The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Northern Ireland Peace Process

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

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

    QUESTION (Paul Reynolds):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

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

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

    [Small section indistinct]

    QUESTION (Simon Walters – The Sun):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

    QUESTION (Philip Johnston – The Daily Telegraph):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

    QUESTION (Ian Black):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

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

    QUESTION (Chris Buckland):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

    QUESTION (Nick Wood – The Times):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

    QUESTION (Simon Walters – The Sun):

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

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

    QUESTION (Simon Walters):

    Is a dead heat the best you will get?

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

    QUESTION (John Deans – The Daily Mail):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

    QUESTION (Evan Black):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley – BBC):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

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

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

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

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

    QUESTION (Robin Oakley – BBC):

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

    PRIME MINISTER:

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

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Huntingdon – 29 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Huntingdon on Friday 29th September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    [Question related to Northern Ireland]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The circumstances we have set out about decommissioning are, I think, a statement of the real political position. The reality is that the people in the North and the Unionists in the North – and I do not just mean the Unionist leadership, I mean the Unionists across the board in Northern Ireland – believe it is necessary for there to be some decommissioning before there can be round-table talks.

    QUESTION:

    Have the two recent court rulings against the Government damaged the peace process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The peace process is entrenched. Anybody who seeks to damage it, anybody who seeks to end the ceasefire which has existed, will have to answer to two very severe audiences.

    Firstly, the audience of Irish men and women north and south of the border. They do not want this to end. They want it to carry on and they believe everyone has an obligation to make it carry on. I think they would have to answer to the audience of history, which sees an opportunity here that has not been seen before.

    We have heard over the last year repeatedly from Sinn Fein that they are seriously seeking peace. If they are seriously seeking peace, there can be no question of the IRA returning to violence. If there is no question of them returning to violence, then there is no need for them not to make this start on decommissioning their weapons. It is a very straightforward and very easy point for everyone to understand. And I think it is a very important point.

    QUESTION:

    [Question related to the National Grid]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is clear what the public opinion is on this matter.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview in Majorca – 22 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview in Majorca, held on Friday 22nd September 1995.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, you like fireside chat summits, what do you want the chat to be about?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I certainly think it is a very good idea to have this discussion. There are several things I think we need to address. Many people have great aspirations for one or other aspect of European policy. I think we have to look at some of those aspirations with a very cool and very clear eye, to consider what they are, where they are leading, what they mean and how they might be brought about. None of these aspirations is easy, we need to examine the difficulties as well as the aspirations.

    QUESTION:

    Officials say you are in a mood to confront your fellow European leaders with some realities, Are we expecting blunt words and what would those realities be?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am neither looking, nor expecting, that there is going to be a great argument or row on this particular occasion. But certainly I propose to set out, as I see it, some of the difficulties ahead in the policies that are being pursued. I think the European Union has lost much of the affection of the people right across Europe that once it had. Well that is in no-one’s interest and I think people think that it often concentrates on the wrong things. Well we have to confront that problem, we have to talk about the things that are really relevant to the everyday lives of the people in Europe. I will most certainly say that. I will talk about the difficulties of competitiveness and what it means for job creation across Europe. I will certainly talk about some of the inherent difficulties of moving on the mainstream policies that Europe has been concerned around for some time. But it is not a question of looking for an argument, it is a question of saying there are realities not yet confronted that must be confronted before policy can be determined.

    QUESTION:

    Do you want them to get away from constitution-mongering?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think many people would think, so soon after Maastricht, that we spend far too much time on institutional matters and far too little time on the things that would really matter to the people across Europe, that is certainly my view.

    QUESTION:

    The new Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, has made a controversial speech suggesting that British interests will always come first in European matters, is this a signal that you and the Cabinet are all Euro-sceptics now?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think I am very happy about labels being tied to speeches. I find nothing controversial in the British Foreign Secretary saying the purpose of British foreign policy is to advance British interests and to protect British interests. That is the government’s position, the Foreign Secretary set it out very clearly yesterday and with the full support of the Cabinet.

    QUESTION:

    How do you think your fellow leaders here should interpret Mr Rifkind’s speech in terms of Britain’s attitude to Europe?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think my fellow leaders in Europe will be remotely surprised by what the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, they have heard that message from me on innumerable occasions, in private and in public in the past, so I don’t think they will be surprised about it. Moreover, I think if you were to ask the Germans, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Italians, they would say that they are concerned about their own individual national interests. That is the way the world is. The Foreign Secretary spelt that out very clearly.

    QUESTION:

    You are hoping to see Mr Bruton, at least in the sidelines here, do you think that you are going to be able to do anything after your recent difficulties to take on the Irish peace process?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is more of a brainstorming discussion. John Bruton and I have very regular contact, so do our officials. I think after the postponement of the summit we will need to look at a whole series of options. I don’t expect great announcements and great decisions to come out of my discussions with John Bruton, that is not the nature of this process. We will be looking at the present situation, looking at the opportunities, looking at the choices and deciding the best way to carry matters forward. So I think that will be the nature of the discussion, and there may well be more than one of them over the weekend.

    QUESTION:

    Can there be any concession from your side on the question of arms decommissioning by the IRA?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think one needs to bear in mind what Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness and Sinn Fein have been saying for some time. They have been saying we are concerned about peace, the peace is going to be permanent. Well if the peace is going to be permanent, then they have no need of an armed force at their back when they begin to discuss matters with the other constitutional political parties. I think that is an uncontroversial statement that everyone will accept.

    The reality is not British intransigence or anyone’s intransigence. The reality is that the other mainstream political parties in Northern Ireland will not sit down with Sinn Fein until they are satisfied that Sinn Fein and the IRA are going to begin to disarm. Now that is the reality of life and there is no point in ducking that reality, it is there. I see no purpose in all-party talks if no-one is going to come to the table to talk. If there is intransigence everywhere, the intransigence must be removed. And the principal stumbling block at the moment is that despite all they have said thus far, we have no concrete evidence that Sinn Fein are going to begin to decommission their weapons.

    That is the blockage at the moment. Once that is removed we can move forward speedily I hope to all-party talks and then onward to an agreement that would be put in a referendum to the people of Northern Ireland, and then to Parliament. But the blockage that needs to be overcome is to give confidence and belief to the people in Northern Ireland that violence really is over, that the weapons really are no longer needed, and the only way in which that can credibly be done is for Sinn Fein to make it clear that they would begin to decommission their weapons.

    INTERVIEWER:

    Finally, do you think that some of your fellow leaders will be urging you here to press on with economic and monetary union and if they are urging on the prospects of a single currency, what will be your message to them on that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think one has to look firstly at the economic realities of economic and monetary union, and then of course one has to look at the constitutional and political realities of it. I will be saying to my fellow Heads of Government over the next day or so that it is perfectly clear that a large number of countries are simply not going to be economically ready to move forward. If that is the case, they are going to have to confront a different situation. What actually happens if a small core decide to go ahead and the larger core remain outside? That raises a whole series of questions not yet addressed by the European Union, and it needs to be addressed. They need to know, and we need to know, how those matters are going to be dealt with.

  • Mr Major’s Briefing to Journalists on Northern Ireland – 21 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s on the record briefing on Northern Ireland to journalists, held on Thursday 21st September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me firstly welcome you here this afternoon and I hope we can have a useful exchange.

    Let me just say a few words at the outset about where we are in the process, how we led up to where we are, and I suppose most importantly, where we go from the present situation. And I have no doubt that you will have questions certainly about the third of those points and maybe the others as well.

    Let me give you some personal thoughts about the pursuit of what we have come to know as peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We are pretty close now to the second anniversary of the Joint Declaration. I don’t think many people would dissent from the view that we have travelled a good deal further on the road towards peace since that Joint Declaration than most people imagined at the time.

    A lot of people didn’t believe that Albert Reynolds and I would reach agreement on it. When we did reach agreement on it they didn’t think it would move forward any further and thanks to the cooperation between the governments and others we have, and I think that is a considerable advance.

    When I first came into Downing Street in 1990, I remember very vividly sitting here and listing in front of me a small number of priorities for the future. One of those priorities on the first occasion I came in here was Northern Ireland. At the time I think it is probably fair to say that wasn’t universally welcomed as a wise move. The history, as told by the cynical, was that the burden of history was too great, that age-old animosities were too deeply ingrained for there to be any practical and worthwhile move forward. Too many people had come to grief on the Irish question, was the familiar refrain from very many quarters.

    I didn’t agree with that. I didn’t agree with that then, I haven’t agreed with that on the good days we have had since then and I certainly haven’t agreed with it on the days when things have been difficult either. It was repugnant to me then that people were killing one another in Northern Ireland and beating one another up in Northern Ireland, and it was as repugnant to me in Northern Ireland as it would have been if it was happening locally in Westminster, in Surrey or in Durham or anywhere else. So I felt that it was worthwhile making a fresh and original effort to see how far we could get with a peace process.

    If I ever needed any reinforcing in the belief that that was the right thing to do, I have to say that every single visit that I have made to Ulster over the last five years, and there have now been rather a lot of visits to Ulster, has reinforced me in the view that it was beyond any doubt the right thing to do.

