeted expenditure on priority areas, such as transport and health, as well as the necessary increases in programmes which tend to arise at this stage of the economic cycle.

    At the same time he was also able to demonstrate that prudence in fiscal affairs which has been the hallmark of this government and that has earned us over the years the support of the financial markets.

    As a proportion of national income, public expenditure will still be sharply lower, some 5 percentage points lower, than it was in the early 1980s at a similar stage in the economic cycle. And I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that with steady growth in the years ahead we will see that proportion decline further. While sticking to our policy of balancing the budget over a run of years, we will be able once again to cut direct taxation.

    Ask any businessman what he really needs from government. I think I know what he will say: certainty, low inflation and a stable currency.
    Against that background I have no doubt about the most important economic development of the last year – our historic decision to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism. The City had long supported our membership, events I believe have amply justified our membership. Our inflation rate has been more than halved, at 4 percent it is now below the European Community average. Interest rates have been cut eight times while sterling has remained stable. Our trade has flourished with record exports to the Community and a much reduced deficit with the rest of Europe and the world. For the third year running our share of world trade expanded.

    The speed and the scale of these achievements are rightly recognised. But I often wonder whether their economic and social significance has yet been grasped. For the first time in 50 years, we are now in a position to achieve on a lasting basis that greater certainty that businessmen want. That is a great prize, it has been hard won and it must not be thrown away.

    The opportunities in the 1990s will be unprecedented, so will the competition, not least from Eastern Europe, the Pacific Rim and even South America. Those who backslide on inflation will lose orders and lose markets, their growth rate will falter, there will be fewer jobs. The competitive atmosphere will be unforgiving and the lesson to be drawn from that is unmissable.

    I make no apologies for our crusade to get inflation down and keep it down. The 1990s present us with a simple, stark challenge, to create the jobs we need and the just society we want we must keep inflation down permanently, there is no other way.

    My Lord Mayor, in the last few months we have witnessed one of the most dramatic revolutions of this century, the Soviet Union has shaken off 70 years of tyranny. In September, when I went to Moscow, there was a tremendous sense of euphoria, a feeling that oppression had had its last desperate throw. There was real belief that democracy would now take root.

    Since then, I have received a succession of leaders from the Soviet Union and the republics at 10 Downing Street. I am told that there are 120 languages in the Soviet Union but these visitors spoke a language that was unknown there a few years ago, the language of democracy and free markets. They are wrestling with the strong forces of nationalism on the one hand and the need for a continuing central structure on the other, the need for a single army, central control over nuclear weapons, a single market, a coordinated foreign policy.

    There is no easy transition from tyranny to freedom or from an inefficient command economy to a free market. The people of the Soviet Union have chosen democracy but it is not yet stable democracy. Whether the Soviet Union survives as a recognisable entity or breaks up into individual republics must be a matter of negotiation, not coercion. The situation is volatile. The August coup failed because the Free World refused to accept what had happened and because the Russian people refused to be cowed but a number of leading representatives from Russia and other republics have expressed to me their fears for the future, fears of a renewed attempt to overthrow legitimate government if lack of food, lack of goods, old rivalries and lack of political leadership overwhelm that euphoria that followed the August events.

    We cannot dictate what happens in the Soviet Union. We can and we must help create the conditions in which stable democracy has a chance to succeed. That is why with our G7 and European Community partners we have launched a $10 billion lifeline of food and medicines to be drawn on this winter as necessary; that is why the special association status of the Soviet Union with the IMF agreed in principle at the London Economic Summit here in London in the summer has now been made a reality; and that is why the G7 countries and the IMF are urging the Soviet authorities and the republics to move decisively towards economic reform. If they fail to do so, all our plans to help them will be undermined.

    The Soviet Union is looking for help with its foreign debt. For their part, the republics must assume their responsibility for servicing that debt; this and the pursuit of reform are essential for future credits and for the continuing support of the international community. The republics must honour too those international agreements signed by the Soviet Union, especially treaties on arms control and proliferation and they must exercise restraint in developing their own military forces – that too will be a condition of our future assistance.

    The events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe pose perhaps the greatest challenge to the West since World War II. The republics of what was the Soviet Union have a chance to join the Western family of democracies but there is a risk, a risk that they could fall into a dark abyss of political conflict and economic hardship. If we are to avoid the tragedy of Yugoslavia on a larger and more dangerous scale, we have to adapt the political structures of the West to accommodate the new democracies of the East. The changes that we have made in NATO, the development of the CSCE have both helped but it is the European Community which offers them the best prospects for political and economic stability.

    It is right for the European Community not to neglect its own development but it would be foolish to be so preoccupied with internal development that it became an end in itself. We have to hold out to the countries of Eastern Europe and perhaps to some of the new republics in the Soviet Union as well the prospect of closer association with the Community and in due course membership of the Community.

