The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Taxation

  • Mr Major’s Speech to Business People at the Ritz Hotel – 7 December 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to business people at the Ritz Hotel in London, given on Wednesday 7th December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me turn straight to contemporary events. I don’t propose to mince my words this morning. You wouldn’t expect it and frankly I’m not in the mood to do so. Last night we lost a vote on a tax measure. I don’t take that remotely lightly. Taxes tend to be unpopular. They usually are. The first popular tax has yet to be invented and I don’t think Norman Lamont or Ken Clarke have yet found it. But I know of no tax that has been so misrepresented in such lurid and emotional terms as the tax upon which we lost the vote last evening.

    What has been said about it, frankly, is a travesty of reality and I will tell you who the great gainers are from last night’s vote, it’s you. It isn’t the pensioners, it isn’t the people in particular difficulties, it’s people who will now not be paying the increased tax on energy. I think it was a mistaken vote last night. You’ll be unsurprised to hear me say that. I hope you will be unsurprised to hear me say also, that the Chancellor will come back to the House on Thursday and he will repair the fiscal position that was damaged by last night’s vote. There should not be a shred of doubt in anyone’s mind about that. We set out the fiscal position, we’re determined to bring down borrowing, we’re determined to sustain recovery, we are going to take no risks with the recovery whatsoever and so on Thursday the Chancellor will set out an alternative measure of ensuring that the fiscal position is unaltered as a result of last night’s vote.

    So let me tell you why I feel very strongly about that. If I may take you back a few years. On the first day I became Chancellor, I said at the time – looking at positions where we were clearly heading into recession, where inflation was still going up quite rapidly, where unemployment was clearly on a very rapid rise and we were clearly on the top of a hill that was undoubtedly going to head down – that if it isn’t hurting it isn’t working. What I had in mind was the problem that we had repeatedly faced since the early 1950s. Time and time and time again, we see the economy looking set fair for some time and inflation has just driven us off course. The consistent low inflation economy that we’ve seen in Germany for so many years with the industrial and other benefits that have necessarily followed it.

    I am sick and tired of time and time again seeing us driven off course by inflation. Not just the social consequences. It’s all very well for economists and statisticians to regard inflation as a phenomenon. An economically interesting phenomenon. For ordinary people, if you have to pay bills at the end of the week and you can’t pay them, that is what inflation means and that is the misery that lots of individuals face when inflation remotely begins to get out of hand. From your point of view it means you aren’t going to be able to compete with the French, the Germans, the Japanese, Pacific Basin countries and the United States unless our inflation record as a nation is at least as good as those of our competitors abroad. We are determined that that is the bedrock upon which economic policy is to be built. A bedrock of low inflation. And once people understand that that is the basis of what we are about, they may understand a great deal else that’s happened in the last four years or so.

    I remember very well the period running up to the last General Election. All those seductive voices saying to me, well the economy’s clearly in a downturn. Bring interest rates down speedily. A little extra help here, a little extra help there. Well maybe. I can see the short term attraction for that. But would it have delivered a position where conceivably we might break the inflationary psychology that has damaged this country for so long? That was the prize that we have been pursuing and that was right up to and during the General Election. We ignored the voices encouraging us to buy a little popularity by reducing interest rates and loosening economic policy.

    So I hope no one doubts the determination of the Government to obtain an anti-inflationary strategy and to ensure that the opportunity that I now believe lies out there in the economy, is not an opportunity that is thrown away. Let me just say a word or two about the recovery. Where I think we are. What I think is happening. Some of the down sides of what’s happening and where I think we’re going. I don’t have a shred of doubt that, providing we continue to pursue the right policies we have a series of unprecedented opportunities in front of us.

    Growth over the last twelve months is higher than we expected. Higher, I think, than is sustainable. 4 per cent is not sustainable and our forecasts are for lower growth in the years immediately ahead. But it isn’t only the 4 per cent growth. We have 4 per cent growth with 2 per cent underlying inflation. Some would argue even less in reality. Now, not for decades have we seen a position where growth is double the rate of inflation. Now that is extremely attractive in many ways. Certainly extremely attractive for Great Britain plc. I think there’s not a shred of doubt about that. Greatly attractive for industry.

    Less attractive I think for the retail sector. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the retail sector often is more buoyant when it has an inflationary position. When people are getting large wage increases. When they can see prices rising, then there’s a propensity to spend and spend quickly before prices go up. That is undoubtedly the case. How long that tradition, that transitional instinct, will occur amongst the British purchaser I can’t say. But I am clear that for the country as a whole, a low inflation and high growth strategy is the right strategy for this country.

    We’ve seen unemployment fall quite dramatically over the past twenty months or so. If I can draw a parallel, I suppose the European economy closest to ours is the French economy. They have unemployment at around 12.8 per cent. We have unemployment at just under 9 per cent and falling. Unemployment has fallen, is falling and I believe will continue to fall.

    But not only is it coming down, but the proportion of our adult population in work is second I think only to Denmark, maybe third behind Portugal. Right the way across Europe and certainly far better than our natural comparators in Europe, Germany and France. We have a remarkably changed circumstance. Particularly in manufacturing industry. Exports are hitting record levels. If not quite every month, certainly on a regular basis. If one looks back over a few years. British Steel, a basket case ten years ago. I recommend anyone who hasn’t been to the Port Talbot works to go there and have a look for themselves at the remarkable change there has been there. Anyone attending the Motor Show would see again, an industry if one goes back a few years to Red Robbo, Long Bridge.

    Go and look at what is actually happening to the British motor industry and if you had meetings with a large number of Heads of Government in Budapest, what they had to say about the British economy, British exports and the British capacity to perform, then you would wonder what sort of world many of the critics of British industry and of this Government are actually living in.

    You see the determination they have to attract British investment into their countries, to attract British skills. The belief that they want British products because they are delivered on time. They are as good as anybody else and at the moment we are probably the most competitive industrial nation in Western Europe. They understand that out there and I think it is about time some of those people who seem to pervade a pall of gloom over everything that happens in the British economy began to recognise it in the United Kingdom as well. Is this just a normal recovery? I don’t believe that it is because there are elements of this recovery that are sharply different from those we’ve seen on previous occasions.

    Now it isn’t all that long ago since those wise and gloomy people were telling me, that when you come out of recovery, you’re going to have to balance the payments crisis. If I heard that once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. We are patently out of the recession, have been for two years. We have not got a balance of payments crisis. The balance of payments is actually narrower. You’re going to go straight into an inflationary spiral they said. Well of course we must keep our thumb on inflation and we will. Of course, the natural laws of economics aren’t suspended as you recover. You’re going to have keep a firm hand on inflation.

    But there’s no risk of spiralling inflation wrecking this recovery and they were wrong again about that. And then there were the people who said after the ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism that all this devaluation is going to work through the competitiveness advantage. It’ll go straight into wages and as ever the British economy will see it all slip away after devaluation. I do actually see that devaluation having worked its way through into profits, not necessarily all distributed in dividends. The profits going back into reinvestment and it certainly has not gone straight into wages and out to the people. If it had the Government might be a bit more popular.

    I can tell you one thing, anybody who thinks that low inflation is politically popular, wants their political bumps felt. It may be right for this country and I passionately believe that it is. But it certainly doesn’t make the Government popular. People like large wage rises. They like large rises in social security benefits. They don’t like it when they get 2 per cent or 3 per cent or less. They don’t like it because there’s an instinct after years and years of high inflation and having large money increases in their pockets, and the fact that prices aren’t going up is little political consolation to them. How many people out there in the country actually realise that energy prices have been falling and falling consistently? Go out there and ask them. They will look at you if you say that as though you are stark staring bonkers. So low inflation is right, but it isn’t popular politically and you can very clearly see that.

    Now let me turn to another matter that I think is fundamental. Fundamental because to the difficulties the Government has been facing and fundamental to the prospects of this country. There are three views about our membership of the European Union. There is the view that it is the best thing that ever happened and nothing that can happen in Europe can be wrong. There is the view that it is the worst thing that ever happened and nothing that happens in Europe can ever be right and then there is a sane and logical view, which is where in reality 90 per cent of the British nationals truly lie. And that is the belief that our economic and other interests mean we must be in Europe. We must play a central part in Europe. We can only build the sort of Europe that we feel comfortable with if we are in the middle of it pitching for the sort of Europe we want. It is about time we stopped having the argument conducted at extremes with the viewpoint of the vast majority of the people apparently being swept aside as though it was of no consequence.

    I find it immensely frustrating that the argument on Europe only seems to be carried out by the people on either extreme of the argument. You don’t have to be an extremist to have conviction and passion about what is right for this country is Europe. And I don’t have a shred of doubt that our interests are for us to be in the European Union, building the sort of European Union we want. Where would so much of your trade be if we were not? What would be the position if we found ourselves outside real influence? What would happen in terms of the regulations and directives is that they will have taken place and affected us whether we liked it or not. If we were not in there pitching.

    Would you have had a single market across Europe? But for the British you would not. Would you have had a reform, of the common agricultural policy? But for the British you would not. Would you have had the beginning of large scale deregulation across Europe? Emphatically you would have not. Would you have had subsidiarity and a repeal of one quarter of unnecessary European legislation if we hadn’t fought for it at Maastricht and afterwards? You would not. Would you have known about fraud in Europe if we hadn’t demanded extra powers from the Court of Auditors in Europe and got them and published their report so people could see what was happening? You would not. But why do we not get these things presented in a practical and honest way?

    I saw these reports about 6 billion pounds worth of fraud in Europe and the Court of Auditors. But I’ll tell you this, that 6 billion pounds figure wasn’t in the Court of Auditors. I think it was some professor in France who dreamed that up some time ago. How it crept into the Court of Auditors report I don’t know. Of course there’s fraud there. We’ve known there’s fraud there. No Government has done more than this Government to attack that fraud problem in the European Union. I reached an agreement with Mitterrand and Balladur at Chartres, three days after all those headlines about fraud. How much publicity was there for the agreement we reached to take further action on fraud starting with discussions at Essen this weekend? Well, you needed a very long telescope to find it in newspapers of any colour.

    But let us look at the argument as it really is. Should we be in Europe? Yes. Should we fight against some of the things that happened in the European Union? Emphatically we should. Every other nation does and so should we. It’s only because of the absurdities of the way the argument is carried out in this country, that we are deemed to be anti European when we express our view in Europe – though I’m bound to say Mr Balladur’s grand new gesture sounds remarkably like my Leiden speech of some months ago and I’m delighted to see that that is the case.