    It is quite striking if you go into Northern Ireland, and one has seen before the external image of the disputes in Northern Ireland, to actually then go into Northern Ireland in the streets and feel the atmosphere and meet the people, whether Catholic or Protestant. And what struck me very forcibly in those early visits was the clear willingness of the ordinary decent people of Northern Ireland, whatever their religion might be, to give their support to a peace effort that they believed was based on fairness, transparency and democracy. I have found that to be a consistent theme whenever I have gone there, whether I have spoken to special interest groups or people with no particular special interest other than being a citizen of Northern Ireland.

    And when things have run into difficulties from time to time, you might perhaps be surprised by the weight of letters and messages that have come here from Northern Ireland from people who by and large in their own different ways have had the same simple straightforward message – stick with the process and don’t be put off by the setbacks.

    If anybody believed that we could move from where we were to a final agreement in Northern Ireland without setbacks, then they are an incurable romantic and a dreamer. It was never going to be that way, it hasn’t been that way and there may yet be setbacks as well as advances in the future.

    One of those setbacks was just a few days ago when we postponed the summit that John Bruton and I were to have had at Chequers. But I think we need to put this in context. It was a setback, it was not a crisis. And those people, whenever there is a setback, who talk as though it were a crisis and the peace process itself were doomed are doing no good to the process and simply talking up their own negotiating position. Setback is one thing, crisis is another. What we have had is a setback and it is a setback I hope and believe that we will overcome.

    Progress is going to be uneven. We are not suddenly going to wake up one morning, rub our eyes and find the whole thing is finally sealed and settled. That is not I believe the way it is remotely likely to be. It will evolve, this settlement, just as it has been evolving since the Downing Street declaration.

    In the year after the Downing Street declaration we made pretty dramatic strides in a whole series of fronts. That will not always be the case, though I think that we will be able to carry this process a good deal forward.

    At the moment, for the last few weeks, we have been in a bit of a pause period. But with patience, a degree of imagination and I think perhaps from time to time steady nerves as well, I think we will be able to move this process forward. If we are going to do that, as I believe we can, one absolutely indispensable element will be the continued close cooperation between London and Dublin. I have found it a very good working relationship, first with Albert Reynolds and subsequently with John Bruton. We haven’t always agreed on everything, we haven’t always approached things entirely from the same angle, but it has been a good working relationship and it remains so with John Bruton as the present Taoiseach.

    Let me add just a couple of points about the future. Firstly, all-party round table talks – the sooner that I can convene all-party round table talks on a constitutional settlement the better, the happier I will be when we can get there. I would be perfectly happy to do so this afternoon if that were feasible. But in the reality of politics, there is no purpose whatsoever in calling all-party talks unless there is a pretty good chance that all the parties are going to be there if we were to do so, and if parties began to absent themselves, perhaps permanently, perhaps in large numbers, then we would have made a mistake in our move forward.

    I can’t force people to the conference table, I can’t coerce them to the conference table, I can encourage them to go to the conference table. The principle of consent, which I think we one stage was not universally accepted, is and must remain at the heart of the efforts of London and Dublin combined. And it applies to all-party talks, just as much as it applies to anything else in the peace process.

    Let me just say a word about decommissioning. Decommissioning is raised from time to time because it is an extremely important issue. What it is not is a British obsession, it is emphatically not a new condition cooked up by Perfidious Albion after the IRA ceasefire, and I think a cursory glance at your cuttings will confirm that that is so. If anybody doesn’t have the cuttings to hand I think it is quite probable that I might be able to find them for you. So it is not something that we have suddenly cooked up and I very much welcome the editorials in some of your newspapers recently which have emphatically made that point.

    As far as decommissioning is concerned, well frankly I don’t care how it is done so long as it is credible and verifiable. I am not looking for surrenders, I am not looking for people coming out, throwing their weapons down at the feet of the British. That is not remotely what I have in mind. All I am concerned about is getting those arms out of commission because that is the key point in getting people to the all-party round table talks that are so essential, and ultimately getting people to accept an agreement that will be willingly accepted by all the people concerned.

    The principle of decommissioning comes smack out of the core of the Joint Declaration. And the plain truth is just simply this. The majority parties in Northern Ireland, representing the majority of the people in Northern Ireland, just will not come to the conference table until Sinn Fein / IRA have begun the process of actual decommissioning.

    Now I can see no other way of generating the confidence necessary to draw the relevant parties into substantive talks. And neither is it just stubbornness by the UIster Unionists and the Democratic Unionists political parties, that is not the situation in the North. I daresay everyone present will have seen the poll in the Irish News recently, I think it was late August, which showed that 90% of Protestants, 33% of Catholics, believe that the decommissioning of IRA arms should be a precondition for the inclusion of Sinn Fein in all-party talks. And when you broke that down into party allegiance, not only did you find perhaps unsurprisingly that that was over 90% of the DUP and Ulster Unionist support, but it was I think 73% of Alliance Party support and a substantial figure, I think 33%, of SDLP and Nationalist support. So it runs right across the North, it isn’t simply a fresh condition generated and invented by Unionist leaders in the North.

    The Irish Times I think made that point very forcibly and I don’t generally quote newspapers editorials so perhaps it is a bad principle to start, it wouldn’t always work in my favour. But on this occasion the Irish Times set it out very clearly in April earlier this year.

    So what next from the present situation? I continue to believe that the twin track approach – preparatory talks involving all the parties on one hand, and an international commission on decommissioning on the other hand – offers the best way forward from where we are at present. Now I don’t know, I can’t know whether this approach will get off the ground because the answer to that depends on other people. What I can say is that I will continue to work patiently to try and ensure that it does get off the ground, off the ground with the constitutional parties. I saw David Trimble and John Taylor earlier this week, I will be seeing John Hume and Ian Paisley – separately, not together – some time next week, and I hope to see John Alderice as soon as we can agree a mutually convenient date.

    We will continue to work also with the paramilitaries on both sides in exploratory dialogue, and with our colleagues in America with whom we have remained in the closest touch for a very long time. And of course with John Bruton whom I will be seeing tomorrow and on Saturday in Majorca. We mustn’t expect great announcements at the end of these discussions. John and I talk a great deal on the telephone, privately, in the sidelines of international meetings that we attend. Our points of contact are not just on the great setpiece summits, it is a regular and continuing dialogue, and frankly it is a dialogue on a scale that I don’t believe has existed between London and Dublin at any stage before, I don’t believe that has ever been anything like that. And my office and his office are in direct contact, I think it is fair to say if you add in the contacts between offices, on a daily basis and have been for a long time. So the contact is very close. There will be differences of approach but we try and work them out when we can and the working relationship with John Bruton is one of the reasons for encouragement that we will be able to carry this process forward.

    I am sorry to burden you with that lengthy introduction but I thought it might put one of two things in content before we turn to your questions. I am happy to take your questions, we will see what you have to ask and where I think it is prudent for the process to answer the question, I will answer the question, if I don’t think it is prudent I will tell you it is not prudent and not answer the question.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Irish Independent):

    Prime Minister, you referred to your hope that the international commission might get of the ground. Earlier today Mr Ancram remarked that it was not envisaged that the commission would actually oversee the decommissioning of arms. To whom do you envisage that arms would actually be handed up to?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    One of the things that the decommissioning commission will look at will be questions like that. The commission will look at the modalities, the mechanism for actually determining how arms are decommissioned. We can consider late further matters on the basis of their recommendation. We need to take this one step at a time. What I am conscious of, I do understand, perhaps better than people will sometimes give the British government credit for, some of the inhibitions and difficulties that face Sinn Fein as well. I do sit here and try and put myself forward into Mr Adams’s head to see the difficulties that he faces in order to determine what he is going to do. So I understand those difficulties. We are not seeking to pile embarrassment and difficulty upon Sinn Fein. What we are seeking to do is to find a way in which they are able to come forward and accept the decommissioning of arms. I think if we proposed how that was going to be done, that would be less likely to be accepted than if it were done by an independent commission. It was out of that thought that the concept of an independent commission, very probably chaired by a distinguished American, I think that is overwhelmingly likely and a name has been in circulation, I think that is the best way to proceed and I think that we will continue to go down that route.

    QUESTION (Sunday Independent):

    You said in your remarks that progress is going to be uneven, and I think we would all accept that. But winding up the debate in the British/Irish Interparliamentary Union yesterday afternoon, Michael Mates said, “We might even have to contemplate a short term return to violence to break the impasse, otherwise appeasement goes on”. Is that British government policy?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me say, I haven’t seen the transcript of what Michael said and long experience has taught me to be very careful about responding to things that I have not myself seen in black and white or heard. Subject to that, let me set out what the British government’s position is.

    Of course no-one wants a return to violence, no-one wants a return to violence in any circumstances or for any reason. What we do want is a lasting peace. That can’t be a peace at any price because that is the sort of peace that isn’t going to last. And from the moment Albert Reynolds and I first decided that we would go down this route, we were looking not for a ceasefire, welcome though a ceasefire is, but a peace that was going to be enduring. And the reason we need that is self-evident. Look at what has happened in Northern Ireland in the last year. You have seen huge economic changes in Northern Ireland. What we have not yet seen in Northern Ireland is a degree of international investment that can come from abroad, into the north and into the south in my judgement, once it is clear we have got over the arms problem and we are moving towards a proper settlement. That is why a short term peace settlement is no good, the prize is much bigger than that. But we don’t want to return to violence under any circumstances and I don’t really think I need say very much more than that, that is the British Government’s position.

