The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: NHS

  • Mr Major’s Commons Speech on the 1996 Queen’s Speech Debate – 23 October 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s Commons speech during the 1996 Debate on the Queen’s Speech on 23rd October 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major) The right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has already generously paid tribute to the hon. Members who have died during the past year. We shall all miss David Lightbown and Terry Patchett. Perhaps on behalf of everyone in the House, I can not only say that, but thank them for their long service, both for their constituents and for their country, in this place.

    I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) on their excellent speeches proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. My right hon. Friend was the Secretary of State when I first joined the old Department of Health and Social Security. I learned speedily that he had both a generous disposition and a very precise mind. Over early morning interviews, often at short notice, on obscure but controversial social security matters, he was always especially generous and insisted that I took all of them. He was Secretary of State for six years before the sheer weight of work in that combined Department led to health and social security, rightly, becoming separate Departments.

    More recently, my right hon. Friend joined me throughout the last general election campaign. His role was absolutely invaluable, but it did have one drawback: whenever we were together, people threw eggs at him. I had no idea how controversial he was. When he shouted, “Duck,” I thought that it was a warning, but it was not – it was the type of egg. As I told the House, he had a very precise mind.

    My right hon. Friend reminded us that he pioneered the practice of leaving to spend more time with his family. After the general election, I invited him to become chairman of the Conservative party. To avoid any dispute, I should like to make it clear that that was expressly not at the request of his family. He is a distinguished journalist and we cannot say that of many. These days, he is chairman of a newspaper group and he will know the old saying: “Never argue with a man who buys his ink by the gallon.” I do not, and I congratulate him on his speech.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight also spoke extremely well. I was delighted – in some ways relieved – to see him in his place, as he has a poor reputation for time-keeping and tends to arrive for any function at the last moment. On one occasion, I am told, he left to join his wife on the Isle of Wight ferry as it left the dock. Breaking into a sprint, he leapt dramatically over open water and landed on the moving deck. As he did so, he turned around to see his wife on the quay. As he was late, she had got off. Undaunted, he leapt back ashore with the fastest recorded U-turn in political history.

    Apart from his political career, my hon. Friend once owned a large share in one of Britain’s largest funeral director companies. It is often said of politicians that they will always let you down in the end. In my hon. Friend’s 22 case, that might often have been literally true. Today, my hon. Friend let no one down, and I warmly congratulate him.

    There were two light-hearted speeches to begin, and rather a brazen speech to follow. The leader of the Labour party sought to draw Britain’s ills forward with sweeping generalisations about the state of our society.

    Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre) Will my right hon. Friend give way?

    The Prime Minister Of course, but a little later.

    Of course I agree with the right hon. Member for Sedgefield that there are many problems to be solved. Some of them, concerned with education and crime, are dealt with specifically in this legislative programme. However, we must examine reality, not what the right hon. Gentleman had to say.

    With more people finding work, regional differences in unemployment are declining. Strikes are at their lowest levels since records began. More young people than ever before are gaining qualifications in full-time education and training. More people than ever before own their homes and have a share in a capital-owning democracy. There is new hope and investment in inner cities. Charitable giving is the largest we have seen at any stage in our history. Voluntary work is at record levels, with more than half the population engaged in it. We have created one of the most mobile societies in Europe, giving people the opportunity to better themselves through their own efforts.

    There is far more that is good in our society than is bad. We should be glad of that, not take every opportunity to run our society down – as the right hon. Gentleman does. Of course we face challenges, but our job as politicians is to find practical solutions, often to complex problems. To over-simplify matters, as the right hon. Gentleman did, is to deceive and not to engage with the real problems with which politicians have to deal.

    Any politician should be cautious about cloaking himself in righteousness. I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman can disclaim, as he has just done, any responsibility by the Labour party for faults in this society when his Labour party has, over the years, consistently championed every fashionable, politically correct cause that has undermined our traditional way of life, and has opposed every measure that we have taken to correct the balance.

    It was Labour that banned competitive sport in schools. It was Labour that undermined traditional approaches and sponsored every anti-establishment pressure group that it could possibly find. It was Labour that opposed measures to restore standards in schools through tests and league tables. It was Labour that opposed the freedom of grant-maintained schools and has opposed every measure that we put forward to tackle crime. Labour has also opposed common-sense measures to deal with benefit fraud. I do not think that I am inclined to accept sanctimonious lectures from the Leader of the Opposition.

    There was much that the Labour leader did not get around to mentioning. The right hon. Gentleman did not mention the longest run of low inflation for a generation or that unemployment is at a five-and-a-half-year low. He did not mention that mortgages are at their lowest for 30 years. The right hon. Gentleman was not only selective and wrong about our record, but equally evasive and misleading about his policies. There was no mention in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech of taking child benefit away from parents of children aged between 16 and 18. There was no mention of the windfall tax that would jack up household bills and destroy the dividends of millions of people. There was no mention of the additional tax just for the privilege of living in Scotland – nothing about that, or about how the right hon. Gentleman’s policies would destroy jobs.

    When the Leader of the Opposition fleshes out his policies with detail, we might listen with some interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s critique of our detailed policies.

    Mr. Geoffrey Hoon (Ashfield) On the subject of consistency, does the Prime Minister recall supporting in 1990 the Government’s White Paper on minimum determinate sentences, which stated that such an approach would result in more acquittals by juries, and in more guilty men and women going free? Is that not precisely Government policy now?

    The Prime Minister I shall come quite specifically to that point in a little while, and the hon. Gentleman will get his answer then.

    The leader of the Labour party ignored the fact that our economy is now the most competitive in Europe, with exports at record levels, business investment rising and more inward investment than any other country in Europe. Last week, Vauxhall announced plans for a huge new investment at Ellesmere Port – 200 new jobs. In August, it was Chiyoda Europe at Bexhill – 600 jobs; in July, LG in Newport – 6,000 jobs; Lite on Tech in Lanarkshire – 1,000 jobs; and Hyundai in Dunfermline – 2,000 jobs.

    Mr. Gordon Brown (Dunfermline, East) indicated assent.

    The Prime Minister The shadow Chancellor nods his head in agreement. How lucky the right hon. Gentleman is that those business men listened to our record and not to his gloomy prognosis for our country. What we have seen – and what foreign businesses have noticed – is a complete transformation of this nation’s economic prospects.

    Mr. Mans Would my right hon. Friend care to comment on a statement made by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield that the last Labour Government spent more in real terms on the national health service? I have checked with the House of Commons Library. At today’s prices, in 1978–79 a total of £23.3 billion was spent on the NHS. In the last financial year, the present Government spent £39.7 billion. Will my right hon. Friend give the right hon. Member for Sedgefield the opportunity to correct that mistake?

    The Prime Minister That was not, of course, the only inaccuracy in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. If he would like to withdraw that statement, I shall give way to him so that he can do so immediately.

    Well, there we are – the inaccuracy must lie on the record in the right hon. Gentleman’s name. As I have said, it was not the only inaccuracy in the litany of misery with which he regaled the House.

    Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) The Korean semiconductor jobs are very welcome in my constituency, but does the Prime Minister realise that they will be located just two fields away from where British semiconductor jobs were located two years ago? Can the Prime Minister explain why the British semiconductor jobs relocated to a country that has both the minimum wage and the social chapter?

    The Prime Minister If the hon. Gentleman looks at the drift of investment, he will see that there is more coming here than to the rest of Europe combined. It is coming here because of our economic framework, our tax framework, the fact that we do not have a minimum wage, the fact that we do not have a social chapter and the fact that we have less expensive on-costs for employment than any other nation in Europe. If the hon. Gentleman talked to the other European Heads of Government, he would find that they know that and if they could get out of the position that they are in, many of them would wish to do so. The hon. Gentleman cannot argue with the inward investment figures that we have seen.

    Our programme will build on the economic success and it will do so in a way that will widen both opportunity and choice.

    Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a few moments.

    Our programme will encourage personal responsibility. It will increase parental choice over schools, and also patients’ choices from their doctors. It will give the police new powers to catch criminals and the courts new means to deal with them. It will reform civil law. It has measures to combat fraud in the social security system. It will protect our heritage, our environment and our rural communities. It will provide a legal framework for decommissioning weapons in Northern Ireland. By any yardstick, that is a meaty Queen’s Speech, and we intend to carry the programme through in the period between now and the election.

    In addition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will unveil his fourth Budget next month. It will be a prudent Budget: if we can safely cut taxes we will, but if we cannot we will not. I repeat – if we cannot, we will not. Either way, we have a responsibility to spend taxpayers’ money wisely.

    That is why we will act against benefit fraud. The measures that we have already taken will save £1.5 billion a year, but we intend to save more. Every bit of fraud robs the taxpayer and deprives the genuinely needy of help, and I am surprised that the Opposition Chief Whip scoffs at the thought of cracking down on benefit fraud. We will see where the Opposition are and how keen they are when we come to vote on the distinct measures to deal with the problems.

    Dr. John Reid (Motherwell, North) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister In a moment – a queue is forming. I know that the Opposition have produced a long list of interventions that they propose to put to me, as someone generously left them on the photocopier. If hon. Members could just shout out the numbers, it would make life much easier. The paper is headed, “Interventions on Major”, and I can look forward to questions on Europe, the economy, education, beef, crime, health and other matters. I look forward to finding out whether hon. Members can remember them after the training that they have undoubtedly had from the right hon. Member for Sedgefield.

    Mr. Simon Hughes rose –

    The Prime Minister I do not think that the questions were handed to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).

    Mr. Hughes May I ask the Prime Minister a question of which I have not given him notice? It is a common allegation about the Tory party that it looks after its own first. The Prime Minister has the safest Tory seat in the country, with low unemployment and low crime. My seat has the lowest Tory vote in England, with high unemployment and high crime. Why did the Queen’s speech say nothing about achieving a significant reduction in unemployment in areas such as mine?

    On the day when a national commission of inquiry into the prevention of child abuse recommended that we need a national register of offenders against children, why did the Queen’s Speech fail to mention the register of paedophiles, when all parties in the House would assist the Government in passing it quickly into legislation?

    The Prime Minister I will return to the hon. Gentleman’s second point in a moment. On the first point, as the hon. Gentleman knows, unemployment has now been falling across every part of the United Kingdom throughout the past 30 months, and there is every indication that that will continue. A fall in unemployment is created by the right economic circumstances, a growing economy, low inflation and the lowest possible interest rates. It cannot be done simply by expenditure measures, as we have learnt often enough in the period since the second world war.

    That is why I have said that the Budget will be prudent. It will be prudent to ensure continuing growth because in my judgment that is the best way to get the hon. Gentleman’s constituents back to work. I wish to see that for social and other reasons, and we shall continue to follow policies which try to put as many people as possible back into proper employment. By proper employment I do not mean artificially created jobs, but genuine jobs with genuine prospects for a long-term future. That is the policy that we have been following, and I agree with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey about the importance of that.

    Before I was interrupted, I was dealing with benefit fraud. We propose to take further measures to deal with that. Those measures will include fines and in severe cases prison sentences for those who deceive in order to obtain benefits fraudulently. We intend to adopt new measures to detect fraud. If the Inland Revenue knows that someone is working, the benefit offices should know also if that person tries to sign on, and in future they will.