    Look at what is at stake. I have to say to you here, Peter was talking about the sheer size and scale of the industrial and commercial enterprises that you know. Well, I doubt there’s more than a handful, if even a handful of people in this room, who don’t believe that our interests lie in Europe, and emphatically lie in Europe. If I may say so at the risk of infringing your hospitality Peter, it is about time some of you got up and said that. It is about time you started saying that loud and clear. It is about time you stopped having this debate run by a handful of people who are fundamentally opposed to Europe and who will seem to turn every part of the debate against what is happening in Europe. Of course, we argued about the things that are wrong and we must, but it is about time we looked at their real interest. Why do we get so much investment in this country from abroad? Is it the Government’s popularity do you think? Is it our climate? Is it the excellence of the management of British industry or perhaps men of charm, skill, discretion? Wonderful businessmen no doubt.

    But it just might possibly have something to do with the fact that we are the most deregulated on trade to the richest market the world has ever seen. Ask Robin Cook what he would have done without NEC in his constituency. Prescott said the other day, holding up his telescope to his Nelsonian eye “I see no companies rushing to invest in this country”. He should have had a word with Tony Blair sitting next to him and ask him where Black and Decker had gone, and why they’d gone there. If he sees no investment running into this country, I just wonder precisely what he can see. Because there’s a vast weight of investment coming into this country. We’re getting more United States and Japanese investment than France and Germany added together. NEC, Samsung, Black and Decker. The list rolls on. Not just the list of some years ago, but the list of actual contemporary inward investment as a result of our domestic policies here and the fact that we are the most attractive market in Europe for those international companies who want to be part of the European market.

    Now let’s be in no doubt about the importance of that. And let us be in no doubt about the fact that the Government’s policy is to remain a full and complete part of Europe, but that we will be determined to fight against the things in Europe that we believe are premature or wrong. It’s because I believe the Social Chapter was wrong that I refused to accept it at Maastricht. It’s because I believe a single currency is premature – I believe will remain premature for many, many years to come – that I am also determined that we should not be committed to that in the Maastricht Treaty and I believe that that is right. Were we right on the Social Chapter? Self-evidently right. When Jacques Delors said it would make this country a paradise for inward investment, I could have hugged him. I didn’t. But he was absolutely right.

    Let me just touch on the Budget. Just elaborate on some of the things I’ve been saying. We need to safeguard the recovery we’ve got. That’s why we need to keep public finances under very tight control. That’s why the public spending plans were cut by, more I think on this occasion than any time since the Conservative Government has been in office since 1979. That’s why there were a whole series of supply side measures to help people out of dependency and back in work. Particularly those who’d been unemployed for a long time. And that’s why within the resources available, there was more help for business and industry. But frankly I don’t think you need a lot more help. I think we just need us to produce the right macro economic framework and the minimum amount of regulation so you can get on with your own work. We’ve at last got through the House of Lords the Deregulation Act. The Act gives the capacity to deregulate in many areas by secondary legislation rather than by primary legislation. Now, don’t let me fool you. Deregulation isn’t easy to achieve. For every piece of deregulation we want, there is a lobby determined to oppose it. That has been the position and will remain the position in the future, but I think it is absolutely vital that we deregulate and we intend to.

    I said some time ago, that I regarded education as being right at the top of the priorities. I don’t just see it as a social matter. It’s a supply side measure for industry as well. That is the raw material upon which you would build your enterprises in the next 20 or 30 years. And I’m not satisfied with what is emerging from British schools. It is getting better. But while we find ourselves still behind in qualifications, still behind much of what is happening in South East Asia, we can’t possibly be satisfied. That is why we put the reforms in place, long term reforms, not short term reforms, not day to day management, but long term reforms on testing, on performance tables, on a slimmed down national curriculum, on inspection. To make sure we really know what is going on in the education system, because without that how can we put right the things that don’t seem to be going right.

    We wanted one in three in further education. We had one in eight in further education in 1979, we anticipated one in three by the turn of the century. We will reach that this year, nearly one in three of our young people going into higher education. Now these are remarkable changes. Bit by bit our political opponents, who opposed us bitterly, have clambered on board the sledge and acknowledged that those education reforms are right and those education reforms will continue and entrench, because we need to ensure the best possible education in future.

    Let me just summarise briefly. We will take no risks, whatever the political unpopularity may be, with the recovery that I believe is now firmly established. We want a consistent, sustained, low inflationary recovery with growth at trend or above trend level. We wish to see unemployment continue to fall and I believe it will. We wish to continue to deregulate, to clear the ground for business and industry to maximise their penetration of world markets. There’s no doubt out there across the world there is a great demand, great opportunities for British goods. We may never be certain, we may be on the way to cracking the inflationary psychology that has done us so much harm in the past. Look at the opportunity that is beginning to become apparent in this country. It can be thrown away if we’re forced off course. It can be thrown away if you have policies of minimum wages. As John Prescott engagingly said “any silly fool knows that it will cost jobs”. The Social Chapter, with all the dangers, would do. If you look at costs in this country and compared them to costs in the rest of Europe, you see a significant competitive advantage because we are not piling extra costs on employers and as a result of that we have had more people in employment.

    I see no morality in providing extra benefits to people in work and condemning those out of work to stay out of work. If there’s a moral argument about unemployment between ourselves and our political opponents and ourselves in Europe, I believe we have the moral high ground in terms of trying to price people back into jobs, rather than electorally by favours from those in jobs and to hell with those who are out of jobs who would then never get back in. You of course want the lowest possible tax structure and I have to say to our opponents that a training tax, a windfall tax, a carbon tax – it sounds astonishingly to me like that VAT I have to say – those taxes will do precious little good to British industry. Nor would levelling out corporation and other taxes across Europe which our political opponents regard as their policy.

    Development tax, extra regional assemblies. I cannot think of a policy more irrelevant and more stupid and more damaging and more dangerous than to say you’re going into large scale constitutional change just at the moment when we ought to be concentrating on entrenching for good the economic and other changes that have taken place in this country. And as for closing massive tax loopholes, Howard Davies said they’re not closing loopholes, they disguise fresh taxation on business and nobody should be in any doubt about that.

    So the choice is clear. For those people who think there is no difference. There may even be some journalists here who think there’s no difference between the Parties. I suggest they lift their eyes and actually look at the clear distinct differences in economic and industrial policy between the two major Parties. I’m happy to fight on that. It isn’t always a popular message to preach prosperity in the long term, but I’ll tell you this. It is the right message. It is the message that is actually going to improve our living standards, not just tomorrow, but for a long period ahead. I believe it is the right policy. I think industry knows it’s the right policy and if industry wants to protect that policy, I hope industry will take the opportunity and speak out and say that it’s the right policy.

  • PMQT – 6 December 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 6th December 1994. Tony Newton responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mrs. Bridget Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.

    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 has been attending the Budapest summit of the conference on security and co-operation in Europe.

    Mrs. Prentice: What advice would the Leader of the House give to his hon. Friends who have made public commitments to vote against any rise in VAT on fuel? Should they stand by their principles and their constituents or should they abandon those principles, ditch their constituents and toe the Tory party line?

    Mr. Newton: My advice to my hon. Friends would be to recognise the importance of the vote tonight and the fact that it will be incumbent on those who wish to vote as the hon. Lady suggests–as she will, no doubt, vote herself–to show a credible alternative and not some cop-out like a windfall tax. The alternatives are other taxes, cuts in expenditure or additional borrowing, with all that that might mean for interest rates.

     

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

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Pawsey: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the overwhelming majority of the British people are opposed to any fundamental constitutional change? They do not wish to see a Scandinavian-style monarchy and they do not wish to see a socialist republic. They believe that any such changes would be highly expensive and totally unnecessary. They believe, “If it works, don’t fix it.”

    Mr. Newton: I think that my hon. Friend speaks for the large majority of people in this country in finding it almost unbelievable that the Labour party apparently thinks that its first priority should be to have a year of constitutional upheaval, involving all British institutions, including Parliament, and threatening the Union. I believe that Labour has greatly underestimated the strength and depth of public support for the monarchy.

    Mr. Blair: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that in tonight’s vote on VAT there will be two types of Tory Member: those who will abide by their specific promise made at the general election not to extend VAT on fuel and those who will make any promise to get elected with no intention of keeping to it even when some of the poorest people in our country will be affected?

    Mr. Newton: From what the right hon. Gentleman says, I suppose that we can assume that there will be only one kind of Labour Member–one who votes for an irresponsible cop-out.

    Mr. Blair: Is the Leader of the House really saying that there is no other way to restore the nation’s finances than through this most hated and unpopular tax? Why does he not look first at the executive share options, the abuses of inheritance tax and the windfall profits made by utilities rather than taxing families and pensioners?

    Mr. Newton: I have already described the windfall tax as a cop-out; by definition, a windfall must be a one-off and cannot replace a continuing stream of revenue. As for the right hon. Gentleman’s loopholes, I remind him of the words of the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who said that this

    “is not a loophole-closing exercise at all, rather a massive increase in business taxation”.

    That is the clue to the Opposition’s position. They prattle all the time about their desire to encourage employment, but every time they are pushed, they want to put up business taxes, raise social costs and damage investment and jobs.

    Mr. Blair: Is it really the nation’s finances that concern the right hon. Gentleman, or the Conservative party’s pre-election tax cuts? May I summarise the strategy for which Tory Members of Parliament will vote tonight? [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. I will have order in this House. [Interruption.] Order–from all of you.

    Mr. Blair: May I summarise the strategy of Tory Members of Parliament for next year? The price of tax cuts next winter will be some of Britain’s pensioners freezing in their own homes this week.

    Mr. Newton: The right hon. Gentleman would have done better to stick to his recent practice of asking rather fewer questions. My priority and the priority of Her Majesty’s Government is to sustain an economic recovery, which is now giving us some of the strongest growth in Europe, low inflation, rapidly falling unemployment and the prospect of improving living standards. That is what we intend to maintain, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman would throw away.

     

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

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Mans: Will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that any decision regarding the Royal Air Force’s future requirement for transport aircraft will not be taken until the spring, when all the alternatives, including the future large aircraft and British Aerospace’s commitment to maintain the existing Hercules fleet at 20 per cent. below the present cost, will have been fully evaluated?