    QUESTION:

    Do you then believe that Sinn Fein and the IRA are bluffing when they say that they cannot contemplate handing over arms?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well I find their position, I have my own judgement of what is bluff and what is negotiating tactics and what isn’t, but I don’t think it would be helpful to anyone if I was to unburden that thought to you. What I do say is that we do get conflicting noises from Sinn Fein publicly. It is very difficult on one hand to accept that their comments about them being dedicated to look for peace, this is a permanent peace, there is absolutely no doubt that they are determined to have peace, and all the other statements that have been made by Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness, and their view that that represents the view of their movement, and then to find them so resistant to beginning the decommissioning of arms. If they are permanently committed to a democratic future then they do not need an armed army at their back. I can understand that they do not want embarrassment or humiliation, as they would see it, of handing over their arms to the British. I do understand that, and that is why we moved down the route of an independent commission.

    But if what they say about entering the democratic process fully and being permanently committed to peace is truly their position, then I think it is hard for any dispassionate observer to understand why they wouldn’t begin the surrender of their arms to an independent body. I won’t repeat the point about understanding the pride of their movement, I think I do, but that doesn’t stand up when they are not being asked to hand their arms over to the British but they are being asked to hand them over to an independent commission.

    QUESTION:

    Michael Ancram, speaking to journalists this morning, seemed to be suggesting that both governments are now looking at the issue of decommissioning [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think almost however you answer that question you would be apt to give someone a misleading impression. There is no hidden depth in our examination of decommissioning, it is actually a very straightforward concept. We are interested in decommissioning because without decommissioning we cannot convene successfully the all-party talks that will enable us to reach a proper settlement and put that settlement, agreed by the constitutional parties, including Sinn Fein and including the Loyalist paramilitaries, to the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum and then legislate for it. I daresay one can keep approaching this from a different angle but it is really rather straightforward, it is as simple as that.

    QUESTION:

    One supplementary. Kevin McNamara yesterday said that he felt it would eventually come to a form of words.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Kevin McNamara has always taken that view. I don’t think that is the view of his party any more and I don’t think that is the view of any – or hardly any – of the mainstream democratic parties in Northern Ireland either. It is, I fear, an uncomfortable reality for some people that the people of Northern Ireland – and I quote again the figures I used in the poll a moment or so ago, it is not just the politicians – do appear to feel very strongly that there is a need for decommissioning of arms if they are going to feel secure in agreements that have been reached and if I may personalise the matter a little, if you were entering into constitutional negotiations with someone would you not wish to know in those constitutional negotiations that they were not going to stamp out of the negotiations themselves and then return to an armed struggle having kept arms for the purpose? I think you would have a certain reserve about that. I think you would want to see some evidence that they were in the business of staying in constitutional politics for good, which is what we wish.

    I have said to Sinn Fein: “the door is open to you as constitutional politicians; you can march through that door as a constitutional party properly recognised and treated in the same way as the Ulster Unionists, the Democratic Unionists, the Alliance Party and the SDLP but if that is to be the case, then you must operate on the same basis as those other parties and you must not have an armed force at your back in the case of dispute!” and I do not think that that is anything other than a statement of plain common sense that most people in the north – almost everybody in the north and outside the north – will accept.

    QUESTION (OTE News, Belfast):

    On the one hand we have your Ministers in Northern Ireland saying that nobody wants a surrender and indeed if I am not mistaken consciously avoiding the use of the word “surrender” in any interviews or speeches and yet you say that you can’t understand why the IRA won’t begin the surrender of their arms to an independent body.

    I live in Northern Ireland, for my part I think it highly unlikely that there will be any surrender. I think there could be some movement on the general principle of decommissioning but why has your Government stopped on the concept of arms actually being handed over, being surrendered?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me correct it. If I used “surrender”, let me make it clear what I mean.

    I don’t care if they are not handed over providing they are destroyed, they are decommissioned. As I tried to indicate vividly, I don’t expect them to come out and throw their arms down at the feet of other people. That has never been my position. All I am concerned about is that the arms are removed from possible use, from circulation. I don’t mind, frankly, whether they decide that they would wish to hand their arms over to an independent body; I don’t mind whether their arms are destroyed in their presence by an independent body or by themselves in the presence of an independent body.

    All that matters to me is that the arms are taken out of use. It isn’t a question of surrendering. If I used that it was an inadequate term and a slip of the tongue. What I am concerned about is to make sure that the arms are not available for use. I am not seeking to embarrass or humiliate Sinn Fein in that fashion, that wouldn’t be a productive or sensible thing to do. I just want the arms taken out of use.

    QUESTION:

    And what the about the argument that you are not prepared to talk to Sinn Fein if they have 100% of their munitions? 95%?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We need to show that they are prepared for the principle of decommissioning. If they are prepared for the principle of decommissioning, then they will begin to decommission. Once they have done that, then I think it is reasonable to ask the other political parties to sit down with them and I think some of the other political parties have said that once they begin to do that there is no reason not to sit down with all the political parties in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Fein and the Loyalist paramilitaries, to begin to discuss how we move forward. That is what we are working for but I repeat pedantically the substantive point, there is no point in my pretending that they don’t need to move down that route of taking arms out because even if I were to take that position, which I am not, the other parties would not and there would be nobody sitting at the table at all and that is useless for the process.

    QUESTION:

    Are you persuaded from your recent conversations with David Trimble that if Sinn Fein began the process of decommissioning as outlined by the British Government and particularly by Sir Patrick Mayhew in Washington, that if they did that and if they began the process of decommissioning their arms and explosives, that the Ulster Unionist Party would sit down to all-party talks with Sinn Fein?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think, Emily, that is a question you must ask David Trimble. I can’t definitely answer for David Trimble or John Hume or any of the others.

    SAME QUESTIONER:

    That was central to your discussion with him presumably?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    There are a whole range of things. I wouldn’t say that any individual thing was central to the discussion. We ran across the whole field in the hour and a half we had and we will have a good deal more meetings in the future to run across more so I don’t think I am prepared to put my words into Mr Trimble’s mouth or anybody else’s mouth. What I can say is once there is clear evidence that Sinn Fein are beginning to decommission, then the probability of all-party talks will be accelerated beyond belief and I think myself that we would get all-party talks.

    QUESTION:

    You don’t think that the official Unionists or indeed the DUP would put further road blocks in the way of all-party talks?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I hope nobody is going to put further road blocks. I understand the suspicions that have existed on both sides. There has been a long legacy of one political party having a mistrust of another political party, it operates on both sides of the divide.

    In local government a few years ago we would have found it incredible that they would have worked together; they are working together in local government. What has been done as local government can be done at leader level in the parties in Northern Ireland as well and the sooner we are able to get in that position, the better it will be for Northern Ireland and by the “better it will be for Northern Ireland”, I don’t only mean that they will have a more secure reason for believing there will be no more violence though that certainly would be true but that I believe once you have got to that position it is actually going to unlock that avalanche of investment that I think is waiting abroad to come into the whole of Ireland once they are certain this process is going to be irreversible and the difference that is going to make to the living standards of people north and south is going to very remarkable, and one great gain we have had in the last year is that people have seen in the last year the speed with which ordinary circumstances can change as a result of the ceasefire. It is as nothing in my judgement to what will happen when there is a universal conviction that that ceasefire is going to become a permanent end to violence.

    QUESTION (John Cooney, Dublin Correspondent of the Glasgow Herald):

    In your ongoing talks with Mr Bruton, do you believe that both of you can convince Sinn Fein, the IRA, of the principle of decommissioning or do you think you will need the pressure from Washington and the Clinton Administration to effect that end?

    Secondly, just to clarify a point earlier, when you said you are having greater cooperation and contact with Dublin, is your relationship with John Bruton now more intimate than it was with Albert Reynolds?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not quite sure of the way you expressed the question! We had a very close political relationship and that was true with Albert and it was true with John Bruton as well. To give you a very practical illustration, I was in very regular contact with Albert Reynolds as well. To be brutally honest, you cannot conduct this sort of exercise at arms length. You can’t do it through interlocutors; there is a certain amount that can be done but at the end of the day you are going to have to do a certain amount of it yourself so I had very regular contact with Albert Reynolds on the telephone and directly. When Albert first came here, we agreed that we would institute the proposition of six-monthly summits alternating not rigidly but broadly alternating between London and Dublin but with Albert it still wasn’t just every six months.

    We meet regularly in any event at what seems to be an interminable number of European Union meetings and beyond that we have very close telephone contact so it has been very close in both instances, it really has. With Albert we had to sit down and negotiate bits of the Joint Declaration together, to call it a haggle I think would not be an unfair description and similarly with John Bruton with parts of the framework document. I don’t want to give you the impression we wrote all of it ourselves sitting in conclave just the two of us waiting for white smoke to come out. A huge amount of work of course was done by many other people.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think it will require American intervention to get Sinn Fein to accept the principle of decommissioning?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know the answer to that. There is no doubt that President Clinton is clear about the need for decommissioning, he has said so repeatedly. I think the Americans have made that point directly to Sinn Fein, they have said so publicly on a number of occasions as has John Bruton, as have an awful lot of other people, as has Dick Spring and many others.