    We want to ensure that local councils are cracking down hard on housing benefit fraud. Some do, but others are less successful. We intend to set up a fraud inspectorate to make sure that they are doing all they can and to impose financial sanctions if they are not.

    We intend to reform the compensation recovery scheme. Millions of pounds are paid out to accident victims each year to cover them before compensation is paid. That is right and proper and no one objects to it. However, when a settlement is reached, it is also right that the benefit element should be repaid to the taxpayer, so we will make two important changes. The compensation that accident victims receive for pain and suffering will remain protected, but we shall make sure that the taxpayer does not lose by requiring a refund of benefits paid out for circumstances subsequently covered by the insurance compensation.

    Our legislative programme will also ensure that rural communities share in the benefits of economic success. We intend to give more power to local parish councils to run their own crime prevention schemes or to set up community transport schemes – more responsibility and more power at the most local level.

    We intend to help small village shops and post offices, which face difficulties as shopping patterns change. Our Bill will reduce their rates bill by at least 50 per cent. and give councils the discretion to waive up to the remaining 50 per cent.

    Let me return to health. The right hon. Member for Sedgefield said a few minutes ago that he would like to see health at the centre of the general election campaign. At the last general election campaign, the Labour party put health, in the form of Jennifer’s ear, right at the centre for three successive days, and we received the largest vote that any political party has ever received at a general election. In this legislative programme, we intend to take action to improve primary health care.

    Mr. William O’Brien (Normanton) Will the Prime Minister consider the situation in which a hospital trust is penalised financially for treating too many patients? That happened to the Pinderfields hospital in my constituency. Will he ensure that that does not happen again?

    The Prime Minister I shall certainly examine that situation. I note that the hon. Gentleman supports trusts because they are treating more patients. I am delighted that he sees how successful they are.

    The main contact with the health service is through the general practitioner. Over recent years, the service provided by GPs has already improved significantly in most parts of the country, not least thanks to the development of fundholding. The more we can improve the care given by the GP, the more we can relieve the pressure which otherwise would fall on hospitals.

    It is far more convenient for patients if they can get their care locally instead of having to travel in some cases to distant hospitals. If patients need physiotherapy or chiropody, for example, why should not their GPs provide it if they wish to do so? If local communities can benefit from a local clinic offering cataract treatment, why should they not have it? I know of no good reason, and we propose to introduce legislation to make that possible.

    Mr. Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister I should like to make a little progress.

    I believe that parents have a right to a bigger role in their children’s education. Giving choice to parents is right in itself and it will help to raise standards.

    Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside) What choice is there?

    The Prime Minister If the hon. Gentleman had his way, there would be no choice whatever: no choice as to where children go to school, no choice as to what sort of school they go to, no choice as to whether parents could see the school’s results and no choice as to how the tests would be carried out at that school. The hon. Gentleman would prefer education to be a secret garden for himself and the professionals, with no information for the parents.

    We have provided greater information and greater resources. Our education Bill will raise standards by extending choice. Where parents want more selection, they will have the opportunity for more selection in the Bill. I make that point to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), the Liberal education spokesman, who clearly did not know it at lunchtime on television.

    Where parents want more grammar schools, they will have more grammar schools, and where they want grant-maintained schools to expand, they will. It is called choice. We Conservatives believe in choice, and we intend to deliver it.

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

    The Prime Minister The hon. Gentleman must allow me to make some progress.

    We intend to give schools new powers to improve discipline, by allowing new sanctions against unruly pupils and by encouraging parents to take more responsibility for their children’s behaviour.

    Mr. Blunkett indicated dissent.

    The Prime Minister I see that the hon. Gentleman opposes action to help with discipline in schools. I hope that the teachers’ unions will note the position that he is taking.

    For every pupil in the land, we now spend half as much again, over and above inflation, as in 1979. But spending alone does not deliver higher standards. Lambeth – a Labour education authority – spends more per secondary pupil than any other authority in the country, but it is in the bottom five for performance. Islington’s performance is the worst in the country, although only a handful of authorities spend more per pupil. Buckinghamshire – a Tory authority – is one of the 10 best performing authorities, despite below average spending on pupils. So adequate resources are important, but they are not the only ingredient for good education.

    Mr. Blunkett Tell that to the parents.

    The Prime Minister Some of the parents have noted it for themselves. Some parents have moved their children from high-spending Islington schools to lower-spending others. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman speaks to parents in the Labour party before he walks into that again.

    If education, education, education is a Labour passion, why does Labour not improve education at a local level now? The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said that Labour controls the education authorities, so why are they not taking the action that they think necessary now? What action do they take? Absolutely none. Instead, we see parents moving their children out of education authorities such as Southwark and Islington and running away from inefficient and incompetent Labour education authorities. The hon. Gentleman is right about one thing: parents know. They know that in too many education authorities the only standards that Labour knows are low standards and double standards. If there are problems in society, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield might look at poorly performing Labour education authorities as one of the roots.

    I come now to our proposals on law and order. The right hon. Member for Sedgefield had much to say about that. He seems to know everything about crime except how to reduce it. Labour demonstrates its commitment to action on crime just so long as that action is not something that the Conservative Government are proposing.

    The right hon. Gentleman made an offer at the Dispatch Box which I take to be genuine. Both he and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey spoke of the private Members’ legislation on paedophiles and stalking.

    Mr. Campbell-Savours They are not private Members’ Bills.

    The Prime Minister Will the hon. Gentleman let me continue? Both Bills are in the course of being drafted. Drafting approval was given some time ago. They have never been in the Queen’s Speech. They were intended to be private Members’ Bills because we judged that the House would pass them speedily. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker Order.

    The Prime Minister The right hon. Member for Sedgefield today offered the House his unequivocal support for a speedy passage through the House for those Bills as Government Bills. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, the Liberal spokesman, offered precisely the same deal. I accept that deal. We were determined to put the Bills through. We shall now get them through, and I hope that Opposition Members will facilitate their speedy passage.

    If Opposition Members are concerned about crime, I hope that they will give us the same support on the other crime-tackling Bills in our programme. I hope that they will not eat up time on those two Bills to try to wreck the other Bills tackling crime that we have brought forward. I am prepared to accept that the right hon. Member for Sedgefield spoke in good faith. Since there is no dispute in the House as to the merits of the Bills on paedophiles and on stalking, let us bring them forward as soon as they are drafted and pass them speedily as Government Bills. I undertake that we shall do that.

    Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) I do not know whether the Prime Minister has ever tried to take a private Member’s Bill through the House. I am not sure that he has. Will he confirm that the first date on which either Bill could be considered – [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker Order. The right hon. Gentleman has a perfect right to put a question. I know what hon. Members are all saying. Wait for the answer.

    Mr. Beith Will the Prime Minister confirm that, if the Bills were presented as private Member’s Bills, those Ministers who have said in the past two days that that procedure would afford them a quicker passage were not telling the truth, and that only if Government time is available for those Bills will they be able to get through the House before the general election?

    The Prime Minister To be fair to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that he can have taken in what I just said. I said that, in view of the unequivocal offer of support from the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition spokesman, we would bring the Bills forward as separate Government Bills. I shall rely on the Opposition retaining the pledges that they have given. If the measures had been in the crime Bill, which was another option, it would have taken a long time to get them through and they would no doubt have been under consistent attack, for I suspect that much of the crime Bill will be attacked by the Opposition. Now that will not happen on these measures, and I look to the right hon. Gentleman to sustain the support that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has offered to the House.

    Mr. Blair Let me respond to the Prime Minister and say that I am absolutely delighted that he intends to present Bills containing those measures. The offer that he has just accepted is the offer that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) made to the Home Secretary and which was rejected yesterday. Nevertheless, we are delighted: it shows the country what we can achieve even in opposition.

    The Prime Minister On certain matters we have always sought to accommodate the Opposition. We have sought, of course, to accommodate the Opposition in relation to delaying Lord Cullen’s report. There are matters on which cross-party support is welcome and will be accepted. Now that we have had a clear statement on the Floor of the House, I am happy to accept it, and we will now go ahead.

    Let me turn –

    Mr. Simon Hughes Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister I think that I have taken enough interventions. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker Order. The hon. Member must resume his seat and not talk across the Floor of the House.

    The Prime Minister I should like to make a little progress now. I have taken a number of interventions.

    Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton) Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I should like to make a little progress. I have given way to Opposition Members on a number of occasions. I want to turn to other matters relating to crime.

    I think that it is a matter of common consent across the House that criminal gangs respect no county or national borders. National and international crime requires a nationally organised system to combat it. So we intend to legislate for a national crime squad, bringing together the existing regional crime squads into a single body to attack serious crime. I believe that that also deserves strong support across the House.

    I want now to turn to sentencing. If the public see a fraudster sentenced to five years in prison, they are rightly angry to see him released after serving about half his sentence. Sentences served should match more closely sentences passed. I am sure that the public agree with that, and we intend to provide for it. We also propose to change some of the sentences. We have already increased sentences for serious crimes such as drug trafficking and attempted rape. We will now go further and propose automatic life sentences for anyone convicted of a second serious violent or sexual offence. We intend also to introduce minimum sentences for serious offenders such as persistent house burglars and drug dealers.

    We are also looking at new ways to prevent juvenile crime. We intend to publish a green paper setting out some new ideas for consultation within a very short time. Last week, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland set out the Government’s proposals for firearms control, following Lord Cullen’s inquiry into the tragedy of Dunblane. I know that there are differences in the House on the proposal, but I also know that the overwhelming belief is that the new legislation should be enacted as speedily as possible. That is why we have reached a collective view, as we were invited to do, and we intend to put it before the House in the usual way. The House will then make its judgment.

    Mr. Dennis Canavan (Falkirk, West) Under the Government’s proposals, as many as 40,000 handguns would still be legally circulating in Britain. How on earth can the Prime Minister justify that in the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre?

    The Prime Minister We undertook a very careful examination of Lord Cullen’s report and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have gone farther than Lord Cullen recommended. I rather share the view of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), who was quoted earlier, that many people ‘will still be able to own handguns but they must be kept safely under lock and key at properly run centres.’ The hon. Gentleman took that view, and so, I believe, did the official Labour party until very shortly before the statement was made in the House. I believe that that is the right way to deal with it, but the House will be able to make its own judgment. We shall bring forward our proposals – [Interruption.] We shall bring forward a Bill in the usual way, as I said a moment ago. We have formed a judgment as to what is right, and we shall invite the House and the Conservative party to support that.

    Miss Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) rose –

    Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) rose –

    Mr. Blair rose –

    The Prime Minister I give way to the right hon. Member for Sedgefield.

    Mr. Blair I believe that the Prime Minister rightly changed his judgment earlier on a different matter. Will he now reconsider his judgment on this matter and, on this aspect, about which he is right that there may be different views on both sides of the House, allow a free vote so that the House can make up its mind on that basis?