    Mr. Newton: As my hon. Friend will know, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement has made it clear that we hope to be able to make an announcement on tranche 3 of the Hercules rolling replacement programme shortly. All relevant factors will be taken into account and, I am sure, will include my hon. Friend’s representations on behalf of his constituents.

     

    Q4. Mr. Loyden: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Loyden: Does the Leader of the House recall a question asked during Business Question Time about the provision of a copy of the report of the marine accident investigation branch into the recent research done on the MV Derbyshire? Obviously, the Leader of the House made no impression on his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport because, in fact, the report is not in the Library. I was also surprised today to see a letter telling the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, which had asked for a copy of the report, that the report was a matter for the Secretary of State. Does the Leader of the House not think that the bereaved families, the House and the country are entitled to know what that report says about the investigation carried out and financed by an international union and the RMT?

    Mr. Newton: I well understand why the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter and the continuing concern of bereaved families about the loss of the Derbyshire. The position is that the chief inspector of marine accidents submitted his assessment of the sonar and video material provided by the International Transport Workers Federation to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport on 30 November–less than a week ago. My right hon. Friend is currently considering whether further action needs to taken. I shall, of course, bring to his attention the request that the hon. Gentleman has made.

    Mr. Walden: Does my right hon. Friend think that when a Member of this House makes proposals concerning the constitution it is grown-up politics or intelligent politics for Ministers to hunt him like a pack of demented corgis? How does my right hon. Friend think that we as a party can hope to reconcile the encouragement of indiscriminate deference towards well-born nonentities with our policy of encouraging and promoting social talent in this country?

    Mr. Newton: I would say to my hon. Friends what I said in answer to a previous question. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and some of his colleagues have significantly underestimated the strength and depth of public support for the monarchy, which is not the same as saying that there will not be continued evolution, as there has been during the past couple of years. More important than that, however, I believe that the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends have gravely overestimated the public’s desire to see constitutional upheaval, including the monarchy, all over the scene. I do not believe that that is what the British public want.

     

    Q5. Dr. Howells: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Dr. Howells: Does the Leader of the House agree that British troops in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia are doing a superb job in difficult and dangerous circumstances, and that the attacks on General Mike Rose and on British troops by American Congressmen and Bosnian politicians are completely unwarranted and seem designed more to promote further bloodshed than to reach a peaceful situation in the area?

    Mr. Newton: Yes, indeed. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question and for the way in which he put it. It is clear that it is widely supported in the House. For my part, and on behalf of the Government, I can say straightforwardly that we do not accept the criticism of General Rose. He and his small, courageous force are doing an excellent job in the most difficult and trying circumstances and they will continue to have our full support. I might add–I know that there is some concern in the House about the matter–that I anticipate that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has been much involved with the contact group over the weekend, will wish to make a statement tomorrow.

    Mrs. Angela Knight: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern and that of the several hundred people who have contacted me about the case of one of my constituents, the elderly pensioner Mr. Ted Newbery? Is he aware that Mr. Newbery was acquitted by a jury of the action that he took in self-defence against a burglar? The burglar was gaoled. Yet the cleared Mr. Newbery has been asked to compensate the guilty burglar. Does my right hon. Friend agree that justice has not been done, that Mr. Newbery’s case should be re-heard and that the law that is applied in such circumstances must be reviewed?

    Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend will see that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is present on the Government Front Bench and will have heard what she said. I hope that my hon. Friend will understand–she may even have anticipated what I am about to say–that I must make the point that the judiciary is entirely independent of Government and that it is not the practice for Ministers to comment on its decisions in quite the way that she invites me to do. On the other hand, she will have gauged, as no doubt others have also done, the reaction in the House generally to the events that she has described.

     

    Q6. Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Rev. Martin Smyth: Is the Leader of the House aware that Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein claims to have no semtex in his hands? Will he assure the House that Her Majesty’s Government will not be misled by such blandishments? In the light of the Hamas parallel in Israel, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the guard will not be lowered, nor the entry requirement for talks?

    Mr. Newton: The handing over of arms and explosives is, as I know that the hon. Gentleman appreciates, an important issue to be addressed in the exploratory dialogue which begins on Friday. I can give the hon. Gentleman a clear-cut assurance on behalf of all my right hon. and hon. Friends that Her Majesty’s Government will not leave the people of Northern Ireland–or, indeed, of Great Britain–exposed.

    Mr. Day: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Conservative party will always seek to protect those parents who rightly put the interests of their children first in making a choice about where to send their children to school, even if that means defending the Leader of the Opposition from the policies of his own party?

    Mr. Newton: As my hon. Friend knows, the policy of Her Majesty’s Government is not only to defend the right of choice of parents in these and other circumstances, but, so far as possible, to enhance and increase them. What I would really like to hear from Opposition Front-Bench Members- -I can see several who have opposed this in the past–is a clear-cut commitment to call off their local authorities, which are trying to frustrate that choice throughout the country.

     

    Q7. Mr. Bryan Davies: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.

    Mr. Newton: I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Davies: As the chair of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has stated, the Student Loans Company Ltd. is in such chaos that students are being denied the resources which the Government say they require in order to live. What do the Government intend to do about that?

    Mr. Newton: What I will do on this occasion is to make the point that the suggestion that the hon. Gentleman has just made appears inconsistent with the fact that, during this Government’s period in office, participation in higher education has risen from one in eight of the relevant group to one in three.

  • PMQT – 1 December 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 1st December 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Mr. Coombs: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to study the speech made by the French Prime Minister, Mr. Balladur, on the need to resist centralism and federalism in Europe? Is not that speech evidence that the entente is especially cordiale at present, and that the British Government are winning the arguments over the right kind of Europe for the future?

    The Prime Minister: I certainly did read Mr. Balladur’s speech. In fact, we discussed what he was likely to say when we met at Chartres a short while ago. I would have been pleased to make the speech that Mr. Balladur made–I nearly did at Leiden. He is right to reject federalism in favour of flexibility, say that we should avoid the encroachment of European institutions on national institutions, and talk of the need to look again at European policies as well as institutions, to keep costs down as we examine the question of enlargement. That is clear confirmation that the arguments made by the British Government for some time are increasingly gaining ground across Europe.

    Mr. Blair: As to value added tax on domestic fuel, given that it is now clear that eight and three quarter million pensioners will not even be eligible for cold weather payments, and given the Prime Minister’s specific promise at the last general election that he would not raise VAT, will the right hon. Gentleman agree to Labour’s amendment next week, so that the House can vote on whether he has kept his promise?

    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have already had four votes on VAT. He neglected to mention that, in real terms, even after last year’s VAT increase of 8 per cent., fuel prices actually fell. The position of the 15 million people who receive compensation for the VAT increase is, in real terms, better than it was before VAT was imposed on domestic fuel.

    Mr. Blair: I gather that the Chancellor is in one-to-one meetings with the Back-Bench rebels over VAT. Would not it be better if all Conservative Members of Parliament had one-to-one meetings with their constituents so that they could know of their anger at the promise betrayed?

    The Prime Minister: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends might care to discuss carbon tax with their constituents and explain to them– [Interruption.] Clearly they do not wish to discuss anything with their constituents, such as why they oppose VAT because it is politically expedient for them to do so, and why they propose a carbon tax that would have precisely the same effect on fuel prices.

    Mr. Garnier: Will my right hon. Friend outline briefly his Government’s policy on the deployment of troops in Bosnia and confirm the House’s support for the actions of General Rose?

    The Prime Minister: I most certainly and unequivocally reaffirm the House’s support for the actions taken by General Rose. He has had an extremely difficult job. I believe that he has done that job as well as it could have been done by any commanding officer anywhere in the world. If I may say so, I believe that most hon. Members and most people in this country will bitterly resent the criticism of General Rose voiced in some United States newspapers. I have seen the arguments and comments about the position in Bosnia. There is no doubt that the position in Bosnia is serious at the moment. I have no doubt about that at all, but I have to say to the House that, if the embargo was lifted and UNPROFOR was forced to withdraw, the position would be even worse, and particularly so for the Bosnians. The belief that that would produce a level playing field is not, in my judgment, right. It would produce a level killing field.

     

    Q2. Sir David Steel: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Sir David Steel: During the past couple of days, the Prime Minister and his colleagues have tried to persuade us that all their tax increases are something of a temporary aberration from Conservative instincts. Even if that were so, how does he explain the fact that, under this Government, the top 1 per cent. of taxpayers received tax cuts of something like £47,000 on average, while the low-paid have seen their taxes increase by about £400 a year? Is not that a permanent feature of Conservative instincts?

    The Prime Minister: I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what is a permanent feature of Conservative instincts: the fact that real, disposable net incomes, at all levels, have risen. That, of course, is what affects people’s living standards. Post-taxation, they have more spending power in their pockets than they had before. That is undoubtedly the case right the way down the scale and, I believe, will remain the case.

    Mr. James Hill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way in which to get the unemployed back to work is to give them incentives and training, and not to bash business men with a minimum wage and a training levy?

    The Prime Minister: Yes, I certainly agree with my hon. Friend about that. Priority is given to getting the unemployed back to work. We have seen unemployment fall more dramatically in this country than in any other European country. There was a wide range of measures in my right hon. and learned Friend’s Budget which will add to that return to work.

     

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

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

    Mr. Connarty: Does the Prime Minister accept the advice of the all-party group on pensions that, despite the Government’s compensation package, the individual pensioner will be 56p a week worse off if VAT on fuel rises to 17.5 per cent? In the light of that, will he tell his hon. Friends who are committed to defending pensioners against that attack to stick by their principles next week?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will have heard what I had to say to the Leader of the Opposition just a few moments ago. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware of the consistent position that we have taken about VAT on fuel and the consistent position that the House has endorsed on at least four occasions.

    Mr. Stephen: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the grave concern expressed by many of our constituents about people who are not ordinarily resident in this country coming here to litigate their disputes in the English courts at the British taxpayers’ expense on legal aid? Will he consider withdrawing civil legal aid from such people in future?

    The Prime Minister: I shall certainly seek the advice of my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. I am aware of the concern that has arisen. As my hon. Friend knows, the matter is very complex, but it raises a great many concerns among many people in the country. I shall draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend.