    QUESTION (Irish Times):

    On the three-stranded relationship, the position of your Government was that nothing should be agreed until everything was agreed under that formula. Is that still the position?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes, that is still the position.

    QUESTION:

    Can I take you one step back to Emily O’Reilly’s question, if Sinn Fein accept the commission…

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Back to or back from?

    QUESTION:

    Back one step beyond where she… If Sinn Fein accept the commission and the terms are agreed, are you in a position to guarantee that the Unionists would at least participate in the exploratory bilateral and trilateral talks?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    One of the misconceptions there has always been in Sinn Fein’s mind and in many other people’s minds is that the British Government can guarantee the particular position of the Ulster Unionist and the Democratic Unionists parties and the Alliance parties and others; that has never been the position.

    I cannot guarantee that they are going to respond. I can encourage them to enter into the talks, I can point out the advantage of entering into the talks and all these things but it just is not the case, as Sinn Fein so often think, that all I have to do is to say to the Unionists in Northern Ireland: “I would like you to do this!” they would do it. That isn’t the case so I am not in the position of being able to offer guarantees any more than John Bruton can offer me guarantees about the way Sinn Fein or the IRA behave. That isn’t the case.

    What I am seeking is to bring both sides together, to have the talks bilateral, trilateral, more if they wish it on the one hand and to have the decommissioning commission operate. We just talked about Sinn Fein but of course they would be looking at the surrender of arms from the Protestant paramilitaries as well so I am not in a position to give guarantees, I am not the leader of the Unionist parties in Northern Ireland. I will use my best auspices to persuade them to do so.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, what do you make of the change in the Unionist leadership, the Unionists have a new leader? Do you think that is a good sign for the future, do you think that Mr Trimble is somebody who can come and sit round the table and do a deal eventually?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Any Unionist leader is going to have to carry the Unionist parties with him. Mr Trimble has been duly elected by the Unionist parties; he is therefore in a good position if he reaches an agreement, to carry his party with him in that agreement. I have to persuade him if I can that there is an agreement that it is possible to do and I will endeavour to do that. If I am able to persuade him, then I think that he will be able to bring his parties with him. He is an intelligent and an able man. Much of what I read about David Trimble in the last few weeks in the paper I don’t entirely recognise from the David Trimble I know in the House of Commons. He is a very shrewd and forthright politician. I don’t mind dealing with shrewd and forthright politicians, it is part of the way of life in Downing Street!

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, if it is so difficult to form the conditions to allow people to get around the table, is it not going to be impossible to form the conditions for any agreement?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If I may say so without wishing to produce a smart-alec answer, that is what people said to me when we tried to get the Joint Declaration and it is what people said to me when we tried to form the framework documents. None of this is easy. If it had been easy, it would have been done a very long time ago. That is why I said to you it isn’t going to suddenly come together as a single solution signed, sealed and delivered overnight in a series of dramatic meetings. It is going to be a continuing process of confidence-building and edging forward so that people being to trust those with whom they are dealing more and more.

    The answer to your question is yes, I believe we can. If I did not believe that we could carry this process from beginning to end, then I would not have embarked upon this process in the beginning. It has not always been easy, it has not always been friction-free, but I think it can be carried from beginning to end and I think although people tend to look at the impasse when it suddenly seems to be created between one political bloc and another, there is an undercurrent which people would be very ill-advised to ignore and the undercurrent is the pressure of opinion in the north and in the south that compels the politicians, all of them, me included, to move on towards a settlement. Whomsoever stops this progress in its tracks now will have a lot to answer for to history and will have a lot to answer for to their contemporaries, so the answer is yes, yes, yes, I believe we can carry it forward.

    QUESTION:

    Given that the answer is yes, have you any vision of what that settlement could be or is that a mystery?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, it isn’t a mystery, but if this settlement is going to stick it is not a settlement that is going to come out of the mouth of the British Prime Minister. It has got to be a settlement that is going to come out after discussion with the political parties. Of course I can see where I think they will end, but I think we must have their discussions, we have their inputs, we must consider that, we must see what they have to produce. At the end of the day it is going to be their settlement approved by the people in Northern Ireland.

    QUESTION:

    What time-scale do you envisage or when do you think the parties will get down to [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know. I don’t wish to put a time-scale on it. The sooner the better. I do not wish to see any undue delay but I do not think it prudent at the moment to put a short-term time-frame to something. I don’t think that would be productive at the moment. That is not to suggest that I am expecting a long delay, simply that I think it would be counter-productive for me to suggest short-term time-frames by which certain things needed to be done. What we need now is coaxing and persuasion and encouragement, not the constraint of a short time-frame.

    QUESTION:

    You have been talking a lot about how good the relationship is between the two governments. At a certain point in the week when the summit was cancelled it seemed anything but that; there was a lot of misunderstanding and certainly the spin that came from the British officials and the British media was that John Bruton is running scared of Sinn Fein and that it was the IRA who had effectively vetoed the summit. Would that have been your view of what happened given the British Government seemed determined [indistinct].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I read a lot of that in the press, certainly in the Irish press as well if I may say so. I am not even sure, Emily, that you didn’t write it! [Laughter]. There you are, you see the interest I take in your writing!

    I think John Bruton is a brave and forthright politician. I like doing business with him and I am not going to say anything that going to lead you to believe anything to the contrary.

    QUESTION (Bernard Persil, Irish Independent):

    Are you confident that you can deliver all of your party with this settlement because as you are aware a lot of people haven’t really come this far before, they are quite nervous about that it may entail, there is an awful lot of misrepresentation of positions not least within your own party, not least amongst some of your own backbenchers. Will that be a particular obstacle?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If I may fall back on parliamentary tradition, I refer you to the answer I gave to the gentleman here just a moment or so ago! [Laughter]. If I can move it forward satisfactorily, I think I will be able to carry on.

    QUESTION:

    Sir Patrick, in his speech last night, said that if the international commission brought forward proposals for an alternative approach on decommissioning the Government would look at those proposals and judge them by their merits. Could that be taken to mean that if the commission proposed that you scrap Part 3 of the Washington test that you would do so?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think Sir Patrick said “on their merits” and we will look at things on their merits.

    I emphasise again that this “Washington 3” condition is not a condition invented by the Government after the ceasefire. I just emphasise that point again. It is a statement of the political reality and one thing we cannot do in these negotiations is avoid political reality and I think Patrick was emphasising that point again yesterday.

    I think unless there is anything terribly fresh and original or anyone is burning with something…..

    QUESTION:

    Can I ask you….

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Twenty-five years in politics suggests to me it is always a mistake to take the last question! [Laughter].

    QUESTION:

    Sir Patrick has also said that he is very worried and very conscious of the fact that the IRA allegedly are recruiting and restructuring all the time. Presumably, that would give you pause for thought and would not be too hopeful?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Of course we are concerned about the IRA’s activities. We are concerned about the punishment beatings that go on. One thing that the ceasefire has done is draw the veil up so that people have actually looked at the punishment beatings that have gone on as well and they have continued during this period and of course we are concerned about activities like that, of course we are.

    I think we had better call a halt. Thank you very much for coming. I hope as events proceed that we have the opportunity of another meeting discuss further progress. I will look forward to that.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Weapons Decommissioning in Northern Ireland – 8 September 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments made in Northern Ireland on 8th September 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    What we are asking of Sinn Fein and of the Loyalist paramilitaries as well, both of them, is that they agree a method of taking the gun out of politics. That they agree decommissioning, the removal of weapons from Northern Ireland politics, and then that they begin to move down that decommissioning path because the other political parties will not sit in round-table talks with them until that happens.

  • PMQT – 6 July 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 6th July 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

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

    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 have further meetings later today.

    Mr. McGrady: After the Prime Minister’s success in his little local difficulty, congratulations would normally be in order, if it were not for the very great disadvantage caused to the communities of Northern Ireland by the introduction of the Clegg factor and the damage that it has done to the peace process. However, in the aftermath of that, could I ask the Prime Minister now to devote himself wholly to the pursuit of the cause of peace in Ireland, in view of the increasingly volatile situation there? Will he consider the appointment of an independent international arbitrator or negotiator to break the current logjam, rather than rely on his Northern Ireland ministerial colleagues, who have many departmental and other ministerial duties to attend to? There is a precedent for that in the inter-party talks.

    The Prime Minister: I am looking at ways of breaking the logjam, but I do not think that it would be helpful to the hon. Gentleman if I were to discuss those this afternoon. I remain as committed to proceeding with the peace process in Northern Ireland as I have been since the moment I walked into Downing Street. A great deal of progress has been made. It is crucially important that that progress is sustained. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, and all hon. Members from Northern Ireland, will join me in that search. I know that it is what they wish for and I am absolutely certain that it is what their constituents most wish to see.

    Mr. Redwood: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his win? May I assure him that, like him, I wish to see a Conservative election victory? Would he agree with me that some of the ideas and policies that I set out in the past two weeks could make an important contribution to that victory?

    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his words. I hope that he will agree with me that we had a fair contest last week. I am grateful both for the way in which he has spoken this afternoon and for the way in which he conceded the result of the election. Let me say to my right hon. Friend that there is a great deal that the Government will be doing in the months ahead which I know that he will wish to support enthusiastically. I will welcome his support, as will all my colleagues.