    The Prime Minister With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, we had already provided drafting advice for those Bills. We did not change our mind. I have accepted the right hon. Gentleman’s word that he will facilitate the speedy passage of this measure through the House. That is obviously better than a private Member’s Bill. It is not a change of mind. We have made our judgment on what we believe to be the right response to Lord Cullen, and I have just set it out.

    We propose also to reform civil law.

    Miss Hoey rose –

    Mr. Winnick rose –

    The Prime Minister If hon. Members will forgive me, I wish to make progress.

    Too many people in this country have found their right to justice too often barred by costly and lengthy procedures. If a pensioner is in dispute with a garage about a car repair bill, or a home owner with a builder, they should not expect a huge legal bill for resolving the matter. Our legal system should encourage such disputes to be resolved speedily. With that in mind, we intend to implement Lord Woolf’s recommendations for a simplified set of rules in our civil courts – a system of fast-track procedures to encourage settlements and cut costs.

    We also intend to act to preserve and improve physical heritage. We intend to introduce a Bill to allow lottery funds to be used to widen access to heritage in many ways. I will not now set them out to the House, but the objective is to ensure that more people can be enriched by enjoying our heritage.

    We also propose to introduce measures to enact Lord Donaldson’s report following the Braer incident some time ago. Our measures will create wider powers to inspect suspect ships, enforce exclusion zones around accident sites and make those responsible for accidents bear more of the cost.

    I wish now briefly to turn to Northern Ireland. Earlier this year, the House passed legislation to allow elections in Northern Ireland as the basis for multi-party talks. That process brought great hope. No one, I think, imagined rapid breakthroughs. This is a democratic process, and I think that we all expected that it would grind along exceedingly slowly.

    The IRA and Sinn Fein do not accept that democratic process. They are trying to impose their own terms on the talks. They have not been ready to renounce violence. That is plainly incompatible with joining the talks. They have excluded themselves by their return to violence: it is not us, not the British Government, not the Irish Government, not the other parties in Northern Ireland – it is their own fault that they are excluded from the talks, and no one else’s. But the talks will continue without them.

    The IRA and Sinn Fein should be under no illusion that they can join the process until they have demonstrated real commitment to democratic and non-violent methods. So even if a new ceasefire is declared, there will have to be more than soft words to convince the Government and, I believe, the House that it does not represent another tactical device, to be abandoned at any convenient moment.

    For our part, we intend to go on improving the process of government in Northern Ireland. We will consult on how to develop the Northern Ireland Grand Committee to enable greater scrutiny of legislative proposals, Government policy and Ministers. We also intend to introduce a Bill to allow the decommissioning of terrorist weapons. To encourage the removal of those weapons from the streets, we will ask the House to agree that forensic evidence should not be sought from them.

    But let me be clear: there can be no general amnesty for terrorist crimes and there will be none. I cannot look into the minds of the terrorists and predict what they will do, but I know that the road to a settlement will not be easy. We shall do all in our power to promote a lasting peace and to protect the community from their actions. That is our promise, and I both hope for and expect the House’s full support in that endeavour.

    Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down) rose –

    The Prime Minister If the hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way.

    I should like to move towards a position where we can announce in future a two-year legislative programme and, so far as possible, publish draft Bills and consult on the second year’s Bills before they are introduced.

    Several hon. Members rose –

    Madam Speaker Order. The Prime Minister has indicated that he is not willing to give way. Hon. Members will please resume their seats.

    The Prime Minister That will take time to bring about, but I think that it is a worthwhile reform which will deliver better legislation. We have begun to move in that direction this year, with two draft Bills set out in the Gracious Speech. In future years, I anticipate steadily increasing the number of draft Bills brought before the House.

    Our legislative programme is a clear and practical set of measures to promote our aim of wider opportunity for all. We believe in choice, in personal responsibility and in opportunity. That thread has run through the past 17 years of Conservative Government. It runs through the current legislative programme in front of us and it will run through our plans and our programmes for the next Parliament also. It is what our programme will achieve this year, and I commend it to the House.

  • PMQT – 15 October 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 15th October 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Ronnie Campbell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. Campbell: As a fellow working class warrior–I will take my coat off–will the Prime Minister confirm that he sent his children to a private school?

    The Prime Minister: I believe in choice. I do not seek to deny choice to other people.

     

    Q2. Mr. Congdon: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. Congdon: Which party controls the council with the worst GCSE results in England? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will take tough measures to tackle failing schools, rather than spouting about the family from thousands of miles away?

    The Prime Minister: I am not sure which authority it is, but I know that the authorities with the poorest records are all run by the Labour party. That is undoubtedly true. As my hon. Friend intimated, we have now taken powers to deal with failing schools, and, when necessary, we shall use those powers.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister agree that the spate of reports of crisis in the national health service, culminating in a hospital refusing even emergency referrals of elderly patients because of a shortage of beds, are a disgrace? Will he accept the judgment of the head of the British Medical Association that that crisis is directly due to the Conservative Government’s internal market reforms, which have undermined the health service?

    The Prime Minister: No, I do not accept that for a second–nor do a large number of people in the health service up and down the country. I advise the right hon. Gentleman to travel up and down the country within the health service, where he will see in hospitals and in primary health care services the advantages that the reforms have brought about and will continue to bring about in the future. In particular, he may care to look at some of the group general practices that I have visited recently.

    Mr. Blair: What I am putting to the Prime Minister is precisely the view of the doctors and nurses who work in the national health service. Perhaps he will confirm that, since he became Prime Minister, there have been 20,000 more senior managers and 50,000 fewer nurses. Since he became Prime Minister, in London alone there have been 2,500 fewer acute beds, and half the casualty departments in London have closed. When even doctors and nurses with a lifetime’s experience in the health service say that that is due to the Government’s internal market reforms, can the Prime Minister not see the fundamental damage that those reforms are doing to the very principles of the national health service?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. If he wishes to test whether the reforms are working, I offer him the one that was suggested by the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) when he was shadow Health Secretary: he said that the acid test was whether more patients were being treated. More patients are being treated; patient waiting lists have fallen; 1.5 million more patients are being treated than before the reforms; health expenditure has risen and been provided for by the Government; there are more doctors and more dentists; and waiting times have decreased dramatically. That is a health service providing a wider and better service. I very much regret that the right hon. Gentleman cherry-picks in order to criticise the health service when he should be supporting it.

    Mr. Blair: I notice that the right hon. Gentleman did not dispute a single word I said. Furthermore, I do not know how he dare mention dentistry in the national health service after what his Government have done to it. He asked me to talk to those who work in the NHS. Does he recall what the chair of the consultants committee of the BMA said, just in the past few days? He said:

    “I fear the hospital service will be close to collapse this winter.”

    Do not people know from their experience that waiting lists are getting longer, people are still lying for hours on end on trolleys in casualty departments, acute beds are scarcer and staff and nurse morale is lower? The right hon. Gentleman simply washes his hands of it. If that is the experience–[Hon. Members: No.”] This is the experience of people in the Tory national health service. If that is their experience, is it any wonder that people today know that the Tories cannot ever be trusted on the national health service?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows that most of what he has just said about the health service is completely misleading and, in many parts, totally inaccurate. Waiting lists are falling. Since 1979, the health service has had the largest sustained building programme of any stage in its history. There are more doctors–that is a matter of fact. There are more dentists–that is a matter of fact. There are more nurses and midwives–that is a matter of fact. I regret very much that he chooses to run down a service that the people who use it know from experience is a better service, which is improving day after day. Treatments that were never before available are provided more speedily and are improving. That is a record in the health service of which we can be proud. Unlike his party, we have not cut building and nurses’ pay.

     

    Q3. Mr. Matthew Banks: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. Banks: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the tremendous news announced today by Vauxhall at its plant in Ellesmere Port in north-west England of £300 million-worth of new investment and 200 jobs? Does he agree that that not only is good news but will create a raft of new opportunities for the region–opportunities that would not be there if a minimum wage and the social chapter were thrust on us?

    The Prime Minister: Today’s announcement is certainly more good news on top of a range of inward investment in different parts of the country that has brought a great deal of hope and employment to many parts of the United Kingdom. If we continue to pursue the same policies in future, I believe that we shall continue to attract very large-scale inward investment, partly using the United Kingdom as the base for operations in Europe and beyond, which I very much welcome. That will be lost if we follow the wrong policies. If Labour Members are so certain that the minimum wage will cause no harm, perhaps they will tell us what the minimum wage level will be, so that a judgment may be made.

    Mr. Ashdown: May I ask the Prime Minister a simple question of general principle? Is it right for a Government to seek to interfere in or manipulate the outcome of a Select Committee of Parliament?

    The Prime Minister: As you, Madam Speaker, said yesterday, allegations ought not to be bandied across the House. If the right hon. Gentleman has a complaint, he should put it to the appropriate Committee, and he will see that there is no one in this House more concerned than I am that it should be properly examined.

    Rev. Ian Paisley: Would the Prime Minister care to confirm to the House a statement that he made in a letter to me on 1 October? The letter stated:

    “The Coronation Oath is indeed regarded as a solemn undertaking by the Sovereign which is binding throughout Her reign. Ministers would not advise Her Majesty to sign into law any provision which contradicted Her Oath.”

    The Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm that that is my view of the Coronation oath.

     

    Q5. Mr. McAllion: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. McAllion: On the day the FTSE index of the top 100 UK companies soared to record new levels, will the Prime Minister spare a thought for the 12,000 Scottish teenagers and under-25s every year who register as homeless? Will he remember that they are but the tip of an iceberg that spreads throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom? Will he resolve at least to stop preaching at them about decency, duty and responsibility, and instead begin to show a scrap of decency–a modicum of the duty and responsibility that his Government owe to them–by guaranteeing each and every one of them their human right to a decent and safe home to live in?

    The Prime Minister: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that an extra level of taxation in Scotland would help those people–I very much doubt it. Throughout the past 17 years, we have followed policies that will widen opportunity for people, whatever strata of society they may be in and whatever their personal circumstances may be. That is the policy that we have followed. It is the policy in which I believe, and it is the policy that we shall continue to follow.

    Mr. Alexander: Has my right hon. Friend seen recent examples of the way in which female victims are sometimes treated in court, particularly where sexual offences are alleged? Did he read of the cases in which one young lady was cross-examined for six hours by her rapist and another was cross-examined for 12 days by lawyers acting for six defendants? Should it not be a matter of urgency that court proceedings are reformed to spare female victims that cruelty?

    The Prime Minister: I think that there will be a great deal of sympathy for what my hon. Friend said. Certainly, the case in which the lady was cross-examined by the accused rapist struck deeply with many people throughout the country. I agree that it is something that we should examine.

     

    Q6. Mr. Brian David Jenkins: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. Jenkins: Does the Prime Minister agree that the price review announced today by the Director General of Water Services shows that the Labour party was right all along and that consumers have been ripped off for years under weak regulation, weak government and weak leadership?

    The Prime Minister: The simple answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no. It shows the Labour party to have been wrong all along. If the industries had remained in public ownership, we would not have had any regulator looking at price reductions, we would not have had a better service, and we would not have had the extra investment. We would still have had the massive amount of taxpayer subsidy to inefficient industries.