     

    Q4. Mr. Bennett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Mr. Bennett: Will the Prime Minister confirm that he is still committed to the Rio environmental targets, and in particular to efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? If he is committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, how will that commitment be financed? Does he accept that the Government’s policy was to use the Energy Saving Trust, and that so far the trust has virtually no money with which to reach its targets?

    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his question.

    We are currently considering a range of options for funding the trust, including the involvement of private sector finance and input from the energy consumer. We remain totally committed to meeting the targets to which I signed up at Rio, and with that in mind the trust has already prepared a plan setting out how it intends to proceed towards its contribution to carbon emission reduction as part of the climate change reduction programme.

    I would add that our decisions regarding VAT on fuel have a strong environmental impact.

     

    Q5. Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Mr. Arnold: What does my right hon. Friend think of the trench warfare being conducted against grant-maintained schools by Labour- controlled councils, particularly Kent county council? Kent has vetoed the only application for a new nursery unit in Gravesend because the school is grant-maintained.

    What does my right hon. Friend think of a man who is prepared to reject all the schools in his Labour-controlled borough, and to sneak his son eight miles across Greater London to a grant-maintained school?

    The Prime Minister: I have no comment to make about any right hon. or hon. Member who seeks the best for his or her children; I am sure that we would all do that. My only criticism would be that the policy for everyone should not be to remove the same choices from millions of other people.

     

    Q6. Mr. Byers: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Mr. Byers: Is the Prime Minister aware that, according to the latest figures, the average household fuel bill in Northern Ireland is 27 per cent. higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom? Can he explain why the VAT compensation package announced on Tuesday failed to take that difference into account?

    The Prime Minister: As Northern Ireland would be the first to accept, we are a united kingdom as a whole, and our legislation stretches across the United Kingdom: that position is taken very firmly by Northern Ireland Members of Parliament. It is also true that we see from Government support across the United Kingdom–I take these figures broadly from memory –that the degree of underlying public support for Northern Ireland is substantially higher than that for other parts of the United Kingdom. The figure for Scotland is substantially above that for Wales, and the figure for Wales is substantially above that for England. It is in that way that we seek to ensure a proper equity of support for services and people throughout the United Kingdom.

    Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Following my right hon. Friend’s talks with the Republican leader Senator Dole, will he confirm that he made it clear to the senator that, whatever the differences may be over Bosnia, they should not be allowed to undermine the commitment of his country and ours to the Atlantic alliance?

    The Prime Minister: I had an extremely useful exchange with Senator Dole. We spent some time considering the Atlantic alliance and there is no doubt whatever about Senator Dole’s whole-hearted support for NATO, both now and in the future.

     

    Q7. Ms Estelle Morris: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Ms Morris: The Prime Minister has been asked three times this afternoon to justify his policy on VAT; three times he has failed to answer the question. Does he accept that, no matter what he says, pensioners do not believe him, because they know that an extra £1 a week will not pay their bills? Why has the Prime Minister betrayed the pensioners of the nation?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady may have repeated a question that has been asked before, but she should have listened to the answers. In reality, we have put in place a generous package to compensate not only pensioners but others for the effects of VAT.

    Mr. Connarty: Not enough.

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman shouts, “Not enough,” and that is just another illustration of the fact that the Opposition claim that they would not put up taxes, they oppose every tax increase, but they would choose to put up expenditure and have no idea how they would fund any one of their policies. That is not new Labour: it is the old Labour that the electorate have rejected time after time.

    Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. Friend think that many people in this country would support the legalisation of cannabis or the party that advocates it?

    The Prime Minister: I certainly would not support the legalisation of cannabis, and I do not believe that the overwhelming majority of people in this country would support it either.

     

    Q8. Mr. Hutton: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 1 December.

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

    Mr. Hutton: Why has the Prime Minister sanctioned the dismissal of 600 uniformed front-line customs officers this week? Does he agree with the Paymaster General that the dismissal of those 600 officers will compromise the Government’s fight against illegal drugs and pornography?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) asked that question on Tuesday and I told him then that it will not. Since then I have had the opportunity of discussing it with the chairman of Customs and Excise and she confirms that it will not.

  • PMQT – 29 November 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 29th November 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mrs. Maddock: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mrs. Maddock: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether his Government will treat any vote on reducing VAT on domestic fuel as an issue of confidence–yes or no?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady knows that VAT on fuel has been approved by the House on several occasions–I think from memory on four occasions. It was introduced two Budgets ago, and clearly it would be a very important vote if a fresh vote were manufactured on the issue. But it does not fall into the same category as the European Communities (Finance) Bill.

     

    Q2. Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mrs. Gillan: Did my right hon. Friend have the opportunity to listen to the interview yesterday with the chairman of Rentokil– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker: Order. [Interruption.] Order. The House must come to order. [Interruption.] Order. This is using very valuable time.

    Mrs. Gillan: The Opposition find one of the most successful businesses in the UK amusing. The company was awarded a most respected award in a Management Today survey last week. The chairman of Rentokil said that, in his experience, our low inflation, low costs and record exports were unprecedented. Is that not the real story and the background to today’s Budget statement?

    The Prime Minister: There is no doubt that business men and business women around the country recognise that we have the best combination of economic circumstances for many years, and my hon. Friend is quite right to say that that is the background to the Budget. There is no doubt that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will sketch out further details shortly.

    Mr. Blair: Is it true, as some Back Benchers were saying this morning, that in exchange for their support last night they were offered by Ministers a referendum on further European integration?

    The Prime Minister: I made clear my views on that to the House in May, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary echoed those views only last Friday. They have not changed.

    Miss Emma Nicholson: In his busy day, has the Prime Minister noted the visit of the Speaker of the National Assembly of Kuwait, and his colleagues? Would my right hon. Friend now like to endorse the integrity of Kuwait’s sovereign border and the need to keep Kuwait alone, intact and in power as a state?

    The Prime Minister: I am happy to do as my hon. Friend asks, and I think that that would be the overwhelming view of every hon. Member. Recently, when it seemed as though–yet again–the integrity of Kuwait’s border was threatened, British troops and aircraft were there to defend it. That would of course be the position were that to happen again.

     

    Q3. Mr. Byers: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mr. Byers: Will the Prime Minister confirm that last year his Government spent £355 million on management consultants? Is he aware that such a sum of money would have paid every pensioners’ bill for VAT on fuel? Does the Prime Minister not feel that the time has come for his Government to get their priorities right and to put the needs of pensioners before the profits of City consultants?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, substantial sums of money have been made available to assist pensioners with their value added tax on fuel bills. Very large sums have been made available and there is no relationship between that expenditure and expenditure on management consultants to help improve the efficiency of the Government, to release resources, to keep taxes down and to help ensure that there is money available to assist pensioners and others.

    Sir Roger Moate: Does my right hon. Friend share the widespread disappointment that Norway will now not be alongside us in our battle against a federal Europe and a single currency? In view of the immensely strong ties that exist between our two nations, will he and the Government do their utmost to ensure the continuation of the European economic area, which is such a beneficial arrangement for Norway and the whole of Europe?

    The Prime Minister: I am extremely sorry that the Norwegian people decided not to join, but of course we respect their decision in that. Norway would have been a net contributor to the European Union, and on many issues, but perhaps not all, it would have been a valuable ally for the British point of view in Europe. I am, however, delighted that Austria and the other EFTA states have decided to join.

     

    Q4. Ms Hodge: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Ms Hodge: Now that he leads a minority Government, will the Prime Minister break the habit of a lifetime, stick to at least one of his election pledges and scrap the proposed rise in VAT on fuel?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady will have heard me say just a few moments ago that the House had debated that matter on four separate occasions.

    Mr. Clappison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in my constituency alone hundreds of children from less well-off families benefit from the assisted places scheme? Is it not a shame that the Labour party wants to deprive children of that opportunity, especially when some in its leadership have had the benefit of a similar opportunity?

    The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the assisted places scheme. The whole purpose of that scheme and, indeed, of the education reforms generally, is to give children opportunities that otherwise they would not have had. I regret very much that many of those opportunities seem to attract the opposition of the Labour party. One of the more distasteful sides of politics is seeing those who have climbed up the ladder of opportunity kicking it away from other people.

     

    Q5. Mr. Rendel: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mr. Rendel: What moral difference does the Prime Minister see between what we all agree is wrong–Members of this House accepting payment to ask questions–and a party which accepts payment from the tobacco industry in return for vetoing a ban on tobacco advertising?

    The Prime Minister: There is no relationship between the two facts.

    Sir Jim Spicer: My right hon. Friend will remember the speech that he gave last Thursday at the staff college at Camberley. We know how well the students there received that speech. In it, he referred specifically to Bosnia and said that we could not impose peace on those who did not wish to accept it. He said that if we tried to do so we would leave many hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground. Will the Prime Minister give us all an assurance that those troops–British, French, Dutch and all the others who have served in Bosnia–will be our first priority and that, if need be, he will make sure that they come out of that mess safely?

    The Prime Minister: Let me say to my hon. Friend that I reject totally some of the lurid and misplaced criticism of the United Nations protection forces that have been made in some American newspapers in the past few days. The protection forces in Bosnia are not a combat force; they were never intended to be a combat force; they are not equipped there to be combat force. They are there on a humanitarian mission, and that mission has saved the life of hundreds of thousands of Bosnians.

    I very much wish UNPROFOR to continue its humanitarian work, as long as it can do its job without there being unacceptable risks to the United Nations troops that are there. However, I have to say to the House that if the parties to the conflict make the humanitarian task of UNPROFOR impossible, if they intensify the war rather than seek a peaceful settlement, they could create the conditions in which the United Nations would have no choice but to withdraw. I do not wish that to happen, but I have to say to the House that that could happen.

     

    Q6. Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mr. Hughes: When the Prime Minister was first elected four years ago, he set himself the aim of creating a nation at ease with itself. In the light of last night, at which of the following does he think he has been more successful–creating a nation at ease with itself or creating a party at ease with itself? [Interruption.]

    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to hon. Members on the Labour Benches for suggestions as to how I should reply to the question from an hon. Member on the Liberal Benches. Given the fact that one can find a different Liberal policy from each Liberal to the next, and a different Liberal policy from each door to the next, each street to the next and each constituency to the next, I think that the hon. Gentleman should look at his own party before he criticises mine.