    My Lord Mayor, the shape of the Community they join is being set now in the negotiations under way in Europe. Those negotiations are important for the Community but no more important than the Community’s obligations to the rest of Europe. We will never create a genuine European union if we exclude those countries that most want to join, countries which for the first time since World War II are free democracies. It would be unforgivable if when they are ready to join we made it impossible for them to do so [applause] and it would be tragic if twenty years from now there was an economic iron curtain across Europe, an iron curtain forged by the wealthy member states to keep out our democratic neighbours to the East.

    The influence of the European Community has never been greater. Some see that as a threat but truly it is an opportunity. Its attraction was shown in the recent negotiations with the EFTA countries. They were prepared to accept the rules of the Community, which they had no part in drawing up, in order to attain the prize of access to the Single Market. To maintain its influence, the Community must continue to look outwards and be a liberalising force in world trade.

    In the GATT talks, we have a unique opportunity to create a free and open trading structure that will last well into the next century. Our future prosperity depends upon the success of this effort. The completion of the Single Market would be undermined if we had meanwhile unleashed a world trade war of unprecedented proportions. Success in the GATT talks, too, is crucial for the world’s poorest countries. There is something immoral in the fact that they lose more from the distorting effects of subsidies than they gain from aid from the West. If you give a man a fish, you give him food for a day; if you teach him how to fish, you give him food for a lifetime; but if you teach a man how to fish and then stop him selling his catch, you create injustice, hardship and resentment and we should not do that. There is as much at stake in the GATT talks as there is at Maastricht.

    My Lord Mayor, the European Council at Maastricht is only a month away; the issues are momentous. We have an opportunity to take decisions which will carry the Community on a sound basis into the next century. Yesterday in Bonn, I discussed these matters with Chancellor Kohl. We are both aware of the opportunities and the risks that lie ahead, of the responsibility to take decisions which will enable the Community to give a lead to the whole of our continent as it emerges into democracy, decisions which underpin the vital relationship with the United States, decisions which avoid narrow nationalism but which safeguard the best traditions of our national life.

    Good progress has been made in the negotiation of the treaty on economic and monetary union. There is some way to go but I hope it will be possible to reach an agreement. There has been increasing recognition by our partners of the point we have consistently made, that to move to a single currency without the convergence of national economies would be an economic catastrophe. That is why we are negotiating a treaty which would permit economic and monetary union only when strict economic conditions on convergence are met and that treaty must also allow the British Government and the British Parliament to take the decision on whether to join such a single currency when the option is a realistic one. Only then can a balanced judgement be made.

    When that moment comes, we shall need to weigh carefully the issues of sovereignty and accountability raised by a single currency against the potential impact on our influence and prosperity were we to take a different decision from our principal competitors. It would be wrong to decide now to join a single currency but it would be equally wrong to decide now that in no circumstances will we ever do so.

    We still face huge problems in working for an agreement on political union. No-one should assume that simply for the sake of agreement we could accept some of the propositions now before us – we couldn’t.

    Much of the debate centres on defence and foreign policy. I welcome the idea of Europe doing more for its own defence – it should – but we have to remember that we are not writing a new policy on a blank sheet of paper. There are existing organisations, NATO and the Western European Union, which have successfully provided for our defence for over forty years. It makes sense to take our existing defence structures and enhance them with increased European cooperation. I can agree to that. I could not agree to undermine them with a new competing and therefore damaging European defence structure. The same message came through loud and clear from others at the NATO Summit last week.

    In foreign policy, we have increasingly developed the habit of cooperation and common action among the Twelve – it has worked well. Common action cannot work miracles but it magnifies our influence. Consensus is a strength and not a weakness. It would be a serious mistake to replace that habit of consensus on common action by majority voting – we might take more decisions but we would wield less influence – nor is it conceivable that we would give up our right as a nation to take vital foreign policy decisions. [Applause].

    But there are areas such as the environment, which transcends national frontiers, where it may make sense to extend the competence of the European Community but we should not be afraid to say “No” to the general clamour for wide-ranging extensions of Community competence.

    I am thinking especially of the social area. Under existing Community rules, we are already faced with unnecessary intrusive and costly proposals. The proposed Working Time Directive would cost British employers 5 billion pounds in the first year. That proposal is more than unnecessary – it is damaging. It would blunt our competitive edge. It would not be European workers who would benefit but those in the United States and Japan. It is not in the interests of Europe and we cannot allow the Community to extend its power to burden business with unnecessary proposals. [Applause].

    The principles that must apply are those of subsidiarity and accountability. The Community should not interpose itself in areas best dealt with at national level. The Commission is unelected; it must be made more answerable to elected members of the European Parliament. [Applause].

    My Lord Mayor, our partners know there are certain principles that are vital for us in these negotiations. They equally know that the British Government will go on working over the next crucial weeks for an agreement at the European Council in Maastricht.

    Maastricht will be an important stage on the road to ever closer union among the peoples of Europe. I believe that the basis for an agreement can be found but it has to be an agreement which all twelve member states accept – that will require give and take on all sides. We have to find an agreement which will command the support of twelve national parliaments and which all member states not only support in theory but will actually implement in practice. An agreement of that kind is in our interests. It is in the Community’s interests. It would be the best outcome in these negotiations for our own country and for the Europe we hope to build together. [Applause].