    Sir Donald Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend disregard the London-based bleat of the Leader of the Opposition and come to my constituency, where he will find the best health service in Europe at all levels, as my postbag proves, week after week?

    The Prime Minister: I believe that my hon. Friend speaks not only for himself and for his constituents but for the many millions of people who use the NHS each year and who know from their own experiences how well they have been treated in it.

     

    Q7. Mr. Martlew: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 15 October.

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

    Mr. Martlew: Does the Prime Minister agree that, if we are to have a high-speed rail link on the west coast main line–with all its environmental advantages, including a reduction in road congestion, and with all the advantages for the western part of the British Isles–there will be a need for public money to upgrade that line? If so, have the Government given any consideration to this matter?

    The Prime Minister: We have put a great deal of public money into a number of rail lines–[Interruption.] I suggest that, if Opposition Members do not understand that, they go to look at the new services. I suggest that they also examine the extra investment after the privatisation of British Rail–a privatisation that they said could not be done, should not be done and would not be done. The fact is that it has been done, and that it is a great success. Investment is up, and the service is improving.

  • PMQT – 13 June 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 13th June 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 13 June.

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

    Mr. Arnold: Is it not increasingly clear that the Government’s firm and resolute management of the British economy has created the best performing economy in Europe? Would it not be a crying tragedy if that were thrown away by tying up British industry in red tape and by transferring our monetary policy–and, indeed, our gold reserves–to Frankfurt, which is what would follow a Labour Government’s subscription to the social chapter and a single currency?

    The Prime Minister: The economy is doing very well. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend’s analysis of the impact of the Labour party’s alternative policies. In the past few days, we have had two separate illustrations of how well the economy is doing: first, the excellent news about jobs; secondly, the excellent news about inflation. We are now in the fifth year of steady growth, and that is what will deliver continuing prosperity.

    Mr. Blair: Will the Prime Minister confirm the following? Is it true that two of his Back Benchers gave the Government an ultimatum on Monday that, unless they received firm assurances that the accident and emergency department at Edgware hospital would be replaced by a full emergency unit, they would withdraw support from the Government; secondly, that the ultimatum was to expire last night; thirdly, that they then met the Health Secretary; and, fourthly, that they now say that they have been given those assurances and have withdrawn the ultimatum? Is that substantially true? If it is, is it not a disreputable way in which to run a Government?

    The Prime Minister: No, it is not substantially true, and I have to say that there is no possibility of the Government responding to approaches of that sort from any hon. Member. We do not respond to such activities and we will not respond to such activities. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is reassured.

    Mr. Blair: No, Madam Speaker, I am not reassured. Which of the facts that I have just listed does the right hon. Gentleman dispute? We know that the ultimatum was given. That is a matter of record. We know that the ultimatum was withdrawn, and the two Conservative Members concerned say that they have been given the assurance that the full emergency unit will now be given. What are we to make of this? Was it one of life’s happy coincidences?

    I would like to ask the Prime Minister, specifically, were those Conservative Members given the assurance that they say they were given by the Secretary of State for Health–that the accident and emergency department would be replaced with full emergency cover, details to be announced later? Were they given that assurance by the Secretary of State for Health or not?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is distorting and misunderstanding, and I shall try to explain it to him. A lot of people have made representations about Edgware–local medical people, local churches, my hon. Friends and many others. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has listened carefully, but he has made it clear that we will not retain the accident and emergency department at Edgware hospital. We will not retain it, and it is the gravamen of the charge that that is what he was asked to do. The policy that we are following is the policy that we have been pursuing for some time.

    Mr. Mackinlay: Closing hospitals.

    The Prime Minister: Not closing hospitals; providing better facilities–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) must come to order.

    The Prime Minister: –for hospitals in London and elsewhere; facilities utterly run down when the Government took power in 1979.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister has not answered the question about whether such an assurance has been given. [Interruption.] He has not answered it. When he gets to his feet again, let him say, yes or no, whether such an assurance was given. [Interruption.] Have Conservative Members any idea of the anger that people feel at the way in which decisions are taken when such closures are happening all round the country? [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), along with other hon. Members, must come to order. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) must also come to order.

    Mr. Harry Greenway: What about the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay)?

    Madam Speaker: Order. I have just called the hon. Member for Thurrock to order.

    Mr. Blair: I think that most people know that the way to save the health service is not to have Back-Bench Tory Members of Parliament pressuring a weak Government, but the election of a Government committed to the NHS.

    I repeat: will the Prime Minister answer that question? Is he aware of the contempt that people feel for a Government whose policies now seem to be determined solely by the imprint of the last person who sat on him? Will not they conclude that this is a Government with no thought for the national interest and no purpose but survival?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman’s cheap insults do not provide arguments or enlightenment. I answered the question earlier. The problem for the right hon. Gentleman is that he did not get the answer that he wanted.

    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced as long ago as last December that he was discussing the nature of the casualty service. He has not given an assurance to retain the accident and emergency department at Edgware and the right hon. Gentleman knows that.

    The Government’s spending on the national health service is at a record level–£116 million every day, £5 million every hour, £81,000 every minute. That is a commitment of which to be proud, and it will be retained by this Government in this Parliament–and in the next.

     

    Q2. Mrs. Peacock: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 13 June.

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

    Mrs. Peacock: In view of the disturbing and increasing number of child abuse cases, will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will do all within his power to get to the root of the problem, thereby to prevent such tragedies from happening in future?

    The Prime Minister: I can give that assurance. I am personally horrified by some of the events that have been reported. Children in residential care are self-evidently among the most vulnerable members of our society. We discussed the matter this morning at some length. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Health have been considering what action to take, and we agreed their proposals this morning in Cabinet. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is finalising arrangements for an inquiry to address what happened in north Wales, under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is to invite Sir William Utting to assess whether the safeguards now in place, which have been much tightened in recent years, are adequate to protect children and are being properly enforced. My right hon. Friends will set out their detailed proposals, the terms of reference, the name of the judge and other matters in a full statement to the House early next week. I feel that the House would wish to know the direction in which the Government propose to take this matter.

    Mr. Ashdown: That answer, at least, will be very welcome.

    In what way is what the hon. Members for Hendon, North (Sir J. Gorst) and for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) tried to do any different from what the Euro-rebels have been allowed to do–get the Prime Minister in an armlock and get their way? Surely they should not be criticised for trying that, but the Prime Minister should be for encouraging it. Is not it perfectly clear that we have a Government whose party has been suborned by a foreign millionaire, whose decisions are daily subjected to blackmail by any passing Back Bencher, whose Prime Minister is now cooking up a fudge to cover a surrender for a European policy that has failed, and that it is an Administration that has no further purpose except to ensure, by whatever means and at whatever cost, their own limping and miserable survival?

    The Prime Minister: It would be a lengthy business to refute all the nonsense that the right hon. Gentleman just uttered. I shall use just one illustration. If the Referendum Bill was designed solely as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, why did one of his hon. Friends vote for it–[Hon. Members: “Two!”] Two. That is a dangerous split in a party of that size.

    The tactic, by anyone, of threatening to withhold support generally in response to a specific demand will not work. It is not acceptable. It has not worked, and it will not work now or at any stage in future. No Minister would respond to such an approach.

    Sir John Gorst: Will my right hon. Friend allow me to support what he said in answer to the Leader of the Opposition? Will he confirm that the agreement that the Secretary of State for Health made between me and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) was not the retention of an accident and emergency department in its fullest extent, but an alternative that the Secretary of State has been discussing with us for the past six months with regard to a casualty unit, which instead of having nurses would have qualified doctors 24 hours a day, and that when patients were in a stable condition they might have to be moved?

    The Prime Minister rose–

    Hon. Members: More.

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    The Prime Minister: What my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has said is that the matter has been discussed with him–and, I have to say, with a large number of other groups. It has been under consideration for many months, as my right hon. Friend has made clear on a number of occasions. The demands that it is said were made were not met by the Government and would not be met by them, either in this instance or in any instance in the future. I hope that that is entirely clear to the leader of the Labour party and everyone else.

     

    Q3. Mr. MacShane: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 13 June.

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

    Mr. MacShane: Does the Prime Minister recall that, on Tuesday, he saw no problem with the financing of the anti-European campaign of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) by Sir James Goldsmith, but yesterday–Wednesday–he and the Chief Whip ordered the hon. Member for Stafford to confess the error of his ways and stop taking the money? What caused the Prime Minister to change his mind?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman should see exactly what was said. It was clearly unacceptable for my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) to accept funds from the principal figure behind a list of candidates likely to stand against the Conservative party in the general election. My hon. Friend has made it clear that he will not receive any funding from that source, and I congratulate him on his decision.

    Mr. King: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, last month, the British-Irish Inter-parliamentary Body met in the village of Adair in County Limerick, and that I was accompanied throughout the visit by a Garda officer, Gerry McCabe? Is he aware that, last week, in that same beautiful village, that outstanding officer was gunned down by an IRA gang? Will he join me in sending our deepest sympathy to the widow and family of Gerry McCabe, and to Commissioner Culligan and all his colleagues in the Garda Siochana?

    Does this not underline the fact that violence is an evil that threatens everyone throughout the island of Ireland and throughout these islands? Should not we reaffirm our support for all who are now bravely seeking to resolve difficult issues by democratic and peaceful means?

    The Prime Minister: I am sure that the whole House will wish to echo my right hon. Friend’s words about Mr. McCabe and his brutal murder. That murder, and the murder of another Garda officer–which, I understand, Sinn Fein has yet again refused to condemn–only demonstrates even more clearly precisely why Sinn Fein cannot join in the talks that are currently taking place until such time as there is a clear-cut and unequivocal ceasefire, and we can be confident that it is going to be maintained. That is the British Government’s position and the Irish Government’s position, and it will not change.

  • PMQT – 6 June 1996

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Michael: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Michael: Will the Prime Minister join the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in rejecting the idea of sixth form vouchers, or will he give in to the chairman of the Conservative party who has been telling newspapers that the right hon. Lady should be sacked?

    The Prime Minister: No, he has not. [Hon. Members: “Oh, yes he has.”] No, he has not. I know that the Opposition are a pantomime and I am tempted to say, “Oh no he hasn’t.” I saw the story in the press this morning and fair old nonsense it was.

    Mr. Walden: Does my right hon. Friend agree that our overriding attitude towards Europe should be to persuade our partners against further integration? If so, does he think that his tactics on beef enhance or diminish our powers of persuasion?

    The Prime Minister: I am delighted to have my hon. Friend’s support against further integration of a federal nature in the European Union. That is right. The issues are dealt with on their own merits.

    On the question of beef, I very much welcome the decision taken yesterday by the Commission, which is a first step. My right hon. and learned Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have had a series of constructive meetings, including meetings this morning, on the issue. I hope that we shall be able to make progress by agreement.

    Mr. Blair: With reference to what the Foreign Secretary described as a turning point in the beef crisis, have the Italians simply agreed–as I understand it–to try to use their best endeavours to secure agreement with other European Union countries, or have the Italians now agreed to support the lifting of the ban and the British position?