    Mr. Blair: I offer my congratulations to the Prime Minister on his re-election with, I suspect, rather more sincerity than the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), and, of course, I also congratulate him on his new deputy.

    Last year, the Prime Minister gave what he called a cast-iron commitment to nursery education for all four-year-olds. Is that still the case?

    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. I think that he congratulates me in the same spirit that Mr. Neil Kinnock did on one occasion. I am equally grateful and I look forward to the same result at the subsequent general election.

    I confirm that, on a phased basis, I look for the introduction of nursery education for all four-year-olds and my right hon. Friend will announce this afternoon our plans and the phasing.

    Madam Speaker: Mr. Peter Luff.

    Mr. Blair rose —

    Madam Speaker: I am sorry. Mr. Blair.

    Mr. Blair: I know, Madam Speaker, that rather a lot has been going on on the Government Benches recently, so it is perfectly understandable.

    If that is the Prime Minister’s commitment, and we know that 90 per cent. of four-year-olds get pre-school education at present–indeed, the majority of those get it free in the public sector now–can he guarantee to make good his commitment, first, that he will provide the extra places that are necessary but, secondly, that nobody who now gets and qualifies for free public sector education will be forced to go private and top up the voucher?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. Gentleman will find the answers to his questions very satisfactory and that he will find them very speedily. It is perfectly clear from events a moment or so ago that not only is the right hon. Gentleman following most of our policies but it would seem that he may actually have joined the Conservative Benches.

    Mr. Blair: It is Labour local authorities that have provided nursery education.

    Never mind the Prime Minister telling us to wait for his right hon. Friend- -this is his idea; his scheme. Can he give those guarantees or not? If not, many people will think that this is a con trick, not a genuine scheme for nursery education. Would not it at least be better to consider whether we could not obtain better value for money spending these hundreds of millions of pounds improving present provision for four-year-olds and bringing within the system three-year-olds who are shut out of the Prime Minister’s scheme altogether?

    The Prime Minister: No, the right hon. Gentleman will see that what we are proposing this afternoon will meet the points that he has in mind and meet them better than he could. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was in favour of choice in education since he exercises it. We said that we would deliver pre-school education for all four-year-old children and this afternoon he will see that we will meet that policy. The parents of all four-year-olds will be given a voucher for pre-school education in the state, private or voluntary sectors, and we will put that purchasing power where it belongs. I had thought that the right hon. Gentleman was in favour of exercising rights of choice. We will see this afternoon whether that is true.

    Madam Speaker: Now we will have Mr. Peter Luff.

    Mr. Luff: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Everything comes to he who waits.

    Does my right hon. Friend agree that a policy of withdrawal from the European Union, or a policy of immediate acquiescence in every idea that emerges from the Commission, no matter how damaging to the nation’s interests, would both be acts of political and economic folly? Does it surprise my right hon. Friend in the slightest that the Leader of the Opposition has espoused both such policies?

    The Prime Minister: I shall spare the Leader of the Opposition the quotes that I have used often enough in the House to indicate his changing view on Europe, from espousing withdrawal behind closed doors in 1983, to announcing subsequently that he had changed his mind, and then to wholehearted support for everything that happens in Europe without any reference to the British national interest. It is fudge, mudge and split the difference on every aspect of that policy. The right hon. Gentleman does not understand the difference between competitiveness and the social chapter and between national interest and a national veto. He will learn if he stays as Leader of the Opposition–if he stays as Leader of the Opposition. I doubt that he will because after the election I look forward to addressing his successor while I stand here as Prime Minister.

    Mr. Ashdown: Why does the Prime Minister not realise that vouchers that only partly fund pre-school education are bound to be of more value to those who can pay the difference than to the poor whose children need help most? Surely, if the right hon. Gentleman put the whole nation first, he would put universal access to high-quality pre-school education for all before Conservative tax cuts at the next election.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman really ought not to be so silly. We are placing a substantial sum in the hands of parents so that they can make a choice of nursery school education for their children. Now we know the Liberal party’s position: no choice at all for parents. I do not know what happened to the Liberal party’s old philosophy, but gone it completely has. If people want choice–if they want universal nursery education–they will get it from the Government, and from no one else.

    Mr. Butler: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the appropriate tenure of a Conservative Prime Minister is not four and a half years involving one general election victory, but at least 11 years involving at least three general election victories?

    The Prime Minister: There is certainly an honourable precedent to that effect, and I shall seek to follow it.

     

    Q2. Mr. Nigel Griffiths: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 July.

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

    Mr. Griffiths: Does the Prime Minister welcome the strong support that Lord Justice Taylor gave Sir Richard Scott at the distinguished Lord Mayor’s dinner last night? Will he, too, give his strong support to Sir Richard?

    The Prime Minister: I gave Sir Richard my support when I appointed him to head the inquiry.

    Sir Anthony Grant: Is my right hon. Friend aware not only that the courageous decisions that he has made in the past week were wholly and absolutely justified, but that his Government are faced with the most inexperienced and fatuous Opposition whom I have seen in all the 31 years for which I have been in Parliament? Furthermore, I do not want a job.

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has been examining Labour Oppositions for many years, and I have no doubt that what he says is entirely right. After the next election, he will have an opportunity to study another Labour Opposition.

     

    Q3. Mr. Flynn: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 6 July.

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

    Mr. Flynn: Is the Prime Minister not appalled by the ungrateful treatment being handed out to the constituents of Basildon? Tory Members are reported to be seeking new seats and abandoning their loyal Tory voters in Eltham, Loughborough and, yes, even Basildon. Is the Prime Minister’s advice to all his hon. Friends with majorities of less than 18,000, “Retreat now: abandon your voters, because it is “No change, no chance’”?

    The Prime Minister: I seem to recall hearing rather arrogant remarks like that before the last general election.

    I seem to recall hearing rather a lot of them. Yet those who behaved in such an arrogant fashion long before the election are still sitting on the Opposition Benches.

    Mr. Stephen: Does my right hon. Friend share the concern felt by so many of our constituents that the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights have a tendency to encroach far too much into areas that are properly within the sovereign authority of this Parliament and that if those institutions are to maintain the respect of the British people, they must exercise more self-restraint in future?

    The Prime Minister: As I indicated to the House when I reported on the Cannes summit a week or so ago, there are areas where the European Court of Justice ought not to tread, and it was on that basis that I refused to allow it to have any jurisdiction whatsoever over the Europol convention, which I agreed with our partners in Europe at the Cannes summit. I believe that because it touches on sensitive matters that are rightly the prerogative of the British courts and no other, and on that point the Government’s policy will remain as it is.

     

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

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

    Mr. Ainger: Given the description by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) of the Prime Minister’s leadership style as uncertainty based on indecision, is it the new job of the Deputy Prime Minister now to take the decisions, or has the Prime Minister not decided yet?

    The Prime Minister: In elections– [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman invites me to quote what was said during the Labour leadership election. There is often rough invective during elections. As the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) said during the last Labour leadership election:

    “It would have been easier to pull out their teeth than to have received straight answers to my questions.”

    The right hon. Gentleman the present leader

    “enclosed 30 copies of his 20-page leadership election statement, which he said would answer most of my questions. On the most generous assessment, he touched on only ten of the questions”,

    and from the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott)

    “there was no reply whatsoever.”

  • Mr Major’s Comments Following the Death of Gordon Wilson – 27 June 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments, made on the 27th June 1995, following the death of Gordon Wilson, a peace campaigner in Northern Ireland, who had lost his daughter in the Enniskillen bomb.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    He was a man of immense courage, I think he made a remarkable, in many ways a unique, contribution towards reconciliation in Northern Ireland and I’m extremely sad at the news.

  • PMQT – 25 May 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 25th May 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Ms Hoey: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 May.

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

    Ms Hoey: Has the Prime Minister any understanding of the deep anger that will be felt in the country at the way in which the directors of the privatised National Grid have used tax avoidance measures to ensure that their wives will have hundreds of thousands of bonus shares? What message does that send to pensioners in my constituency who are struggling to make ends meet?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady may not be wholly aware of what has happened. I have made inquiries to clarify the position. I understand that the only share options granted by the National Grid have been granted to its own directors and staff; but, having exercised those options and purchased the shares, directors have then given them to their wives. As the hon. Lady may know, it is a fundamental principle that transfers of property between husband and wife are free of tax, as they have been for a long time.

    If the hon. Lady and the deputy leader of the Labour party wish to change the position, are they saying that they want to make transfers of property between husband and wife taxable? Are they saying that the independent taxation of men and women should be abolished? Are they saying that widows should no longer be able to inherit property from their husbands free of tax? [Hon Members: –“Answer”.] That is the inevitable principle that follows from the point put by the hon. Lady. Once again, Opposition Members are trying to use a particular issue for their own advantage without understanding the implications of what they say.

    Rev. Ian Paisley: I am sure that the Prime Minister has heard of the result of yesterday’s meeting in America between his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the leader of IRA- Sinn Fein. I am sure that he has noted what the leader of IRA-Sinn Fein said: that there can be no progress towards decommissioning until there is complete demilitarisation of everyone–that is, the surrender of arms by Army, police and those who have guns to protect themselves–and that all prisoners must be released. Are the Government prepared to negotiate with the leader of Sinn Fein on those terms?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. and learned Friend met the leader of Sinn Fein yesterday to make a point that was very important for both the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and others in Northern Ireland: that the best contribution that Sinn Fein could make to the conference and to Northern Ireland’s prosperity would be to promote peace, and therefore to secure the decommissioning of the IRA’s arms and explosives. That remains the Government’s position.