    Mr. Ashby: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in a recent survey of every household in my constituency, more than 90 per cent. expressed themselves satisfied with the national health service? That is reflected in other surveys. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning those newspapers that continually talk down one of the finest health services in the world?

    The Prime Minister: I will happily join my hon. Friend in that. There is no doubt about the affection for the national health service and, although we often hear a great deal of generalised criticism of it, that criticism tends not to come from the people who have just had treatment in the national health service. They tend to be very supportive of it, and rightly so, because of the treatment that it offers and the service that it gives.

     

    Q7. Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mr. Jones: I am sure that the Prime Minister will wish to join me in congratulating Customs officers, including those based at Holyhead in my constituency, on their efforts to combat drug smuggling. Does he agree that those efforts would be severely damaged if reports are true that 4,000 Customs officers are to lose their jobs as a result of an announcement today? How will that equate with the fact that the Prime Minister has announced the war on drugs? Will it not blow a gaping hole in his policy?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the importance of the battle against drugs; hence the domestic and international initiatives that we have taken and the work set in train by the Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council. Whatever may happen to the budgets to which the hon. Gentleman refers, I can assure him that the battle against drugs will not suffer.

    Sir Peter Emery: In welcoming Senator Dole to this country, will my right hon. Friend point out that the United States Congress has many friends on both sides of the House, but that that friendship has been built up by Members of Congress and of the Senate fully understanding the work of their allies?

    The Prime Minister: I certainly look forward to meeting Senator Dole tomorrow, and I know that he is also meeting my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. We have a wide range of matters to discuss, and I am sure that those discussions will be fruitful and productive.

     

    Q8. Ms Janet Anderson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Ms Anderson: Will the Prime Minister confirm reports that the President of the Board of Trade is looking again at the privatisation of the Post Office?

    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady should not be in any doubt that we think that the right decision, when we have a majority in the House, will be to privatise the Post Office.

    Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend consider giving to the shareholders of privatised utilities greater powers to decide the salaries of their directors in advance, rather than reading about them months after the event?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes an ingenious suggestion, which I shall be happy to consider.

     

    Q9. Mr. McKelvey: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 29 November.

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

    Mr. McKelvey: The Prime Minister appeared to be somewhat ambivalent on the question of a referendum on European Union affairs. Could we have a referendum in Scotland so that we can tell the right hon. Gentleman and the country how we wish to be governed?

    The Prime Minister: I seem to recall that there was a referendum on that issue some years ago. The hon. Gentleman knows, and in their hearts most people know, that the establishment of a Scottish Parliament would be immensely damaging both for Scotland and for every other part of the United Kingdom. It may well be Labour party policy, and we shall test to what extent over the weeks ahead, but it is not a thought-out policy, it is not a policy in the interests of Scotland, or of the people of Scotland, and it is not a policy in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole.

  • PMQT – 1 November 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 1st November 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Stevenson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Stevenson: Will the Prime Minister confirm the complete absence of any mention of privatisation of the Post Office in the last Tory party manifesto? Is he aware of the complete absence of any public support for that latest piece of Government dogma? Will he now take this opportunity to do the country a service and rescue the President of the Board of Trade by withdrawing that absurd proposal?

    The Prime Minister: As the whole House knows, we are considering the results of the consultation exercise that was launched in the summer. [Interruption.] I am surprised to hear Opposition Members scoffing. I thought that in the new politics the Labour party favoured consultation.

    Mr. Brooke: If Mr. Al Fayed requires a forgery from The Guardian to resolve his conscience, what, in my right hon. Friend’s mind, does that tell us about Mr. Al Fayed or The Guardian, or both?

    The Prime Minister: I think that many conclusions may be drawn from that, some of which may well be drawn from the investigation that the Serjeant at Arms himself is carrying out into the affair. Certainly, whatever is uncovered, I doubt whether it will be to the credit of the principal people concerned.

    Mr. Blair: To return to the Prime Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson), on Post Office privatisation, there is more than a whiff of retreat in the air. If the Prime Minister does retreat– [Interruption.] Is he aware that, if he does retreat on that, he will be acting wisely, because if he is going to consult the British people, the vast majority of them–and, I believe, a majority in this House–want a modern Post Office with greater commercial freedom, delivering a cheap and reliable service, and that the best way of achieving that is to retain it in public ownership, run it as a public service and serve the public interest?

    The Prime Minister: I can certainly share with the right hon. Gentleman the wish to make the Post Office business strong, competitive and able to deliver the services that people need. Of course, a large number of improvements have been made over the past few years, most of them opposed at the time by Opposition Members. In 1981, we separated out Telecom and introduced the £1 monopoly limit, introducing competition and allowing a thriving courier industry to develop. In 1990, we sold Girobank. All those changes were opposed by the Opposition, who now take credit for the success of the Post Office as a result of our policies.

    Sir Archibald Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about the actions of Mr. Preston of The Guardian? Not only has he been using House of Commons writing paper to forge letters; he has been forging other people’s signatures–and this from a man who is on the Press Complaints Commission. Should he not resign from that body at once?

    The Prime Minister: Over many years, The Guardian and its present editor have from time to time thundered against general standards in public life. It is, of course, the right of the press to do that; I simply invite its members to observe their own standards.

    Mr. Ashdown: But is the Prime Minister satisfied with the promptness, accuracy and frankness with which his Chief Secretary to the Treasury has responded to questions over past weeks and months? Are those the standards by which he would wish his Government and their Ministers to be recognised?

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman, and some other hon. Members, may be wholly satisfied with their own blameless pasts in every respect. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has made the position entirely clear, and I accept his word.

    Sir Wyn Roberts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that so-called investigative journalism has sunk to a new all-time low? Does he also agree that, if a newspaper is found to have used the name of the House to give false authority to its activities, that newspaper deserves to lose the respect and confidence of the House?

    The Prime Minister: I believe that a diverse and wholly independent press is a very important protector of our system of democracy. I hope that there is no dispute about that.

    What is particularly sad is the casual abuse of what were once high and expected standards. If it is now commonly accepted in journalism that the end justifies any means, I believe that journalism will regret stooping to that standard. I hope that that is not the case; I believe that honest, factual journalism remains important to our democratic system. Systematic deception, fraud and collusion are certainly not what we expect from a free press.

     

    Q2. Mr. Hall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Hall: This morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) and I delivered a petition to No.10 Downing street on behalf of thousands of pensioners in Warrington, calling on the Government to abandon their proposal to increase VAT on fuel to 17.5 per cent. from next April. Is the Prime Minister aware that half the 36,000 claimants of income support in Halton and Warrington are entitled to claim only cold weather payments and that many other families in fuel poverty receive no help whatever? Will the Prime Minister give an assurance that he recognises that to be a true problem, that he will abandon the VAT increase, and that he will ensure that all low-income families receive fuel credits weekly when there are cold spells during the winter?

    The Prime Minister: So that no one who may be listening to these exchanges can be in any doubt, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, while he says that he opposes VAT on fuel, he is in favour of a carbon tax, which would have exactly the same effect on people? Will he also acknowledge that measures worth around £2.5 billion over three years have been put in place– [Interruption.] It is no good Opposition Members pointing and shouting. They cannot on the one hand oppose VAT on fuel, and on the other hand support a carbon tax which would have precisely the same effect on the people whom they claim to be defending.

     

    Q3. Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does my right hon. Friend agree with that great editor of The Manchester Guardian , C.P. Scott, who said:

    “Comment is free but the facts are sacred”?

    Does he agree that certain standards of journalism have sunk below the level that one would expect in a free and fair democracy?

    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend about that. The press rightly demands the highest standards from Parliament and we have a right to expect the highest standards from the press.

    Dr. Marek: If the Prime Minister reads in Hansard what he said at Question Time last Thursday, he will realise that he answered one of the questions in a rather silly way. I hope that he will now give me a considered reply to that question. Why is he prepared to countenance devolution for the Province of Northern Ireland but not for the countries of Wales and Scotland?

    The Prime Minister: I must tell the hon. Gentleman two things. First, if he does not understand the difference in the history of Northern Ireland, he certainly should do so before sitting in the House. Secondly, there is a well established system of local democracy and government in Wales and Scotland which does not apply in Northern Ireland.

     

    Q4. Sir Michael Neubert: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Sir Michael Neubert: Reverting to the subject of earlier exchanges, what would be my right hon. Friend’s reaction if the Lord Chancellor were to include a known criminal among his appointments to the magistrates bench? Is it not equally unacceptable that the editor of The Guardian should sit in judgment on his fellow editors as a member of the Press Complaints Commission when, on his own evidence, he has been party to a forgery?

    The Prime Minister: That is a matter for the Press Complaints Commission and for the conscience of the editor of The Guardian .

     

    Q5. Mr. Hoon: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Hoon: Why are the Government threatening to cut housing benefit for hundreds of thousands of pensioners simply because they have spare rooms? Why is the Chief Secretary frightening pensioners with the prospect of having to move house just because they have raised their children and want to live out their retirement in their family home? Does the Prime Minister have any confidence in the Chief Secretary, particularly on matters of accommodation?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the system of housing benefit that we have in place is more generous than he will find anywhere on the continent. It is necessary to ensure that a proper balance is kept between that and the taxpayer.

     

    Q6. Mr. David Evans: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Evans: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in stark contrast to that lot opposite, we are united behind our leader? To put the issue of The Guardian into perspective, is my right hon. Friend aware that Janice had a shock this morning, as I think did my right hon. Friend, because it said that David Evans was sponsoring Bambi. That is how ridiculous The Guardian is. If my right hon. Friend raised £79,000 to become leader of our party, would he put it in the Register of Members’ Interests? This shows that that lot opposite are a bunch of fiddlers, because their leader has not done so.

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has been accused of many things over the years, but I do not think that anybody would credibly accuse him of being a sponsor of the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair).

     

    Q7. Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mr. Cunningham: Will the Prime Minister list the Tories who are members of quangos since last week he listed the Labour members? Will he also give the costs?

    The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman would prefer a much longer list of those Labour members of quangos that I did not yet mention. If he is so against quangos, will he perhaps explain why he wants to create a very long list of them, which I will happily read to the House if the hon. Gentleman presses me? Those are the new quangos that the Opposition thus far are committed to establishing. The hon. Gentleman would be better off looking at his own policy than trying to misrepresent ours.