    The Prime Minister: No–the Italians, who have the presidency, have now seen the framework document that we have produced and are using their best endeavours to see whether we can reach an agreement in advance of Florence. We have not finally discussed every aspect of that agreement with the Italians–that is happening at the moment, as it is with others. I hope that, as discussions continue over the next few days, we shall be able to reach an agreement. It is not certain, but I think that we have made a good deal of progress in the past few days, which is encouraging.

    Mr. Blair: May I then ask the Prime Minister whether it is still his clear policy and expectation that by the Florence summit there will be a firm agreement to lift the ban completely within a specified time scale?

    The Prime Minister: As I indicated when I announced the policy at the outset, we required two things before the ban is lifted completely. The first was the removal of the ban on beef derivatives, which has been obtained, and the second was a framework so that we were aware of precisely what needed to be done before the ban was lifted entirely. I very much hope that that will be achieved before Florence, but it is not solely in my hands. We can advance the case, and we are doing so; we need the agreement of the Commission and our partners across the European Union, which is what we are seeking to obtain.

    Mr. Blair: I am sure that the Prime Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I gather from what he is saying that a time scale is not necessarily part of the negotiation.

    I return to the question of cost that I put to the Prime Minister on Tuesday. He said then that it would not be part of the negotiation because of the refunding mechanism from the European Union. Will he confirm that the refunding in respect of the 30-month cattle slaughter scheme will come mainly out of the British rebate and that the net cost to Britain will therefore be some £2 billion, with several hundred million pounds extra for all sorts of other items? May I put it to the Prime Minister that, if the negotiation neither has a time scale nor an improvement in compensation, on any basis the price that this country will be paying for the beef crisis will be with us for many years to come?

    The Prime Minister: The beef crisis is a very serious crisis. There is no doubt that it is expensive for this country. That has been the case from the outset. We set out what the costs were at the beginning. To reassure people on public health, there is a substantial price to be paid, and we see that in the destruction of animals and in the consequent compensation to farmers. We wish to get rid of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, first, on public health grounds; secondly, to restore consumer confidence; and, of course, for the overriding reason that we wish international confidence in British beef to be fully restored.

    As far as the negotiations on time scale are concerned, we are seeking not an arbitrary calendar date but the steps that need to be taken–

    Mr. Skinner: A retreat is on the way.

    The Prime Minister: This is what I said at the outset. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) does not understand very much. If he understood a little more, he would probably interrupt a little less.

    As I said at the outset, we are seeking a framework–that is to say, the steps that must be taken to enable us to remove the ban. That is what I stated here when the ban was introduced. That remains our policy and it has not changed one whit.

    Mr. Lamont: Does the Prime Minister recall that, during the Napoleonic wars, Samuel Whitbread, the founder of the modern business, was always predicting defeat and urging the Government to open negotiations with Napoleon? Will the Prime Minister ignore the successors to Samuel Whitbread in the Confederation of British Industry who want to throw in the towel and who seem so indifferent to the plight of small businesses and farmers? Will he tell the chairman of Unilever to stick to cream cakes and detergents?

    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend puts the point with great clarity and precision. As he rightly says, there are a large number of small businesses–650,000 people are dependent on the beef industry, and it is in the interests of the people whose livelihoods are in the beef industry that we need to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this affair and restore the confidence in the international beef trade, which has been lost because of the lack of confidence and, frankly, the rather over-exaggerated response to the problem that we have had in the past. My right hon. Friend is entirely right to say that that is the priority.

     

    Q2. Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Hoyle: Has the Prime Minister seen reports in the Daily Express that his predecessor, Baroness Thatcher, is calling for non-payment of bills to the European Union? Will he condemn that bizarre, foolish and reckless attempt at law breaking?

    The Prime Minister: I responded to that point several Question Times ago, and my response would not change today.

     

    Q3. Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that gas bills, electricity bills and telephone bills have been slashed since privatisation? Does he welcome today’s news that there will be a windfall rebate of £38 for gas consumers? Did he welcome the £50 rebate for electricity consumers? Does this not show that the regulator has already altered the proposals for a windfall tax of £3 billion into a shortfall tax?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is entirely right: privatisation and the regulator are reducing the prices of a large number of utilities. There has been a rebate of £50 on electricity bills and there will be a rebate on gas bills. The regulator is blowing to pieces the prospect that there might be resources for an artificial windfall tax to fund putative expenditure by any other political party. Opposition Members below the Gangway may not know that the Labour party’s industry spokesman is claiming that his party should embrace competition. I will not comment on the look of horror on the faces of the Opposition Members below the Gangway after hearing that.

     

    Q4. Mr. Gunnell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Gunnell: Does the Prime Minister agree with me that it is totally unacceptable for Yorkshire Water to show a profit of £162 million when it had a dreadful record on water supply, on leakage, on charges to customers and on investment during that period? Does the Prime Minister not think that it is time to revisit that regulator for tougher sanctions so that we can slake the fat cats and their thirst for profits? It is time that we had tougher regulations.

    The Prime Minister: In that case, the hon. Gentleman will support the water regulator, who took action against Yorkshire Water to cut its prices earlier this week.

    Mr. Viggers: May I ask my right hon. Friend to spare a moment during his busy day for the plight of people involved in a small section of the beef industry, the cow head de-boning sector? Is he aware that this small industry, which is made up of about a dozen mainly family-owned companies, has been driven out of business by the Government order of 28 March banning head meat? I ask my right hon. Friend to take the modest step of authorising the Ministry of Agriculture to discuss the amount of loss with the industry involved.

    The Prime Minister: I will invite my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture to examine that matter and then to contact my hon. Friend.

     

    Q5. Mr. Mullin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Mullin: Is it not time that the Prime Minister put a stop to the hypocrisy of the Tories being the party of the family? Perhaps he could take a tip from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and impose a curfew on his Ministers in the hope that they might sleep in their own beds rather than someone else’s.

    The Prime Minister: The policy of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)–which does not seem to carry the support of his Chief Whip–is for a curfew for people under the age of 10.

    Sir Fergus Montgomery: Has my right hon. Friend seen the advertisement in today’s paper supporting a new political party in this country? Will he take the opportunity to confirm that he will always heed the views of the British people to stay part of the European Union so long as it is a part of a Europe of separate states and never part of a federated super-state of Europe?

    The Prime Minister: Yes, I did see that advertisement this morning and I am happy to confirm that no Government that I lead will enter into a federal Europe. I have argued for a Europe of nation states and I shall continue to do so. I am delighted to see that there seems to be some support for that in other quarters as well, as was highlighted by the advertisement.

     

    Q6. Mr. Ronnie Campbell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Campbell: If money is available for tax giveaways in the next budget, will the Prime Minister guarantee that it will be put into the health service and the education service of this country?

    The Prime Minister: We have increased the resources for the health service above the level of inflation year after year after year. I shall not make any projections about what will happen in the Budget some months hence, but I note the hon. Gentleman’s expectation that the economy is doing well enough to mean that it might place us in a position to reduce taxes or increase expenditure. I am grateful for that unsolicited commendation of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor’s management of the economy.

    Mr. Thomason: Has my right hon. Friend noted that the Rover Group, which is based partly in my constituency, has put in figures for the first quarter of this year showing an increase of 10 per cent. in production, and that the group’s exports are up even more? Can he confirm that it is his policy to encourage enterprise, and that that sort of improvement would be severely damaged by the Labour party’s policies?

    The Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm that. I can also confirm that, in terms of growth, inflation, falling unemployment, investment and many other areas of economic management, this country is now leading any of our competitor countries in Europe as a result of decisions that the present Government have taken in recent years.

     

    Q7. Mr. Bayley: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 June.

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

    Mr. Bayley: Does the Prime Minister recall that the Labour party proposed an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to tighten up on the sale of handguns by mail order? In view of the evidence given at the Dunblane inquiry that one of the guns used to kill those children was sold by mail order by a firm in my constituency, will the Government reconsider their policy and introduce legislation to tighten up or even to ban the sale of handguns by mail order?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government have indeed strengthened firearms controls in recent years. Most self-loading and pump action rifles have been banned and a range of other changes have been made. As the whole House knows, we have given Lord Cullen a very wide remit and he may make recommendations to the Government. We will consider those very seriously, discuss them with other parties in the House and then decide what action needs to be taken.

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

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

    We are poised for a step change in prosperity.

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

    We must tell people about the opportunities ahead.

    Tell them what’s at risk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Enterprise

    Now to business. First, some facts.

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

    The lowest mortgage rates for 30 years.

    Fewer days lost to strikes since records began.

    More of our people in jobs, more investment.

    And the lowest tax burden of any major European economy.

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

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

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

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

    Our aim is to get taxes down.

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

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

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

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

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

    Competition works.

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

    Telephones – now amongst the cheapest in Europe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Perhaps you think I’m being unfair.

    But am I?

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

    Well, some pantomime. Some horse.

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

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

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

    Take the rail union, RMT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    More ownership.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    We’re having to learn a whole new vocabulary.

    New technology is going to affect all our lives.

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

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

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

    Opportunity

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

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

    Education is the door to opportunity.

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

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

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

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

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

    Labour can’t decide its policy on education.

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

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

    While they divide, we deliver.

    Under the Conservatives, education has changed a lot.

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

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

    All this is new.

    But there’s more to be done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Britain already has a head start.

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

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

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

    Let me turn to a controversial matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Freedom to demand the best from our brightest pupils.

    Freedom to help the weaker pupil.

    Freedom to give opportunity to every pupil.

    Conservatism instinctively knows that freedom works.

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

    Practical skills must be respected.

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

    Welfare

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

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

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

    That means doing three things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Our starting point is the classic Conservative theme of partnership.

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

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

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

    Public services

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

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

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

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

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

    In this, we are the polar opposite to Labour.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    And we should be proud of that.

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

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

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

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

    Law and Order

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

    For decades rising crime and lawlessness seemed unstoppable.

    There was a culture that tried to excuse crime.

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

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

    Let me take one illustration of many.

    Burglary.

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

    But it was vandalised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The Nation

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

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

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

    For me, this issue dwarfs the daily political debates.

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

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

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

    So Scotland faces a choice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    My answer to that is simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    PERORATION

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

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

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

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

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

    I still am.

    And so are the vast majority of the British people.

    Our hopes are their hopes.

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

    And that’s why we’ll do it again.

  • PMQT – 13 February 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 13th February 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Turner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 13 February.

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

    Mr. Turner: Will the Prime Minister accept from me that the national health service is holding together at this moment only because of the dedication and good will of its professional staff? In Wolverhampton, beds and wards have been closed, staff have been made redundant, and accident and emergency services have been closed dozens and dozens of times in recent months. May I assure the Prime Minister that the good people of Wolverhampton do not regard the health service as safe in his hands?

    The Prime Minister: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman chooses this day of all days to make that old charge. As was announced yesterday, the number of patients facing waiting times in excess of one year has fallen yet again. There are now only 20,000 people waiting more than 12 months. Five years ago, the figure was 187,000. People are getting treated quicker, better and more comprehensively at all levels in the health service than ever before. It is about time that Opposition Members–I do not mean only the hon. Gentleman–realised the tremendous advances made in the health service by doctors, nurses and administrators in the treatment of people from one end of this country to the other.