    Until, in these exploratory talks, there have been practical movements forward in the decommissioning of arms, it will not be possible for Sinn Fein to move to full-scale political talks either with the Government or, I suspect, the hon. Gentleman’s party or any other political party in Northern Ireland. That is the point that we have made repeatedly to Sinn Fein, and it remains our position. As the hon. Gentleman knows, our objective is to move towards taking the gun entirely out of the politics of Northern Ireland. In that, I believe that we have the support of all the mainstream political parties in Northern Ireland and all the people of Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Blair: To return to National Grid, is the Prime Minister aware– [Hon. Members:– “Oh.”] They wanted us to answer the point and now they do not want us to raise it. Is the Prime Minister aware that the issue is not independent taxation between men and women, but remuneration being paid by way of share options so as to avoid income tax? That is what is actually happening in this case. Is the Prime Minister prepared to say that that abuse is wrong and is he prepared to put a stop to it?

    The Prime Minister: Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that I favour employee share options and I favour executive share options. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does too, because that is a direct quote from his hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor. There is no dispute between the right hon. Gentleman and I or between the two major parties about the desirability of share options.

    In this instance, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms Hoey) has raised a point that has been the subject of publicity today. Having exercised the share options and purchased shares, a husband passed his own property–the shares –to his wife. The leader of the Labour party seems to be saying that if, having done something of which the leader of the Labour party approves– accepted share options–the husband then does what has been done for many years and passes them to his wife, that should now be taxable. That is quite unlike anything that has happened in the past. If that is Labour’s policy, let the Leader of the Opposition please make it clear.

    Mr. Blair: No, that is not the policy. The only reason why the directors transfer shares to their spouses is that the remuneration is paid by way of share options in order to avoid income tax. That is why they do it. That is the issue: it is not whether share options are wrong or right, it is whether they are taxed as income or as capital gains. Is the Prime Minister prepared to say that, where remuneration is effectively given by way of share options to avoid income tax and only pay capital gains tax, he will put a stop to it?

    The Prime Minister: Capital gains are taxed at the marginal rate when the capital gain is realised. The right hon. Gentleman is effectively saying that he does not wish husbands to pass those rights on to their wives. The transfer of property between husbands and wives–be it shares, property or capital–is tax free.

    Although the right hon. Gentleman is now wriggling because his hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor changed his position mid morning because he realised what he had said and what he had done, the truth is revealed yet again by what the right hon. Gentleman has said: Labour hates privatisation and it hates profit. It cannot stand share ownership. Old Labour lurks there as clearly as it ever did. Labour Members cannot stand the fact that some people receive share options and exercise share options as part of their employment remuneration.

    Mr. Blair: Perhaps the Prime Minister does not realise that the National Grid has admitted that it used share options to avoid paying income tax. Why does not the Prime Minister stop defending the greed of a privileged few and stand up for the vast majority of decent British people?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman had better decide whether he is really in favour of share options. The glaring divide between the shadow Chancellor and the leader of the Labour party becomes more apparent day by day. They may sit close together, but clearly they never speak.

    Mr. Lidington: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming today’s announcement of further measures to target taxpayers’ money on making state schools more effective and improving standards? Will he confirm that the Government’s objective is to ensure that all parents are entitled to a good-quality, high-standard state education for their children, not only if they happen to live a couple of boroughs away from a convenient grant-maintained school?

    The Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm that point. I believe that the proposals announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will be widely welcomed up and down the country.

    Mr. Ashdown: Does the Prime Minister agree that the deadlines in Sarajevo represent a critical moment for the authority of the United Nations and its commanders in Bosnia? Will he ensure that, if our commanders on the ground in Bosnia conclude that decisive action must be taken, they will receive the full and unswerving backing of not only the Government but the United Nations in New York?

    The Prime Minister: I share the right hon. Gentleman’s view about the importance of the present situation. I am happy to tell him that we have already given that assurance to our commanders on the ground. We made that clear in New York last night and they are aware of our position. The United Nations has also reiterated its full support–by that I mean our commanders will have support for whatever action they may consider necessary in the light of the events of the past day or so.

    Let me add to that point in view of the present situation. We very much wish the United Nations protection forces to continue performing their role. They have saved many lives delivering aid and containing the fighting. I believe the reason for maintaining a force on the ground remains as compelling today as it has been in the past, but all the parties need to be aware that if they continue ground fighting and accelerate it, they may render it impossible for the United Nations protection forces satisfactorily to carry out the mandate that they have been given. I hope that point is fully understood. At present, General Smith and the United Nations forces are very much in our thoughts. They most assuredly have our total support.

     

    Official Visits

    Q2. Mr. Dunn: To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to visit Southfleet, Kent.

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

    Mr. Dunn: What advice would the Prime Minister give the leadership of the trade union, Unison, which may be about to inflict a vicious national strike on the British people? The last time Unison inflicted a strike on the British people–

    Mr. Mackinlay: What has this to do with Kent?

    Mr. Dunn: People are concerned about it in Southfleet. The last time Unison inflicted a national strike on British people, hospitals were closed, schools were shut down, operations were cancelled and the dead were left unburied.

    The Prime Minister: I believe that any form of industrial action in the health service would be bound to harm patients. It is difficult to see how it could do anything else. My hon. Friend has provided a graphic reminder of what happened on a previous occasion. I am perfectly certain that no professional nurse would wish to pursue such action, and I very much hope that that will be the overwhelming view. I hope that the few people involved will set aside the language of trade union confrontation, look at the fair offer that has been made to them by the vast majority of NHS trusts up and down the country, accept it and put the issue behind us.

     

    Engagements

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

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

    Mr. Illsley: From the Government’s overwhelming defeat in the local elections last month, it is clear that the electorate totally rejected their local government policies. In particular, people rejected the Government notion that Labour authorities are high taxing and high spending. Will the Government now abandon plans to cap the expenditure of local authorities this year?

    The Prime Minister: I have very great doubts about whether people have abandoned the notion that Labour means high taxes, both nationally and locally. If one looks band for band at local taxation last year, one finds that in band C, for example–I take the figures from memory, but I think that they are right–Labour councils taxed about £160 more than Conservative councils. That point will be understood increasingly as people examine their tax bills.

    Mr. Robathan: In the course of his busy day, has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to read the report on Islington’s social services? If so, he will have found that the Labour party in Islington put political correctness above the needs of the vulnerable and of the children in its care, and above common sense. Does he agree that, in the same way, the Labour party in general puts women-only shortlists and other forms of positive discrimination and political correctness above the interests of the nation–

    Madam Speaker: Order. What other parties do is not the responsibility of the Prime Minister. I have told the House time and time again that Ministers at the Dispatch Box answer for their policies, not for what other people do. Perhaps the Prime Minister can give some answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I hope that the House will remember in future that Ministers are to be questioned about their responsibilities, not about anything else.

    The Prime Minister: The substantive part of the question followed on nicely from the question asked by the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) a moment ago. Like everyone in the House–I would hope–I read the reports about what apparently happened in Islington council and found them extremely disturbing. They show what happens when political correctness runs riot. I believe that tolerance, in that environment, becomes excess. It causes untold suffering for those in need of help. This was a sad example of what happens when the Labour party is in power. The hon. Member for Barnsley, Central neglected to mention the activities that went on in Islington, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing them to my attention.

     

    Q4. Ms Quin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 25 May.

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

    Ms Quin: Does the Prime Minister recall his prediction at the 1991 Conservative party conference that Labour would introduce eight new taxes if it took office? How does that claim look now in the light of the 20 new taxes that he and the Government have introduced?

    The Prime Minister: Perhaps the hon. Lady should glance at the list of new taxes to which Opposition Front Benchers have committed themselves if they come to government– [Hon. Members:– “Rubbish.”] Opposition Members are right: most of the taxes that they propose are rubbish. Labour is now and always has been the party of high taxation at national and local levels, and while the Opposition continue to commit themselves to more spending on every occasion, they always will be the party of high taxation.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with John Bruton – 9 May 1995

    Below is the transcript of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with John Bruton in Moscow on Tuesday 9th May 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me just, by way of introduction, say a word or two about the talks that the Taoiseach and I have had this afternoon. We have taken the opportunity of both being here in Moscow to discuss a range of issues and I will elaborate upon those in a moment. But I would like to say, before I do, that this afternoon’s discussions have been another further illustration, if one would need it, that the relationship between the British government and the Irish government is as good, as sound and as close today as I believe it has been at any stage in the past and I am delighted that that is so and I believe the Taoiseach feels precisely the same way about it.

    We touched upon a range of matters this afternoon, let me run through those we dealt with and then you may wish to ask a few questions about them. We looked at the agenda for the forthcoming European Council at Cannes and we discussed a range of issues, most noticeably the problem faced right across Western Europe on drugs, the sort of issues that are going to be discussed at the Cannes Conference. We took a further look ahead to the Intergovernmental Conference itself. Clearly there are a range of issues, institutional questions and other issues as well, and we had a very preliminary discussion about that and agreed that we would resume bilateral discussion about that at our next formal bilateral summit. We have not agreed a date for that but we would expect it to be probably before the middle of September and our officials will now look and see if they can find a specific date for it. This is part of a series of bilaterals that we have agreed to have, two a year alternately in Dublin and London, and thus far they have proved extremely worthwhile and extremely productive.