     

    Q8. Mrs. Angela Knight: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 1 November.

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

    Mrs. Knight: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary’s announcement yesterday that the regime in our prisons is to be toughened up and that privileges are to be earned is widely welcomed, especially by the victims of crime? With that in mind, will he ensure that all victims are consulted before prisoners are granted any home leave?

    The Prime Minister: I very much agree with my hon. Friend and with the announcement made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary yesterday. He intends to ensure that privileges are earned and are not available as a matter of right, and that home leave and temporary release will be granted only after rigorous assessment of risk to the public. As he has said on a number of occasions, conditions in prisons should be decent but austere. I believe that that is the view of the overwhelming majority of people in this country.

  • PMQT – 19 July 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 19th July 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Burns : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Mr. Burns : Does my right hon. Friend agree with the conclusion that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development drew from its perspicacious study of the British economy that the route to higher output, lower unemployment and lower inflation is through sound public finances and deregulation, not placing additional burdens and red tape on business, as advocated by the Opposition parties?

    The Prime Minister : I certainly recommend the OECD report to the House for what it says on both the economy and the health service. I hope that Opposition Members will take time to read it–I know that they have been preoccupied, but it is a good read. The point about the OECD report is that it recognises that the policies that the Government have pursued have helped to transform our economic prospects, which are better now than I can remember for many years–we intend to keep them that way.

    Mrs. Beckett : Does the Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in this country we still exempt far too many goods and services from value added tax?

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Lady should read all that my right hon. and learned Friend said yesterday before selectively misquoting what he said. I shall remind the right hon. Lady what my right hon. and learned Friend said in reply to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) who is chatting on the front Bench. My right hon. and learned Friend said:

    “It is utterly pathetic to come out with constituency letters in which I merely state my long-stated and well-known view that if we were starting again we might have a lower rate of VAT and fewer exemptions. As he knows, that is not policy now”.–[ Official Report, 18 July 1994 ; Vol.247, c.59.]

    Mrs. Beckett : But the Prime Minister is doing it again–he is running away from the question. I am asking him whether he agrees with the Chancellor that too few goods and services are subject to VAT. Surely he knows the answer to that. Most people in this country believe that too much is already subject to VAT and they want to know whether the Government are, as it now appears, looking for an opportunity to put VAT on fares, books or children’s clothes. It seems that the Government want to do that. Will the Prime Minister now admit it?

    The Prime Minister : Besides listening to what I said a moment ago, the right hon. Lady might care to look at what I said in the House on 14 June, 17 May and 25 January this year, and on 19 October, 6 May, 23 March and 18 March last year. If she is concerned about extra value added tax, perhaps she will tell me whether she agrees with the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), who has said in relation to VAT on private schools and private medical care :

    “That is something specifically being looked at”.

    Mrs. Beckett : Surely the Prime Minister realises that the Chancellor has yet again let the cat out of the bag, by giving an indication that the Government want to put VAT on fares, children’s clothes and books. The Prime Minister was willing enough to deny his intentions on VAT before the election, when he was seeking votes, so why is he not prepared to come clean now? Does not the Tory party have a party addiction to VAT ; and is not that addiction damaging the budget of every British family?

    The Prime Minister : So much for a clear denial of extending VAT to private medical health care–we can draw our own conclusions from that.

    As for our policy, I refer the right hon. Lady again to what my right hon. and learned Friend said yesterday. As the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) knows–he is raising this scare again–this is not our policy now and we are not starting again. I see no likelihood of extending VAT. I look forward to a clear denial of what the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said the other day about his plans to put VAT on private education.

    Mr. Nicholas Winterton : During his very busy day, will my right hon. Friend accept an invitation from me to visit Macclesfield, which has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country and where manufacturing industry has a very meaningful presence? Will he also accept an invitation to sample the culinary expertise of my constituent, Mrs. Annie May of Sutton, which is near Macclesfield, who won the Good Housekeeping recipe competition and gave her £10,000 first prize to Save the Children Fund? Is not that an example of the success of private enterprise and social concern and involvement?

    The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend’s– [Interruption.] I know it is the end of term : relax. My hon. Friend’s invitation is irresistible. On a date that I cannot yet give him, I shall be happy to accept it.

    As my hon. Friend rightly says, unemployment is falling and has been falling for quite a long time–almost since the shadow Chancellor predicted that it would go up month after month.

    Mr. Ashdown : Will the Prime Minister list what steps Britain is taking to assist in Rwanda and what further steps he proposes to relieve suffering and save lives from the terrible catastrophe taking place today on Rwanda’s borders?

    The Prime Minister : As the right hon. Gentleman may know, we have already provided air lifts to help with the food required in Rwanda. They are likely to continue. We are liaising with our partners on what may be done.

    Mr. Budgen : Will my right hon. Friend explain why he has decided not to take the opportunity to make a formal statement on the important choice of Mr. Santer as president of the European Commission? Also, why does he not explain why he proposes the appointment of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) as a Commissioner–an appointment which will give much pleasure to all members of the Labour party?

    The Prime Minister : Upon the latter point, no formal decision has been made. When I have a decision to announce I will announce it. As for a statement, none was necessary. If any hon. Member thought that it was necessary, but not forthcoming, he would no doubt have tabled a private notice question.

     

    Q2. Mr. Lewis : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Mr. Lewis : Does the Prime Minister concede that the 1988 changes in the television concessionary licence scheme have proved to be very unfair– even more than they were previously–and that now that it has been determined that the Government will continue the television licence, will he not now return to 1988 and install some fairness into the system, for all pensioners?

    The Prime Minister : I do not think that returning to 1988 is an easy proposition, but I note the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.

     

    Industrial Relations

    Q3. Mr. Bates : To ask the Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the change in industrial relations in the United Kingdom since the 1970s.

    The Prime Minister : The strike statistics speak for themselves. There were fewer strikes last year than in any year since records began. Legislation to establish a fair framework for industrial relations has been a key element in attracting inward investment and creating jobs.

    Mr. Bates : As 2 million passengers brace themselves for another day of disruption on our railways, caused by the inflation-busting pay demand of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, can my right hon. Friend confirm that some 75,000 members of the RMT pay their political levy to the Labour party and have been eligible to vote in the Labour party’s leadership elections?

    The Prime Minister : I was not aware of that, but 75,000 is an awful lot of potential votes. Perhaps we will get a clear condemnation of the strike now that the ballot has closed.

     

    Engagements

    Q4. Mr. Barnes : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Mr. Barnes : The next Prime Minister’s Question Time is in exactly 13 weeks time. That is three whole months. What does the Prime Minister think should be done to respond to the representations of Members of Parliament in the meantime? What avenues are supposed to be available to us?

    The Prime Minister : The same avenues that have been available to every Government since 1945, including those available to Members of Parliament under previous Labour Governments.

    Mr. Paice : Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, as a result of pressure from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and our right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, the German Government have withdrawn their totally unwarranted threat to ban British beef? Will he congratulate the European Commission on using sound scientific evidence as the basis for decision making and encourage it to do likewise with future scientific matters?

    The Prime Minister : I should certainly be happy to do that and am happy on this occasion to offer my congratulations on the way in which the matter has been handled in Europe. I think that it has been handled very well. The Chief Medical Officer has repeatedly made it clear throughout the saga that British beef can safely be eaten by anyone, both adults and children, including patients in hospital. I am delighted that Germany has confirmed that unilateral measures will not now enter into force. I think that that shows that the whole of the Community, including Germany, now accepts that British beef is safe.

     

    Q5. Mr. Simpson : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Mr. Simpson : Does the Prime Minister accept that the £500,000 retirement hand-out paid by Severn Trent Water to its former chairman will go down as the most expensive disconnection in the history of the water industry? Will he explain why, at the end of the 12th wettest winter since 1727, and facing a 67 per cent. increase in their bills to pay for a 60 per cent. increase in profits and a 30 per cent. increase in the top wage increases of management, the public cannot water their own blooming gardens? Does not that amount to one privatisation cock-up too far?

    The Prime Minister : On the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, as I have said before, I would expect the shareholders and the regulator to question carefully any salary or payment that proved to be excessive. As for the general question of water privatisation, I think that even the hon. Gentleman will concede that, after years of under investment, there is now a substantial investment to deal with environmental matters, of precisely the sort that Opposition Members have asked for for years.

     

    Q6. Dr. Liam Fox : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Dr. Fox : How much of the fall in Britain’s unemployment and the rise in Britain’s competitiveness does my right hon. Friend attribute to the Government’s supply side reforms, especially labour law reform? Does he think that there is any case for dismantling our labour law reforms and trade union reforms, as suggested by Labour leadership candidates?

    The Prime Minister : It is difficult to quantify precisely how much, but I have no doubt that they have had a significant effect. Equally, there is no doubt that a peaceful workplace is a prosperous one. I certainly assure my hon. Friend that, unlike Opposition Members, I have no plans to sweep the board clean and start again.

     

    Q7. Mr. Canavan : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 July.

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

    Mr. Canavan : On the question of VAT which was put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), may I ask the Prime Minister to give us a straight answer to a straight question : will he name one thing, just one thing, on which he will never ever impose VAT?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman should look at what I have said in the past when I have made it perfectly clear that I can see no circumstances ever when food would be subject to VAT, and I repeatedly set out the answers to the other points, on the many occasions that I quoted for the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett). Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would care to read them.

  • PMQT – 30 June 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 30th June 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Enright : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Enright : Given the 16 per cent. increase in productivity since the last pay settlement achieved by the signalling staff, how does the Prime Minister justify spending £500 million and cramming money into the pockets of already wealthy bankers and PR men, when a mere 1 per cent. of that would give those signalling men a living family wage?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that the signalling men are demanding an 11 per cent. pay rise with no productivity or restructuring. That is self-evidently not a reasonable claim in present circumstances. I very much regret the fact that they rejected the Railtrack offer, and that therefore there has been continued suffering for rail travellers.

    What we should like to know clearly–yes or no–is whether the Opposition believe that these strikes should continue.

    Mr. Michael Brown : Does the Prime Minister recall the speech that he made at the Conservative party conference in 1992, when he asked who had ever heard of a cricketer, Len Hutton, turning out to play for the county of Humberside? Is he aware that on the table of the Secretary of State for the Environment is a recommendation to the Local Government Commission, supported by just about every Labour and Conservative Member representing Humberside, and every Labour and Conservative councillor in the area, welcoming the report? Will he urge the Secretary of State for the Environment to get rid of the county of Humberside and to implement the recommendations as soon as possible?