    Sir Giles Shaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware, from The Mail on Sunday, that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) was persuaded to vote against the new clause IV relationship on the ground that it was only a change of words?

    Hon. Members: Oh.

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask the Prime Minister a question on a matter for which he has responsibility.

    Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the change in words with which the hon. Member for Dundee, East disagreed was typical–[Hon. Members: “Order.”] Does my right hon. Friend agree that a change in words often disguises a change in meaning?

    The Prime Minister: I do not regard the hon. Member for Dundee, East as the only voice of the Labour party, but I am sure that my hon. Friend is correct: we are increasingly learning that we get a different Labour policy depending on which Labour Member writes it.

    Mr. Blair: Will the Prime Minister agree to the request that has been made by Members of Parliament on both sides of the House–and now, very strongly, by Sir Richard Scott–that the Scott report be published at 2.30pm rather than 3.30pm on Thursday? Members of Parliament will then have an opportunity to study the report before commenting on it.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the way in which the Government, or our predecessors, have conducted business in the House. The proposed arrangements are in line with the usual practice of publishing a report and making it available to hon. Members at the same time. The Government have arranged for there to be a debate, in Government time, 10 days after the publication of the report. Hon. Members will therefore have time to absorb and to understand the report and will be able to speak to it with knowledge rather than with ignorance–which is what Labour Members have done for the past three years. There will be a full and open debate on the report.

    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister has relied on precedent. I suggest that a report containing 1,800 pages and of this complexity is almost without precedent. Ministers having a report for eight days before anyone else is also without precedent. The campaign to discredit the judge who conducted the inquiry–before the report has been published–is also without precedent. Will the Prime Minister reconsider the request? The refusal to allow Members of Parliament this facility, on the day that the report is published, effectively disables them and prevents them from holding the Executive to account and discharging their duty both to Parliament and to the country.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken, and he knows that. The Government will answer questions about the Scott report on the day that it is published, and we will debate it when all hon. Members have had time to study it. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a campaign to discredit the report before it is published. That campaign has come from the the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), the deputy leader of the Labour party. Without a single scruple, time and time again, the Labour party has made it clear what it believes will be the outcome of a report that has only just been concluded. If anyone has prejudged the report, it is not the Government but the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues–and the right hon. Gentleman knows that to be the case.

    Mr. Blair: Does not what the Prime Minister has just said–in a ridiculous attempt to blame Opposition Members–underline why we should have the Scott report early, so that people can comment on it? In the interests of proper parliamentary democracy, will not the Prime Minister reconsider hon. Members’ request, especially as it is backed by the inquiry judge?

    The Prime Minister: As for the Government having had the report, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the House will expect my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to be at the Dispatch Box to answer questions, quite properly, put by the House when the report is published. That is why the Government have the report in advance. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that has been the position under both Conservative and Labour Governments for as far back as he may care to remember. He is trying to twist public opinion before the report is published, just as his hon. Friends have done for the past three years. The report will soon be published, and Labour Members will have to consider the issue on the basis of fact.

    Dr. Hampson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the privatised utilities are such a good investment that, while slagging off British Gas and Yorkshire Water, a group of Labour councils in West Yorkshire–notably Leeds, led by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett)–were investing £170 million of their pensioners’ money in those companies? Is that not a classic case of saying one thing and doing another?

    The Prime Minister: I congratulate the unions on making a successful investment. I live in hope that the day will yet come when the Opposition recognise that, if they talk about the virtues of the market, they ought to support private ownership, not attack it on every conceivable occasion as they have been doing.

    Mr. Ashdown: Leaving aside for a moment the interests of the House, will the Prime Minister at least consider the interests of his civil servants? How can it be right that Ministers, who can defend themselves in public, have eight days in which to read this 1,800-page report and prepare their defences, while civil servants who are criticised may not get even six hours?

    The Prime Minister: Let me explain what has been agreed, so that I can remove the misunderstanding from the right hon. Gentleman’s mind. At present, the report has been made available only to Ministers or civil servants who need to see it in order to help to prepare the Government’s response to questions in the House–[Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order and listen to the answers.

    The Prime Minister: That is the fact of the matter. Other Ministers and former Ministers and civil servants have not had access to the report. That is how the matter has been dealt with; it is an entirely proper way to deal with the report–we have dealt with it entirely properly.

    Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he has no plans to introduce a parliament in Edinburgh? It would leave Westminster Scottish Members with very little to do, because most of their business would be devolved; so they would become part-time, and should probably be paid part-time. They would also avoid paying the tartan tax, because they would be based in London.

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a sound point. The advocates of a Scottish Parliament among the Labour party who live in London would not themselves have to pay the extra tax that would be levied on everyone else living in Scotland. I can certainly confirm that we have no plans for such an assembly, or for such a tartan tax, or to allow Scottish Members to vote on matters in Scotland on which English Members cannot vote, and then to permit Scottish Members to come to the House and vote on similar matters for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I can also confirm to my hon. Friend that, were anyone to introduce such plans, that would be the most blatant gerrymandering of the constitution that we have ever seen.

     

    Royal Docks

    Q2. Mr. Spearing: To ask the Prime Minister when he next plans to visit the royal docks.

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

    Mr. Spearing: When the Prime Minister does visit the royal docks, will he also visit the adjacent Silvertown fire station, whose crews joined their colleagues in Millwall on the Isle of Dogs at the tragic incident on Friday? Does he know that crews at both stations, not to mention the inhabitants of Docklands, face the prospect of having the two appliances at each station reduced to one? Does he recall that his name appeared at the top of a successful motion at 10 o’clock last night, calling on local authorities to exercise their freedoms responsibly? If he were charged with denying them those freedoms, because of the policies of the Government towards the public services, what would he say?

    The Prime Minister: Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we require councils to exercise their freedoms and opportunities responsibly, but there must also be fallback powers for when that does not happen:

    “we believe there must be fall-back powers to enable central government, in extreme circumstances, to protect council tax and business rate payers”.

    Mr. Spearing indicated dissent.

    The Prime Minister: I was quoting a Labour policy document, so I am sorry to see that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with it.

    When looking at the royal docks area, the hon. Gentleman might also like to look at the dramatic improvements there: the 5,000 new homes and the 2 million sq ft of commercial property. The whole area has been revolutionised by policies that we have followed but many of his colleagues have opposed.

     

    Economic Indicators (Lichfield)

    Q3. Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Prime Minister what recent analysis he has made of economic indicators and their effect on Lichfield; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister: Lichfield has benefited fully from the Government’s policies, which have given this country the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years, the lowest basic rate of tax for 50 years and the longest period of low inflation for 50 years. Unemployment in my hon. Friend’s constituency has now fallen by some 40 per cent. from its peak.

    Mr. Fabricant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Lichfield is not only a beautiful cathedral town but a centre for light industry? Is he further aware that people in Lichfield will be heartened by the report in The Times today which showed that the average net take-home pay of production workers in France, Italy and Germany is now less than that in the United Kingdom? Is that not because we have consistently refused to enter into an agreement on the social chapter? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, under a Labour Government, workers would suffer, because the Labour party’s idea of negotiating in Europe is rather like the Trustee Savings bank–it is the party that likes to say yes?

    The Prime Minister: They certainly were very startling figures to set out what net take-home pay will purchase, which was the basis on which they were done. That stands in stark contrast to the claims of a sweatshop economy about which we so often hear from the Labour party. It is no coincidence that those figures were achieved. Business is attracted by flexible working practice and low cost–precisely the benefits that would be wrecked by the social chapter as it is and by the social chapter as it would be if any Government were to sign up to it in this country. This Government will not.

  • PMQT – 1 February 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 1st February 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Dr. Goodson-Wickes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming another successful year for the Manor House private hospital, which is funded by the Transport and General Workers Union and other unions to provide private health care for their members? In view of the Labour party’s long-term opposition to private health care, does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a classic case of the Labour movement saying one thing and doing another?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a fascinating point. I think that he mentioned the Transport and General Workers Union. It sponsors many prominent hon. Members, so they will certainly be familiar with its activities. I was not aware of the case my hon. Friend raises, but if it is true it certainly calls into question the deep and apparently sincere hostility of so many Opposition Members to the private sector of medicine that they have set out for so many years. It is surprising that they seem keen to use the private sector, but are keen to condemn it.

    Mr. Blair: Perhaps I could ask the Prime Minister about the national health service. Can he confirm the figures of the Consultants Association and the Audit Commission that show that, under his Prime Ministership, within the past five years, the costs of administration have doubled? Given today’s news about the pay awards to top administrators, does not the Prime Minister think that the Secretary of State for Health should say clearly to the trust boards that, in future, the average pay rises for managers should be very similar to those for doctors and nurses?

    The Prime Minister: I cannot confirm the detailed figures that have been released–I have no reason to believe that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong about them, but I cannot immediately confirm them. The right hon. Gentleman should take great care before he returns to his old line of attacking management in the national health service and its costs.

    Mr. Skinner: Why?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman asks why. I shall give him several reasons. First, because that is precisely what the Socialist Health Association told him not to do. Secondly,

    “I don’t think it’s really in question any more that the NHS has been under-managed in the past”.

    [Hon. Members: “Undermanaged?] I am sorry that Opposition Members scoff–those are not my words but those of the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) when she was Labour’s health spokesman. [Hon. Members: “Oh.”]

    Of course one would wish to ensure a fair division of pay among all people in the health service. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the present Government, under my Prime Ministership, gave the nurses a pay review body, whose recommendations we have always honoured.

    Mr. Blair: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to tell the Secretary of State to do as I ask? [Interruption.] “No,” say Conservative Members, but I was quoting the words of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). [Hon. Members: “Oh.”] Instead of the Prime Minister saying things that are in his folder and my putting things to him, will he answer the basic question? Why have administrative costs increased by more than £1 billion a year in the past five years–when the number of nurses is falling, when patients are on trolleys and when there is a shortage of acute beds? The question that the Prime Minister must answer is, why is the national health service safe in the hands of a Government who place administrators before nurses?

    The Prime Minister: I am sorry to tell the right hon. Gentleman that he is mistaken on almost every point that he puts to me, but let me deal directly with his point about management costs. It is fair to raise the important issue of management costs. If the right hon. Gentleman is worried about management costs, and I am sure that he is sincere in what he says about them–[Hon. Members: “Oh.”]–can he explain why he does not support the 8 per cent. cut of administrative costs next year that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health proposes? The right hon. Gentleman does not support that. Can he explain why he voted against the abolition of regional health authorities, which saved a whole tier of management?

    We have provided the resources for more medical staff and for the treatment of 1.5 million extra patients. A few years ago, it was impossible to check properly how resources were used because there was no proper management in the national health service. As the right hon. Member for Derby, South said, that had to be put right. We have put it right. Now that we have put it right, the right hon. Gentleman criticises it.

    Mr. Blair: Let us debate at least on the basis of facts. Does the right hon. Gentleman dispute that the extra costs are more than £1 billion a year? If they are, instead of spending that money on bureaucrats, administrators, company cars and pen-pushers, why does he not spend it on nurses, doctors, patients and beds?