    We discussed the present situation in the talks about Ireland. I was able to say to the Taoiseach that our talks with the Loyalist Paramilitaries are proceeding extremely well, we are very happy with the developments there have been thus far and those of course are continuing.

    I also confirmed to the Taoiseach that Michael Ancram will meet Sinn Fein tomorrow, for the first occasion upon which there have been discussions at Ministerial level between Sinn Fein’s representatives and a representative of the British government. I expect these talks to go on for some time, there are a range of matters that we will need to discuss there. The purpose of these talks is to reach sufficient agreement to enable Sinn Fein to enter into all-party political talks, that is the objective, we wish to help and ease Sinn Fein into bilateral political talks in due course.

    Clearly that does mean dealing with a range of issues, most obviously it means dealing with the question of decommissioning of arms, and we have made it clear in the past that it will be necessary for Sinn Fein to agree that decommissioning will take place, to agree the modalities of decommissioning, and then to move forward to some practical demonstrations. And that is not just the question of the British government saying that needs to be done, the reality is that unless that is done the other political parties will not engage in bilateral talks. To move forward to bilateral talks is essential if we are going to carry this process as far forward as we wish to and we will enter into those talks with Sinn Fein in the hope that we will be able to satisfactorily move Sinn Fein from the present position into a position where the other political parties will be happy to engage in dialogue with them.

    That is a broad brush outline of the matters we discussed this afternoon, the Taoiseach may wish to add something and then we will take any questions you may have.

    MR BRUTON:

    As the Prime Minister said, we discussed the drugs issue which is a major problem in Europe and in both our countries and we are anxious to see action taken both individually and at a European level to deal with this scourge which is affecting the livelihoods and happiness of so many families in our two countries.

    We are also very keen to see the Intergovernmental Conference work, to see the European Union enlarge in an effective way and we discussed in a preliminary fashion some of the issues that will be coming up at Cannes and later on in Majorca in the lead-up to the Intergovernmental Conference on these questions.

    I welcomed very much what the Prime Minister said to me, as he has now said to you, the fact that the British government is working, as is the Irish government, to a situation where all parties will take part in discussions with both governments and with all other parties on the same basis. Obviously a number of important issues remain to be resolved before one can reach that point, but what is very clear is that it is the intention of Her Majesty’s government and the Irish government to seek to achieve that objective as soon as is feasible. Obviously patience will be required, a willingness to understand the concerns of the other side of the table will be required from all participants, but we believe that that requirement will be met.

    QUESTION:

    You said that there was a question-mark over the talks which start tomorrow, because you have put a challenge to Sinn Fein about whether they would condemn the violent demonstration in Londonderry. They did not condemn those people who took part in that demonstration. Why have you decided to go ahead with the talks anyway?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I set out in the House of Commons on Thursday that there are much wider issues at stake. The interests of the people of Northern Ireland are to try and see this process through and I think that is the thing that weighs most heavily on my mind. As I set out in the House of Commons last week, I think we need to look at those wider interests, we need to ensure that nothing artificially puts a block upon the prospects of progress. I have no doubt that the demonstration there was in Derry last week was not Derry people, I don’t think Derry need feel any concern about their own particular position. It was an organised demonstration, it was silly. I hope from that that Sinn Fein have learned it was silly, I think it has been very widely condemned from many sources. Let us see if they are now prepared at those talks to make the sort of progress that they have been talking about. Mr Adams has been saying for a long time that he would like to make progress, that he would like these peace talks to proceed. Well now he has the opportunity, his colleagues have the opportunity, face to face with a British Minister, to look at the issues that they know and we know and everybody in Ireland knows need to be resolved if we are to carry this matter forward. I think that is the most important issue.

    QUESTION:

    Before the ceasefire you once said in the Commons that your stomach would turn at the prospect of talks with the IRA, looking back do you now regret having said that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, John, because if you look back and read what I said at the same tine and you see the complete quote, you will see that what I said, I was referring to talks while murder, bombing and violence was continuing, and if you look back at what I said in the House of Commons and look at the whole quote and not a partial quote you will see that is what I said.

    QUESTION:

    On the question of decommission, the Prime Minister has been quite specific that he still needs to see progress, he needs to see modalities in position before Sinn Fein can take part in talks with other people. Are you in agreement on that position?

    MR BRUTON:

    I think there has got to be serious progress made on the issue of getting the guns out of politics and putting them out of commission. This is not just a requirement of the government, it is a requirement of the other parties with whom the settlement must be reached. It is not practical to think in terms for example of Sinn Fein sitting down on the basis of equality with the Unionists and reaching an agreement with them while guns are still in commission, that is the reality that the government recognise, it is not a requirement imposed by the government as such, it is a reality there which has to be met anyway, this is obvious that decommissioning has to be dealt with very seriously on the agenda of these talks. And we will both be looking for discussions to take place not just on the principle of decommissioning but also on exactly how it is going to be done in some detail. But as we have stressed on several occasions the decommissioning of arms is not the only item on the agenda, there are other items as well and we want to see progress on those too.

    QUESTION:

    But does it have to be decoupled from the question of demilitarisation which Sinn Fein don’t want to do?

    MR BRUTON:

    I believe that a satisfactory basis has now been reached for discussions between Sinn Fein and the British government, all the background has now been satisfactorily covered and we have reached a formula upon which the discussions can now take place and it is a question of getting down to business now, discussing the whole range of issues that are important here, not just decommissioning of arms, also the issues of policing, the position of prisoners, the possible releasing of prisoners in due course, an issue which I mentioned to the Prime Minister during the course of our discussions, and the recognition of the mandate of the parties involved, the ability of parties to make representations to Ministers, all of these are issues that now need to be dealt with in a constructive spirit. There is not one item on the agenda, but it would be entirely wrong to under-estimate the importance of getting rid of the guns.

    QUESTION:

    Martin McGuinness has apparently said that there would be no surrender of arms this side of a political settlement, can you comment on that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the place to have discussions like that is in the discussions and not here with you and nor with Mr McGuinness making statements outside. I think often things are said for public consumption. The reality is to test whether those things are meant or not. Sinn Fein say to me, say to everyone, that they want to move forward with their democratic mandate. You cannot move forward with a democratic mandate with a gun in your hand. So the reality is that in the discussions the gun is going to have to come out of Irish politics, everyone understands that. So I think people should be less concerned about statements made for public consumption and look at what practical progress can be made in discussions. The discussions are there for practical progress, I think no-one is in any doubt about what needs to be done, it has been self-evident, the Northern Irish political parties are clear about it, the British government is clear about it, the Taoiseach has made his position clear, the Vice-President of the United States yet again made the American position clear, the position of the churches in Northern Ireland collectively is entirely clear. So we are now entering into talks in which the old oratory I hope can be thrown to one side and pushed aside, now we are reaching a situation where we need to see what actions can be taken and in Northern Ireland it is going to be actions in the future that matter, not the words of the past.

    QUESTION:

    The Taoiseach mentioned the release of prisoners, do the British accept the early release of convicted terrorists?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have a British legal system, I cannot change the British legal situation, that is the situation now and that has always been the situation and I certainly cannot discuss that today.

    QUESTION:

    The ceremony this morning in Red Square was billed in advance as a parade of veterans, there were clearly more than veterans there this morning, including possibly some soldiers who fought in Chechnya, does this disturb you at all?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there were boys there, very young men there who clearly were not veterans, there were some youngsters there who were 15 or 17 who I think came from some of the Academies in Moscow, I am not aware of any veterans that were being there, but I simply don’t know.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible] serving soldiers, I spoke to them.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is not a matter I am aware of and it is not a matter I can comment on at the moment. You told me that, I was not aware of that.

    QUESTION:

    I understand the Russians [inaudible] would be strictly veterans only?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We were not expecting Chechnyan veterans there, that is certainly the case, I don’t know whether there were or not, I certainly have not heard that there were.

    QUESTION:

    In your bilateral talks with President Yeltsin, did you bring up Chechnya and were you satisfied with what he said to you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Yes I did bring up Chechnya, we discussed a range of matters, Chechnya, NATO, bilateral matters, a number of other things, and they were very satisfactorily discussed. The substantive part of the discussion was about NATO and we had discussed this at some length when President Yeltsin visited me at Chequers some months ago and we returned to those discussions again this morning and I think they were very worthwhile and very productive. We also look forward to the G7/G8 meeting in Halifax later this year and looked at some of the issues that we may discuss there. So although it was a good deal briefer than many of our meetings because there were a lot of other events for us to attend today, we managed to cover quite a lot of ground.

    QUESTION:

    What did you say to him about Chechnya and what did he say to you?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I made it clear, I think people understand the British government’s position about Chechnya, we have emphasised that again. We also made it clear that it is very important to keep the OSCE heavily involved in Chechnya and President Yeltsin assured me that that would be the case.