    The Prime Minister : I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have heard that plea. I think that there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who would like the return of traditional areas and areas of local government that people will recognise and understand as having historical interest.

    Mrs. Beckett : How can the Prime Minister justify a reported pay increase of £800 a week for the chief executive of National Power, at a time when the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the gap between the best paid and the lowest paid in Britain today is wider than it has been for 100 years?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Lady yet again tends to concentrate on every occasion on the politics of envy and redistribution instead of the politics of growth and job creation. When she learns that there is more to prosperity than envy and redistribution, she may be in a position to lecture others.

    Mrs. Beckett : I am sure that the whole country will note that the Prime Minister failed to condemn either the pay increase or the widening pay gap. But surely he is aware that Government figures show that every ordinary British family, including the lowest paid of all, are paying more taxes now than they were when the Government came to power–with the sole exception of the kind of people who award themselves pay increases of £800 a week. How can that be right?

    The Prime Minister : Of course, average real incomes are substantially up for people at all levels of income, as the right hon. Lady should know. But since the right hon. Lady returns yet again to tax, perhaps she would care to comment on the remarks of the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) who said recently :

    “We”

    that is the Labour party

    “cannot put trust and tax on top of the agenda and then duck the economic issues.”

    That is what the right hon. Lady does.

    Mrs. Beckett : What are certainly up for every ordinary British family are the taxes that they pay under this Government. As a result of the Government’s economic failure, Britain today is a country of low wages, low skills, high crime and higher taxes. Whatever happened to the Prime Minister’s promise to build a nation at ease with itself?

    The Prime Minister : It is actually a nation of low inflation, increasing growth and falling crime. The right hon. Lady has been promising to set out her position on a number of issues and today she certainly has. She has published her own policy document and it enlightens a great deal. If any hon. Member would like to know more about it, I invite them

    Hon. Members : Answer.

    Madam Speaker : Order. It is right that an answer should be given, but to the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) who has every right to question the Executive about its policy.

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Lady has invited anybody who wishes to know more about her programme to phone her campaign hotline and ask for Kevin or Ian who will explain her policies.

    Mr. Rowe : Will my right hon. Friend give a clear and categorical assurance to the House that he will not allow himself to be discouraged from his pursuit of a classless society by the growing probability that both the leading opposition parties will be led by public schoolboys?

    The Prime Minister : The essence of the society that I wish to create lies in the fact that it does not matter whether they are or not.

     

    Q2. Mr. Keith Hill : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Hill : Does the Prime Minister remember those happy Labour days of 1969 when he came to live in my Streatham constituency at the charming Primrose court when the unemployment rate in Streatham stood at one in 50? Thanks to his Government’s policies it now stands at a shocking one in five. Is the Prime Minister be surprised to learn that there is no great demand in Streatham for a blue plaque to commemorate his stay at Primrose Court?

    The Prime Minister : I do not know how much the hon. Gentleman knows about Lambeth at that time in the late 1960s, but if he had checked a little more carefully he would have known that just a few months before the date that he quotes the Labour-controlled Lambeth council was swept from office, going from 57 to three in the local elections.

     

    Q3. Mr. Fabricant : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Fabricant : Is not it the case that being at the heart of Europe and fighting one’s corner for Europe are not mutually exclusive and, if the Opposition say that it is, is not that both false and weak? Is not it also the case that when it comes to exercising the veto or the threat of veto, other countries have used it far more often than we have and, when it comes to abiding by European directives, in the league of large countries, Britain comes top, France comes third and Germany comes bottom? Is not Germany’s threat of the beef embargo a good example of that?

    The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend intimated, there is a long history of vetoes by other member states–some on the Commission presidency itself. Being at the heart of Europe means fighting for the best interests of this country and of Europe. It emphatically does not mean agreeing with everything that our partners propose. Frankly, that is not the way that Europe works. It is not how our partners behave, how they expect us to behave or how we will behave. Wherever appropriate, we will stand up for the interests of this country and of Europe, and for the nature of Europe that we believe everyone across the continent wants.

     

    Q4. Mr. Clapham : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Clapham : Is the Prime Minister aware that figures provided by the Department of Social Security clearly show that the number of miners who fail tests for bronchitis and emphysema is well over 90 per cent? Does he share my concern that there is a need to review the regulations, not in five years or two years but immediately? Will he tell the House that he is prepared to set in train an immediate review of the bronchitis and emphysema regulations?

    The Prime Minister : As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Government accepted and implemented in full the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council recommendation to add those diseases to the prescribed list. I am sure that was right. The recommendation was made and accepted.

    Sir Dudley Smith : Is my right hon. Friend aware that President Reagan never looked back after he fired striking air traffic controllers? In view of the wilful neglect by Labour Members to do anything to help the travelling public, will my right hon. Friend consider doing the same with the striking signalmen?

    The Prime Minister : We are currently hoping to see a settlement that would end those unnecessary strikes at the earliest date possible. At the moment, Railtrack and the Rail, Maritime and Transport union are in negotiation and I hope that they will reach agreement soon.

     

    Q5. Mr. Alton : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Alton : Does the Prime Minister share the sense of horror felt by right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House at the massacre of half a million Rwandans and the displacement of 2 million others? Is there not some personal initiative that he could take to ensure that the 5,000 troops promised by the United Nations one and a half months ago are now all deployed, refugees are evacuated and those responsible for the genocide are brought before international courts and tried for war crimes?

    The Prime Minister : Anyone who has seen the dreadful pictures from Rwanda will share the hon. Gentleman’s sense of horror and revulsion. I strongly support the proposal currently being considered by the Security Council, to establish a committee of experts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Rwanda and then take appropriate action. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, the special rapporteur on Rwanda appointed by a special session of the European Commission of Human Rights is now in the country. We expect his report tomorrow and I hope that action can swiftly follow.

     

    Q6. Mr. Jacques Arnold : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Arnold : My right hon. Friend will be aware of our ambition to continue on the path of cutting the basic rate of tax. Has he contrasted that with the ambition of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott)?

    The Prime Minister : Our policy is entirely clear. Our overriding aim is to sustain the recovery that is now clearly evident–but when it is prudent to do so, we will certainly seek to cut tax rates again. I heard what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said about tax a day or so ago. I am delighted that he set out his position–something of a novelty, in respect of tax, for Opposition Members. I hope that all other contenders will honour their previous promises and set out what they would do about tax.

     

    Q7. Mr. Win Griffiths : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 30 June.

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

    Mr. Griffiths : Does the Prime Minister recall telling his right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) last Monday that he regretted using the veto on Mr. Dehaene, and that it would have been avoided if the pre-conference preparations had been as thorough as they were in 1984? Was the Prime Minister suffering from selective amnesia or being economical with the truth in failing to tell the House that in 1984 his predecessor vetoed Claude Cheysson and supported Jacques Delors, who, unlike the Prime Minister, believes in giving workers legal protection from sweatshop employers?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman–perhaps by accident–is not telling the whole story. In 1984, there was a great amount of private consultation, and a number of countries–not just this one–indicated privately, not openly in the Council meeting, that they were unable to accept a particular candidate. My point was that if that sort of negotiation had taken place it would not have been necessary to apply the veto publicly, as I did. I hope that the hon. Gentleman now understands that.

  • PMQT – 23 June 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 23rd June 1994. Tony Newton responded on behalf of John Major.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Quentin Davies : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

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

    This morning, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. This afternoon, he is travelling to Corfu for the European Council. I understand that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) is also in Corfu attending some kind of fringe meeting.

    Mr. Davies : On the eve of the Corfu summit, does my right hon. Friend agree that Great Britain is leading the way in Europe in deregulation, privatisation, competitivity and growth, and, above all, the vital task of bringing down unemployment but that the Labour party would reverse all those things in very short order?

    Mr. Newton : I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Those issues are very much at the top of the Corfu agenda as a result of the British Government’s efforts to advance those causes in Europe over a long period of time. I am glad to say that the forthcoming German presidency will be pursuing the British objectives of competitiveness and deregulation in its policies towards Europe.

    Mr. Nicholas Brown : Given that more than a million of our fellow citizens are on national health service waiting lists, can it really be the Secretary of State for Health’s vision for the future to get rid of 50,000 hospital beds?

    Mr. Newton : The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the effect of the Government’s reforms on the health service has been greatly to increase the number of people treated and that NHS hospitals now treat 121 patients for every 100 treated before. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health drew attention to the possible continuation of those trends in future years, building on advances in treatment to treat yet more people.

    Mr. Nicholas Brown : The Leader of the House has not really answered the question. Would it not be better to get rid of the waiting lists rather than getting rid of the hospital beds? Are not the cuts being driven by the Government’s failure properly to manage public finances?

    Mr. Newton : The changes are being driven by the Government’s determination to get more patients treated more effectively with shorter waiting times, and the policies are succeeding ; if there is a failure, it is the failure of the Opposition to recognise the success of those policies.

    Mr. Nicholas Brown : That will not do. We have had massive tax increases under the Conservatives since the last general election and the British people now face massive cuts in services. Why is it that in Tory Britain we have to pay a lot more to get a lot less?

    Mr. Newton : The Government have consistently put additional resources in real terms into Britain’s national health service. The result of those increased resources is an improving service treating more and more patients more effectively with shorter waiting times.

    Mr. Clifton-Brown : Can my right hon. Friend recall whether at any time in the past 15 years any Opposition Front-Bench spokesman has condemned any public sector strike?

    Madam Speaker : Order. I gave a little homily only a few days ago, but I think I shall have to ask the Whips to hold weekend seminars to instruct Members on what Question Time is all about : it is to seek information on Government policies and to press for action.

    Mr. Clifton-Brown : Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether any public sector strike which would damage this country, and which has been condemned by the Government, has also been condemned by the Opposition? If not, should not the British public remember that at the next general election?

    Mr. Newton : On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I can perhaps offer that the Whips will run a seminar on Corfu for the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) in the hope of getting from her the answer that we have conspicuously failed to get in the House.