    The Prime Minister: The money is being spent on patients. The right hon. Gentleman does not appear to be able to grasp that point. To spend it on patients, it is necessary to do what we have been doing–put resources into medical care and manage them so that money is available for medical care. Until the right hon. Gentleman understands that, he will continue to ask me questions that are, literally, senseless. I suggest that he examines the matter again with the right hon. Member for Derby, South, who understood those matters when she was Labour’s health spokesman, but who obviously disagreed with the right hon. Gentleman–which may well be why she has almost disappeared from public view in recent months.

     

    Q2. Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Mr. Jenkin: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that boot camps are for the punishment of young offenders, humanely but firmly? May I urge my right hon. Friend to make use of the military corrective training centre at Colchester garrison and ignore the blandishments and objections of Liberal Democrat and Labour Colchester councillors, who once again demonstrate that the Opposition parties are the villain’s friend?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I shall certainly examine his suggestion. We hear much from the Opposition parties about their approach to crime, and in some cases about how tough it is. We do not see it at a national level and, if my hon. Friend is correct–I have no reason to doubt that he is–those parties clearly take the same inadequate approach at local level as we have seen them take at national level.

     

    Q3. Mr. Hain: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Mr. Hain: Does the Prime Minister recall telling the House on Tuesday that the British economy is now the best in the western world, when in fact seven European countries are growing faster? Does he also recall telling the House that crime in Britain is falling for the first time for 40 years, when in fact crime fell in 1977 and 1978, under Labour? Was he deliberately misleading the House or just reverting to his old, routine incompetence?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is quite right on crime figures, but I understated what I might have said to the House. The fall is not the first for 40 years–the hon. Gentleman is right about that–but the largest fall in crime since records began 100 years ago. It was achieved against the opposition of the hon. Gentleman and many other Opposition Members to almost every measure that we have brought forward in recent years.

    The hon. Gentleman referred also to the economy. I said that we have the best performing economy in western Europe, and I think that the hon. Gentleman should look at exactly what I said. The facts are that we have the lowest level of inflation for 50 years, the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years, the lowest unemployment of any major European country and the lowest basic rate of tax for 50 years. We are number one in Europe for foreign investment and we export more per person than Japan or the United States. Which European country can match that record?

     

    Q4. Sir Roger Moate: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Sir Roger Moate: Does my right hon. Friend agree that privatised companies are a very attractive proposition to investors? Is he aware of a pamphlet issued recently by a Labour Member of the European Parliament that shows that nearly £1 billion has been invested in privatised companies by Labour local authorities, including Southwark, Lewisham and Islington? Is not that yet another example of Labour hypocrisy? They opposed privatisation, but now they profit from it.

    The Prime Minister: I have seen the brochure and I commend it to hon. Members. It was written by a Labour Member of the European Parliament and has a foreword by the leader of the Labour Members of the European Parliament. Its case is set out as my hon. Friend claims. I am delighted to welcome Islington, Lewisham and Southwark to the stockbroker belt, but it strikes me as odd that the Opposition opposed privatisation, they fight privatisation in the House, they go on television to attack privatisation, they attack the management of privatisation, and yet they buy shares in privatised companies and enjoy profits from them. As usual, they are saying one thing and doing another.

     

    Q5. Mr. Hardy: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Mr. Hardy: How does the Prime Minister think the British people will recall his widely publicised promises in the 1992 general election campaign to cut taxes year after year, given that he then increased them by more than at any other time in British history? Is not that the most glaring example of saying one thing and doing another?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will know that taxes are now going back on a downward trend. He might like to hear some examples of saying one thing and doing another. The Opposition are claiming that they will not put taxes up; but what did the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) say some time ago?

    “Well, I would say is this: that if the Chancellor, to raise money to do things, did raise the tax level on the top rate from 40 to 50 per cent., we would not oppose it”.

    That is not what the Leader of the Opposition says. Of course, the deputy leader of the Labour party, who is temporarily absent–[Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] I do not know where the right hon. Gentleman is–he has decided to heckle someone else this afternoon. He said, however, that Labour

    “should not follow the Government down the road of reducing the basic rate of tax”.

    How does that square with the promises made by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) about taxation?

     

    Q6. Mr. Mark Robinson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 February.

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

    Mr. Robinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the assisted places scheme provides an excellent opportunity for thousands of children? Is it not another example of hypocrisy and double standards that the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition health spokesman have benefited from the excellent facilities in private education, yet wish to do away with the scheme?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is quite right. The assisted places scheme is another policy that increases choice and opportunity, particularly for people on modest incomes. That is why we are committed to doubling the scheme.

    The Labour party is opposed to the scheme–or at least that is what I thought until the Labour leader gave the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) an assisted place in the shadow Cabinet.

    Mr. Alfred Morris: When does the Prime Minister expect to be able to respond to the motion on Members’ and Ministers’ pay that stands in my name and in those of 300 other right hon. and hon. Members? Meanwhile is there any comment he can offer the House on the subject today?

    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there needs to be a new mechanism for determining Members’ pay for the future, as the existing link to civil service pay grades disappears following civil service restructuring. That has been the case for some time. We have been considering how to take the matter forward. Of course we shall take account of the views expressed by the House in the early-day motion standing in the right hon. Gentleman’s name. We have not concluded our consideration and consultations. As soon as we have, we shall bring our conclusions to the House.

  • PMQT – 25 January 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 25th January 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Sheerman: Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who said today:

    “It is blindingly obvious that we must develop a framework”–

    Madam Speaker: Order. There should be no quoting during questions.

    Mr. Sheerman: The director general said that we must develop a framework for involving employees at every level–dare I say it, a stakeholder economy. If it is blindingly obvious to the director general of the CBI, why is it not blindingly obvious to the Prime Minister that the reason why his Government are so deeply unpopular is that they have failed to give the British people a proper stake in their own country?

    The Prime Minister: If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, he should be cautious about quoting the CBI at me. The CBI opposes the social chapter, the minimum wage and most of the policies advocated by the Opposition. When we and the director general of the CBI talk about stakeholders, we do not mean what the hon. Gentleman means. We know who Labour’s stakeholders are. We know who owns 50 per cent. of the votes at the Labour party conference. We know who pays 50 per cent. of the money that the Labour party gets. We know what has been said by senior trade unionists. They have made it clear. While they continue to fund the party they will have a say. It is simple–no say, no pay. They are Labour’s stakeholders.

    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the continuing campaign of violence by the IRA and Sinn Fein has betrayed the peace process? Will he urge them now to accept the Mitchell report’s recommendation and cease their heinous actions immediately? Furthermore, does he agree that if peace is to continue long term in Northern Ireland, the IRA and Sinn Fein have two clear options open to them? They can either begin immediately to decommission weapons or they can agree to take part in the democratic process, as outlined by my right hon. Friend yesterday.

    The Prime Minister: Yes, of course, my hon. Friend is right in all she says. The point made by the Mitchell Commission about the decommissioning of weapons was that Sinn Fein-IRA would not decommission, not that they could not decommission. We still look forward to hearing from Sinn Fein-IRA whether they accept the other elements of the Mitchell report–whether they accept the six principles and the fact that they must condemn and stop for good punishment beatings and punishment killings. We still await a comprehensive response from them on those matters. I should like to start all-party talks as speedily as possible, but I cannot be clearer to the House than this–the impediment to all-party talks is and has been the unwillingness of Sinn Fein-IRA to begin the decommissioning of their arms. If they would begin the decommissioning of their arms, there would be no justification for any party not to attend and join in all-party talks leading to negotiations.

    Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister agree that the test results for 11-year-olds in English and maths are appalling? May I put to him the following proposals for improvement? I propose an end to the delay in base-line assessment for five-year-olds, a reduction in class sizes for five-to-seven-year-olds, a register of national head teachers, the use of associate teachers in classrooms and a reinstatement of the reading recovery programme for primary school children which was so wrongly scrapped. Will the Prime Minister at least consider those proposals?

    The Prime Minister: Let me say first that we have looked very carefully at the test results. Those of 11-year-olds are disappointing; those of other age groups are better. The point that the right hon. Gentleman and the House need to bear in mind–I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has apparently changed his policy on this–is that, as he will recall, the Labour party opposed the introduction of the tests, and he personally voted against it. We introduced the tests precisely to throw up the shortcomings that we believed were probably in the education system. The test results are very useful: they tell us where the shortcomings are so that we may deal with them, and we shall consider a range of measures with which to deal with them.

    I do not intend to respond immediately to the ideas that the right hon. Gentleman has produced, but we established the tests so that we could identify shortcomings and then put them right. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman now acknowledges–better late than never–that we were right to introduce those tests.

    Mr. Blair: Was that not a complacent reply? Will the Prime Minister confirm that the problem does not relate merely to 11-year-olds? The GCSE results a few weeks ago also showed a decline. May I put it to the Prime Minister that, although the Secretary of State for Education and Employment may boast about the results for 14-year-olds today, those results still show an appalling level of failure in key curriculum subjects?

    May I remind Conservative Members that these are children who were born under a Conservative Government, sent to school under a Conservative Government and educated under a Conservative Government? The failure is not theirs, but the Conservative Government’s.

    The Prime Minister: If it is the Conservative Government who have failed, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could explain why some of his right hon. Friends remove their children from Labour education authorities and have them educated under Conservative education authorities. While we are on the subject of the 16 years, perhaps he would also register the fact that in 1979 fewer than a quarter of pupils obtained five GCSEs; today the figure is 43 per cent. In 1979, 14 per cent. obtained two A-levels; now the figure is twice as high. In 1979, one in eight young people went to university; now, one in three do so.

    The right hon. Gentleman referred to class sizes. I will tell him about class sizes. The Office of Standards in Education has itself recognised that the quality of teaching is the important issue. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but parents agree. I shall give him an illustration. For example, for children up to the age of 16, the average class size in secondary schools in Islington is lower than at the London Oratory. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Blair: There it is. The Government do not want to answer questions about the test results, and now we see the reason why they want to focus attention on one 11-year-old child–[Interruption.] The reason why they want to focus attention on one 11-year-old child is to conceal the damage that they have done to millions of our children.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will really have to learn to keep cool under pressure. If he casts his mind back, he may remember the episode of Jennifer’s ear before the last election, and if he wants to talk about records and standards in education, he may remember that his deputy leader said that school performance tables are “political propaganda”. Test results are “virtually worthless”, said the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor). Tests encourage “a climate of failure” said the hon. Member for Dewsbury. They say that grant-maintained schools are wrong, but they are perfectly happy to use them. The fact of the matter is that Labour Members enjoy choice themselves, but they wish to deny it to other people.

    Sir Hector Monro: Is my right hon. Friend aware, which I am sure he is, that today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns who lived the latter part of his short and remarkable life in Dumfries? [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order. I cannot hear the right hon. Gentleman, nor can the Prime Minister.

    Sir Hector Monro: Is my right hon. Friend further aware that, this year, Scotland and countries further afield will be commemorating the 200th anniversary of the great poet’s death? Will he send to Scotland, to the Burns Federation and to his drouthy cronies in the House a message of good will on his important bicentenary?