    QUESTION:

    Did you discuss the expansion of NATO?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The Russian position is as it has been for some time, the Russians are concerned about the expansion of NATO and clearly what concerns the Russians is that there is going to be a very sudden and very dramatic expansion of NATO, right across Central and Eastern Europe and the Russians are self-evidently worried about that. I was able to say to President Yeltsin that we don’t envisage a dramatic and sudden remarkable expansion of NATO, that this is a progressive evolutionary expansion and that, at the same time we will be building up with the United States and other countries the Partnership in Peace Initiative and clearly within that there is a very special place for Russia because Russia is quite apart in terms of its size and its military importance of any of the other nations. And I think many of the concerns that I understand abound here in Russia, I understand why those concerns are there but I think many of them are a mis-reading of what is actually proposed in terms of the future of NATO and we were able to talk about this morning.

  • PMQT – 9 May 1995

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 9th May 1995. Tony Newton responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Jon Owen Jones: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 9 May.

    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is currently in Moscow on an official visit as part of the VE day commemorations.

    Mr. Jones: Does the Leader of the House have any sympathy for a perplexed and lonely young man, Mr. John Richards, the last remaining Tory councillor in Cardiff, who only eight years ago was part of a ruling group with more than 30 colleagues? While Mr. Richards looks around and tries to find out what has happened to his colleagues, how does the Leader of the House explain that calamity? Does he think that– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order.

    Mr. Jones: Does he think that on Thursday, the electorate showed that they have the same opinion of the Government as Will Carling has of the Rugby Football Union?

    Mr. Newton: My sympathy is with the people of Cardiff for what is about to be inflicted on them.

    Mr. Hunter: Bearing in mind the commemorative theme of the past few days, and in anticipation of the Government’s meeting tomorrow with Sinn Fein, will my right hon. Friend reassert that the Government will not bow to the IRA, will never surrender to IRA tyranny and will never seek appeasement with the evil of the IRA, but will remain resolute and resist all that Sinn Fein-IRA has stood for over the years?

    Mr. Newton: I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance he seeks. As he will know, it has repeatedly been made clear that we were not prepared to agree to Ministers joining the exploratory talks with Sinn Fein until it accepted that position and the need for a serious dialogue about decommissioning.

    Mr. Prescott: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that Thursday’s local elections were a disaster for the Tories and a triumph for Labour? Does he agree with his right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson), that the Government should stop lecturing and start listening to the British people, beginning tomorrow with the London hospital debate?

    Mr. Newton: The best thing that I can say to the right hon. Gentleman is that I have been studying with interest a report in The Guardian of 6 May under the heading,

    “Record haul of seats for reborn left”,

    which is followed by a quotation by the then Leader of the Opposition claiming that it shows the result of the next general election. That was in 1990.

    Mr. Prescott: The House will note that the right hon. Gentleman avoided the question on the London hospitals. Is not the simple truth that, 50 years ago, the Tories voted against the creation of Labour’s national health service and that, in the past five years, they have closed more than 300 hospitals and will vote tomorrow to close some more? Is not that why one can never trust the Tories when they say that the national health service is safe in their hands?

    Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will set out very clearly in tomorrow’s debate a policy, the purpose of which is to create a modern pattern of hospital and primary care provision in London. That is what it will do. As to capital schemes, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, since 1980, more than 800 schemes, each worth £1 million or more, have been completed. That is roughly one a week. At present, there are more than 300 such schemes at the planning, design or construction stage, and that is the biggest sustained hospital and health service development programme in our history.

     

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

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Congdon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the imposition of a national minimum wage would destroy jobs? Is it not an act of political cowardice to talk about bringing in a minimum wage while not having the courage to specify its level?

    Mr. Newton: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I think that it was the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) who acknowledged that a minimum wage would destroy jobs. Although that has been acknowledged, no figure has been given. All we know is that jobs would be destroyed, and it is time that the Opposition told us how many.

    Sir David Steel: The Leader of the House is a regular tourist in Scotland. Therefore, will he welcome as much as we do this morning’s decision by the Court of Session in Edinburgh that British Rail cannot axe its services at the end of May without going through the full consultation procedure? Will he make sure that Government money is there to maintain those services?

    Mr. Newton: The right hon. Gentleman rather exaggerates my activities as a tourist in Scotland, although I recall meeting him at a fete in his constituency a couple of years ago. I understand that an application for judicial review has been heard and that the court has ruled that British Rail may not withdraw the service until the statutory closure procedure has been completed. It is for the British Railways Board and ScotRail to consider what action to take in the light of the full written judgement, and it would not be right for me to comment further at this stage.

     

    Q3. Mrs. Peacock: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 9 May.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mrs. Peacock: Will my right hon. Friend join me in sending thanks to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother for her role 50 years ago in supporting King George during the dark and difficult days of the war? Will he also join me in warmly thanking her for her tremendous support and activity during the VE celebrations over the weekend?

    Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend speaks for the whole House. Over the weekend there has been an outstandingly successful series of events of remembrance, reconciliation and hope for the future. They reminded us of the contribution that was made by our service men and service women and many civilians to the effort of 50 years ago. As my hon. Friend says, it has reminded us not least of the contribution that was made by the late King and Her Majesty the Queen Mother during the war and by Her Majesty the Queen over so many years since then.

     

    Q4. Mr. Wilson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 9 May.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Wilson: Since the threat to overnight rail services between Scotland and England arises directly from Government policies, many of us think that it is precisely for the Leader of the House to answer in respect of what happened in the Court of Session this morning. What does it tell us about this Government that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Transport were both prepared to conspire in a deceit that has been found to be illegal as well as immoral?

    Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that the letter and the spirit of today’s judgment will be respected by the Government? Does he accept that this excellent decision will give fresh heart to campaigners throughout the country, who see similar threats to their vulnerable services in what the Government are doing to the railway industry?

    Mr. Newton: As I have already said, it is now obviously right for the terms of the judgment to be properly and carefully considered, but I also remind the hon. Gentleman that the decision to withdraw this service was a commercial matter for British Rail, and that representations, of a kind to which he will no doubt wish to contribute, about all sleeper services can be made when the Franchising Director consults on the passenger service requirement later this month.

    Mr. Streeter: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the French people, who on Sunday rejected socialism and elected a right-wing President? Does not that show– [Interruption.]

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

    Mr. Streeter: On Sunday, the French people rejected socialism and elected a right-wing President. Does not that show that all over Europe people recognise that, while left-wing politicians offer sound bites, Conservative policies work?

    Mr. Newton: I certainly wish to welcome the election of the new President, and I think everyone would wish to send him this country’s good wishes in his new job. My hon. Friend is right to say that one of the factors in that election will have been the extent to which socialist policies are coming under criticism throughout Europe. Indeed, the French Employers’ Federation has said:

    “the excessive level and poor structure of taxes on business add to production costs, slowing down investment and job creation.” It is exactly the policies that have now been rejected in France that right hon. and hon. Labour Members would now want to impose on Britain.

     

    Q5. Mr. Jamieson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 9 May.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Jamieson: Is the Leader of the House aware that, following last Thursday’s meltdown of Tory support in the south-west, particularly in the constituency of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), 55 out of 60 councillors on Plymouth city council are Labour members, and the only bodies that the Conservatives control in the region are the quangos? Is not the message from last Thursday’s elections that there is now an unbridgeable gap between the electorate and the Government? The only way in which that can be bridged is by having a general election.

    Mr. Newton: Earlier, I extended my sympathy to the people of Cardiff; I will now extend my sympathy to the people of Plymouth.

     

    Ministerial Visits

    Q6. Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Swindon.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

    My right hon. Friend has no current plans to do so.

    Mr. Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that companies in Swindon and elsewhere would rather stick with a Government who have firmly rejected the concept of a national minimum wage than run the risk of supporting a party that might introduce a national minimum wage at a level so low that it would be meaningless, or at a level that would imperil employment and run the risk of reducing companies’ investment in training?

    Mr. Newton: I agree with my hon. Friend that the people of Swindon and, no doubt, the people of every town in the country would not wish to go down a path that will undermine employment, heap new costs on business, undermine the economic recovery, undermine our capacity to attract overseas investment, and undermine our ability to defend Britain’s interests in Europe.

    Mr. Pike: As the Leader of the House’s job includes presentation of Government policy to the people of Swindon– [Interruption.] Ah, I know, Madam Speaker–

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) widened the question, but I do not want questioning to go too wide.

    Mr. Pike: As it is the right hon. Gentleman’s job to present Government policy, does he accept that either his presentation has failed or the policy has failed? Will he tell the people of Swindon what change of policy he now proposes–or does he intend to go?

    Mr. Newton: I would tell the people of Swindon–and, indeed, those represented by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike)–that, when unemployment is falling by 1,000 a day, when we are enjoying the most sustained period of low inflation for more than 30 years, when export volumes have risen by 12.5 per cent. in a year and when for two successive years ours has been the fastest-growing major European Union economy, one thing is certain: the policies are succeeding.

     

    Engagements

    Q7. Mr. Waterson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 9 May.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the VE day commemorations throughout the country at the weekend were extremely moving? Does he also agree that we have had 50 years of peace in Europe because this country has maintained strong defences, and has refused to listen to the voices of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament members and sympathisers in the Labour party?

    Mr. Newton: I agree with my hon. Friend on both counts. As I said earlier, the celebrations themselves were an outstanding and impressive success; and there is no doubt that the fact that we were able to have them rests on the firmness of this country’s defence policy over the years–a policy that has frequently not been supported by the Labour party.