    The Prime Minister rose–[Interruption.] The deputy leader of the Opposition is heckling again. I must explain to the House that, despite occasional differences between us, the Leader of the Opposition and I have one thing in common: neither of us invites the deputy leader to meetings.

    As to the remarkable anniversary referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), he is wise to mention it. I am a great admirer of Rabbie Burns and I should like to explain why by quoting what he said. His view on the constitution, for example–to be wrecked by the Labour party, if it came to power–was clear:

    “As to Reform Principles, I look upon the British Constitution . . . to be the most glorious Constitution on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame.”

    That was Rabbie Burns’s view. The Scottish National party might remember that and so might the Leader of the Opposition and his party.

     

    Q2. Mr. Jamieson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Jamieson: During national empty homes week, in a fortnight’s time, what advice will the Prime Minister be giving to the Ministry of Defence about the 552 empty married quarters in his own Huntingdon constituency?

    The Prime Minister: At the moment, I should tell the hon. Gentleman two things. First, we shall be looking at the ways in which we can dispose of empty Ministry of Defence properties–we are determined to do that. Secondly, if the Labour-controlled authorities in London filled up their empty accommodation, they could wipe out homelessness in London at a stroke. In Southwark, Islington, Hackney and right across London, Labour-controlled authorities have an appalling record of keeping homes empty and then complaining about homelessness–as the hon. Gentleman has done. That is another illustration of Labour’s hypocrisy. They make claims about something–they have the power in their hands to put it right, but don’t.

    Mr. Sheerman: On the ropes again, John.

    The Prime Minister: I now have a definition of hope over optimism.

     

    Q3. Mr. Hendry: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 January.

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

    Mr. Hendry: Does my right hon. Friend agree that GP fundholding has brought enormous benefits to doctors and patients alike, especially in my constituency, in which they cover some 90 per cent. of the population? Is not it typical of the say one thing, do another Labour party that, while many of them take advantage of GP fundholding for themselves and their families, at a moment’s notice, they would abolish it? Is not that typical of the hypocrisy of the modern Labour party?

    The Prime Minister: I think that there is now overwhelming evidence that fundholders are able to get a better deal for their patients from hospitals. It makes sense to build on what has been achieved and induce more and more GPs to join the system–[Interruption.] I am sorry to hear cries of objection from the Opposition Benches. Those are not my words but the words of the vice-president of the Fabian Society and former adviser to Barbara Castle.

  • PMQT – 18 January 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 18th January 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Pearson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 18 January.

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

    Mr. Pearson: In view of the renewed speculation about the right hon. Gentleman’s leadership, can the Prime Minister tell the House what difference to his party or the country was made by his decision to precipitate a leadership contest last year?

    The Prime Minister: We have this silly speculation almost every week in which there is a Thursday. It has been nonsense in the past and it is nonsense now.

     

    Q2. Mr. Gallie: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 18 January.

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

    Mr. Gallie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are more shareholders today than trade unionists? Indeed, many trade unionists are shareholders. Is he further aware of the Labour party’s cynical plans to introduce shareholding for workers? Is not that a case of attempting to justify a tired and meaningless slogan?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is quite right about the growth in the number of shareholders and the fact that they now exceed the number of trade unionists.

    Mr. Galloway: Resign.

    The Prime Minister: Well, the trade unionists seem to have been doing that–that is one of the reasons why there are more shareholders than there are trade unionists. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) is equally right about the slogans from the Labour party. As the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) said last night:

    “It is amusing that Labour’s new slogan might be a long way round to rediscovering clause 4 and common ownership.”

    If the Labour party really believed in stakeholding and personal ownership, it would not have opposed every privatisation we have had–privatisations that have dramatically increased share ownership. The only stakeholders in their society would be the unions–Mr. Edmonds, Mr. Monks and their colleagues.

    Mr. Blair: Can the Prime Minister confirm that, on the latest statistics, since 1989, when the Government changes to the health service were introduced, the number of nurses has fallen by 50,000 and the number of senior managers has risen by 18,000? Is not that a mistaken set of priorities for the health service?

    The Prime Minister: The mistake is the misleading way in which the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and now the right hon. Gentleman talk nonsense by distorting figures in the health service, as elsewhere. What the right hon. Gentleman clearly has not been advised about, or has chosen to ignore, is that there are more than 50,000 more nurses and 4,000 more midwives today than when the Government took office. They are providing effective health care close to where people live and work. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I take pride in the national health service and its achievements, and I very much regret that all that he and his colleagues can do is to take statistics, misuse statistics and try to run down the health service.

    Mr. Blair: We take pride in the health service–we created the health service. We just do not like it being undermined by the Conservative party. The statistics that I quoted are from the Department of Health. The Prime Minister said that an extra 50,000 nurses had been created. Will he confirm that if one takes the full-time equivalent of nursing and compares like with like, there are fewer nurses now than there were in 1979? Furthermore, has not the decline happened entirely since 1989, when the changes were introduced? Does that not show that one is the consequence of the other and that there is a mistaken set of priorities in the health service?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is still distorting, and he overlooks the extra 1.5 million patients who are being treated. Patients statistics do not concern the Labour party. I will give the right hon. Gentleman a statistic that really shows what is happening in the health service–66 per cent. of health service staff are now involved in direct patient care, up from 60 per cent. only 12 years ago. That is because we have invested directly in front-line care and that is why more patients are being treated, and treated better and more speedily than ever before. I hope that, one day, the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge the improvements in the health service, congratulate the people in the health service on making the improvements and acknowledge that we have repeatedly put more funds into the health service to enable those improvements to take place.

    Mr. Blair: I notice that the Prime Minister did not dispute the statistics on nursing. If he wants an objective view, why does he not ask the doctors and nurses in the health service? Does he not understand that many people fear that money is being pumped into bureaucracy rather going to front-line nursing care, and that they are angry that the party that the Prime Minister calls a one-nation Conservative party is breaking the health service in two?

    The Prime Minister: Yet again, the right hon. Gentleman distorts and twists reality to make his political point. If the right hon. Gentleman does not accept what I say, I advise him to listen to the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley), who told the Fabian Society,

    “Labour’s health policy will not look credible at the general election if we do not commit ourselves to matching the rate of growth delivered by the Conservatives.”

    Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will contemplate that. The truth is that his party has no health policy. Labour lurches from one headline to the next and from one distortion to the next. Labour downgrades and runs down the health service day after day, as it moves to the next soundbite.

    Mrs. Roe: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why unemployment is falling is that British firms are now able to compete free from overwhelming union control? Does he further agree that that would all be thrown away under the Opposition’s plans for a stakeholder society, which would simply hand power back to the unions?

    The Prime Minister: That certainly seems to be the view of the trade unions, as Mr. Monks, the general secretary of the TUC, has confirmed. He said:

    “This country needs more influential unions”,

    and added that the proposals for new rights to representation at work also rest on the stakeholder idea. He is not alone. Mr. John Edmonds said:

    “I think ultimately we need changes in legislation.”

    The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) said:

    “Labour cannot govern without the support of the trade unions.”

    Just to show that I do not always quote Opposition Back-Benchers, let me quote the deputy leader of the Labour party–who appears to be missing. He said:

    “I am at heart a trade unionist before a politician.”

    And he is right. We know Labour’s heart, we know who pays for the Labour party, we know who owns the Labour party and we know what the leader of the Labour party is now about.

    Mr. Ashdown: When the Prime Minister’s predecessor, Mrs. Thatcher, said last week that his Government had lost touch with the hopes of ordinary people, whom does he think she was blaming?

    The Prime Minister: It hardly loses touch with ordinary people if one removes what wrecked their savings by producing the lowest inflation levels for 50 years, the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years, the lowest unemployment rate of any major European country, the lowest basic tax rate for 50 years, and the biggest fall in crime for more than 40 years. That is what my right hon. Friend, when Prime Minister, sought to achieve; it is what we have delivered.

    Sir Michael Grylls: When my right hon. Friend next meets his fellow Heads of Government in Europe, will he do all that he can to persuade them to make progress on liberalising the energy market within the European Union? Is not one of the Government’s great successes the fact that we have created a competitive market in the UK, and would not our firms benefit from a competitive market throughout the European Union?

    The Prime Minister: Yes, my hon. Friend is entirely right. While the single market has been an enormous success, both for us and for the rest of Europe, there remain areas across Europe where it is still not operative, and my hon. Friend mentions one of them. We shall continue to press to spread the single market to that area and others.

     

    Q3. Mr. Mullin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 18 January.

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

    Mr. Mullin: I am sorry to see that the bastards are plotting again. The Conservative party’s current difficulties are not the Prime Minister’s fault. He simply has the bad luck to be Prime Minister when the bills for the Thatcher decade are coming in. May I offer him a word of advice? He should offer members of his party not a leadership election but a general election. That would shut them up.

    The Prime Minister: I know that the hon. Gentleman has some experience of leadership elections. If I remember accurately, he ran the leadership election of a losing candidate in a previous Labour party leadership election, so although I take what he says with some interest, I shall not follow it to the letter.

    Mr. Mullin: He got 49 per cent., though.

    The Prime Minister: Maybe, but it was not enough.

     

    Q4. Mr. Luff: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 18 January.

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

    Mr. Luff: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that he will respect the constitutional freedoms of this country at all times and will not seek to undermine them by entering into shabby, shoddy backroom deals, like those promised by the Leader of the Opposition with the Liberal party, British Telecom and the trade unions?

    The Prime Minister: I think that I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he requires without reservation.

     

    Q5. Mr. Ainger: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 18 January.

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

    Mr. Ainger: Has the Prime Minister seen the figures produced by the Royal College of Nursing, which show that the number of nurses qualifying each year has fallen from some 37,000 in 1983 to only 13,000 last year? The resulting staff shortages have caused a crisis in our accident and emergency and intensive care units. Do not those figures confirm that the NHS is no longer safe in Tory hands, and never was, or is the Royal College of Nursing distorting the figures?

    The Prime Minister: I will just give the hon. Gentleman the figures. There are 22,000 more doctors than there were in 1979, and 34,000 more qualified nurses. It is not the Conservative party or the Government who have cut back on the health service. The only time that that has occurred was when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in office. He should recall that and bear in mind that the Conservatives have delivered increased investment to the national health service, which means better service, more front-line care, which is better and earlier, and a wider range of care.

    Mr. Key: My right hon. Friend will no doubt recall the excitement and pride shared by millions of children, including him and me, at the Festival of Britain, part of which for me meant visiting the capital city for the first time. May I, as a non-Londoner, assure him that it is unthinkable that the millennium celebrations should be held anywhere other than in our capital city, and that the best possible place would be Greenwich?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend touches on a matter that may be controversial in the west midlands and elsewhere. The reality is that the decision will be taken by the Millennium Commission, independently of the Government, and it is therefore not appropriate for me to comment on particular bids or to speculate about the outcome. I am sure that many others will do so, but I will await the decision of the Millennium Commission.

  • PMQT – 11 January 1996

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

    Madam Speaker: Order.

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

     

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

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

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

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

    Mr. Skinner: Mine’s a sirloin.

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The hon. Lady was right then.

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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