     

    Q2. Mr. Pickthall : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Pickthall : Does the Leader of the House share the general pleasure that justice has been done in the case of Professor Tim Brighouse, who is to receive substantial damages from the Secretary of State for Education? Will he assure the House that not one penny of the damages or the costs will come from the taxpayer? Before his right hon. Friend leaves office shortly, will he urge him to apologise to all the other people involved in education whom he has gratuitously insulted over the past couple of years?

    Mr. Newton : My right hon. Friend has straightforwardly apologised and agreed reparation for the remarks to which the hon. Gentleman refers. In my judgment, at least, the matter should be left there. It does not in any way affect my right hon. Friend’s ability to advance the Government’s very successful education policy.

     

    Q3. Mr. Thurnham : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Thurnham : Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the Government’s most successful policies is the right to buy, which has enabled more than 1.5 million former tenants to enjoy the benefits of owner-occupation? Is he further aware that over the past five years a further 250,000 homes have been privately let? Would it not be an excellent long-term investment if the Prime Minister exercised the right to buy No. 10 Downing Street?

    Mr. Newton : I certainly share my hon. Friend’s view that the right to buy has been a hugely successful policy over more than a decade now, together with the Government’s successful policies to increase the amount of rented accommodation, and to tackle the problem of rough sleepers in London. As for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I do not know about the right to buy, but I am sure that he will exercise his right to extend the lease.

     

    Q4. Mr. Mackinlay : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Mackinlay : Will the Lord President draw to the attention of the Prime Minister the problem–indeed, the scandal–of court cheats who have been instructed by judges to compensate the victims of their crimes, but who refuse to pay? Is he aware that about two thirds of victims who have had awards of compensation made in their favour against the criminal are not receiving a penny? Is it not time that the Government ceased to be mealy mouthed about the problem and took action to ensure that the victims get compensation and the courts pursue the criminal?

    Mr. Newton : The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the general steps that the Government are taking to improve the detection of crime and the enforcement of the law. However, he made a slightly separate and very serious point, to which I shall respond appropriately. The right course is for me to invite the Home Secretary to examine the hon. Gentleman’s remarks and to consider what response might be made.

     

    Q5. Mr. Clappison : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Clappison : On the subject of the pursuit of the criminal, is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a reduction of 16 per cent. in residential burglaries in the Metropolitan police area? Should not the good work of the police be supported by the courts handing down stiff prison sentences to house burglars? Is that not the message that we should be sending out, rather than arguing about whether prison works as the Opposition home affairs team do?

    Mr. Newton : I whole-heartedly endorse the thoughts of my hon. Friend in terms of what needs to be done to continue and strengthen the fight against crime, not least burglaries. Happily, there are beginning to be some encouraging signs that the increase in crime is not irreversible. Alongside other things, there have been some welcome cases of a drop in the number of insurance claims–another sign of police success in the fight against crime.

     

    Q6. Dr. Lynne Jones : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Dr. Jones : Talking about fringe meetings, will the Lord President now answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) and give the House a categorical assurance that not one penny of taxpayers’ money will go to bail out the Secretary of State for Education, although Labour Members believe in the redistribution of wealth and would have no objection to the Cabinet having a whip round for their no doubt soon to be ex-colleague?

    Mr. Newton : I have already commented on that and made it clear that it was a private matter.

     

    Q7. Sir Michael Neubert : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Sir Michael Neubert : Should we not pause to pay tribute to the astonishing turn of events that has brought the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia into a partnership for peace with NATO? Is there not a lesson to be drawn to the effect that our national security must be defended at all times by resolute and resourceful defence and that the best guarantee of that is a Conservative Government?

    Mr. Newton : I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The agreement signed in Brussels yesterday is an important step forward and symbolises, if further symbolisation were needed, the changes that have been going on in the former Soviet Union and sets a new framework for peaceful co- operation between Russia and NATO. Russia is the 21st nation to sign the partnership for peace agreement. I agree with my hon. Friend that it illustrates the rewards that have come from the resolute stance that the Government have adopted.

    Mr. Loyden : Will the Leader of the House remind the Prime Minister that the letter regarding MV Derbyshire that I sent to him about three weeks ago has not yet been answered? Does he agree that there is widespread concern in the House about the continuing absence of a Government response to questions and early-day motions on that matter? Will he convey to the Prime Minister the urgent need for a decision to be made so that the work now started can continue and, one hopes, result in a final exposition of the reasons why the MV Derbyshire sank?

    Mr. Newton : The hon. Gentleman is probably aware of the position. As I said in business questions last week, I well understand the concern of those involved. The chief inspector of marine accidents is to request findings and results of the search from the International Transport Federation. On examination of that material, the chief inspector will advise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport whether there is justification for reopening the investigation. That measured way is the right way in which to proceed.

     

    Q8. Mr. Brazier : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 23 June.

    Mr. Newton : I have been asked to reply.

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

    Mr. Brazier : Is my right hon. Friend aware that, at a time when our regular armed forces are facing yet another round of reductions, many of us are deeply concerned that we may also be looking at a further substantial cut in the Territorial Army? Is it not true that the last two major conflicts in which we have been involved–the Falklands and the Gulf–both came from nowhere and both happened at short notice and without any warning? Surely the most cost-effective way of maintaining a reserve for the unexpected at a low level of cost is by maintaining strong, well-equipped and well-trained volunteer reserve forces.

    Mr. Newton : The Government whole-heartedly agree with my hon. Friend about the need for increased use of the reserves and share the importance that he attaches to them. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has instituted a pilot scheme, under which he is addressing the possibility of bringing the reserve forces legislation up to date. On the wider issue, I can only repeat what my right hon. and learned Friend and others have said on a number of occasions : that the purpose of the exercise on which the Government are engaged is generally to ensure the maximum emphasis on our front-line forces, and the capabilities about which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) is concerned, and to ensure that we do not spend unnecessary amounts on support services at the expense of those front-line forces.

    Mr. Tony Banks : Referring back to those soon to be ex-colleagues, does the Lord President believe that the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) will still be leader of the Conservative party at Christmas and that he himself will still be in the Cabinet?

    Mr. Newton : I have already referred to my expectation that my right hon. Friend will renew his lease, as I put it, on No.10 Downing street. On the other matters, I am always confident of my right hon. Friend’s judgment.

  • PMQT – 16 June 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 16th June 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Clappison : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Mr. Clappison : Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the past 12 months this country lost the lowest ever number of days to strikes? Is it not sad that that record is being spoilt by a trade union which, in pursuit of an 11 per cent. pay claim, yesterday inflicted hardship and inconvenience on thousands of travellers and commuters, including many of my constituents in Hertfordshire? Is it not conspicuous that that is not being condemned in any quarter by the Labour party?

    The Prime Minister : Overall, our industrial relations record is extremely good, and the number of days lost in strikes is lower than it has been for more than 100 years. We now lose fewer days to strikes than Germany, France or the United States per head of population. As for yesterday’s strike, the disruption that was caused to millions of people was inexcusable. Most of the public sector has settled on increases around the rate of inflation. The dispute is over a bid for an 11 per cent. increase before negotiations have even begun about productivity. It is unacceptable, it cannot be right and it should be condemned by every Member of the House.

    Mrs. Beckett : Can the Prime Minister confirm that when yesterday his Chancellor ruled out tax cuts he was admitting what the Prime Minister refused to admit on Tuesday–that a second round of tax increases will go ahead next year and will cost a typical British family £800 a year more in tax?

    The Prime Minister : I suppose that there must be some occasion on which the right hon. Lady will address the current issue of the strike and not wriggle away from it. If she is so concerned about tax, perhaps she will now withdraw all the public expenditure promises that she and her colleagues have made, and which inevitably would lead to higher taxation in future. If she will not withdraw those public expenditure promises, will she please indicate how they will be paid for and by what amount tax will rise?

    Mrs. Beckett : That is twice in one week that the Prime Minister has refused to answer the question. Let us try again. Taxes will go up next year, won’t they? Just say yes.

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Lady knows the contents of the Budget and knows also that she is wriggling and hiding behind promises that she cannot substantiate. Our tax position is clear and open and people know what it is. We have set out a position that is right for this country and which has brought this country back to better economic circumstances than it has known for many years. That is an honest and straightforward position, unlike the position of the right hon. Lady who makes promises of increased expenditure with no indication whatever as to whether she will borrow to meet them and put up interest rates, or tax to meet them, or break those promises.

    Mrs. Beckett : But does the Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor that those tax increases, and the threat of interest rate increases, are a direct result of the Government’s economic failure and their track record of boom and bust? Whom does he think the Chancellor was condemning–Lord Lawson as Mr. Boom, or the Prime Minister himself as Mr. Bust?

    The Prime Minister : That was very well rehearsed, but it will not win the right hon. Lady very many votes. As for interest rates, I wonder if the right hon. Lady can remember a time when interest rates under a Labour Government were as low as they have been under this Government for the past 15 months. I wonder if she can remember a time when inflation was as low as it is under this Government now. I wonder if she can remember a time when our growth rate was twice as high as that of our European competitors. The answer is that she cannot–and, under any Labour Government, that would never be so.

    Mr. Butler : Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Labour party has voted against every single tax reduction that has been introduced, over many years, by Conservative Governments, and has voted against every tax increase? Does he consider that to be consistency or stupidity?

    Madam Speaker : Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is the Executive that is responsible to the House, and the Executive that must answer questions, not the Opposition. That is the basis on which our democracy is built.

    Mr. Butler : I apologise, Madam Speaker. It was because I was so surprised to be called.

    Would my right hon. Friend consider such conduct on the part of his party to be consistent or stupid, had it taken place?

    The Prime Minister : The Opposition’s position is certainly consistently stupid, and stupidly consistent.

     

    Q2. Mr. Mackinlay : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Mr. Mackinlay : Does the Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the people are often much more sensible than politicians? If so, has he reflected that last week–not only in Essex, but in a continuous, uninterrupted line from Dover to Oban–his policies were rejected and Labour’s were endorsed? Does he not recognise that he is increasingly seen as the captain of the Titanic–carrying on regardless, blaming the iceberg and determined to rearrange the deckchairs while he puts people’s lives at risk with his own reckless policies?

    The Prime Minister : Well, that was quite an effort. There are certainly occasions on which the public are much more sensible than politicians. They were much more sensible than Opposition politicians in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, and they will be more sensible than Opposition politicians again at a later date in 1996 or 1997.

    Mr. Butcher : Does my right hon. Friend agree that the administration of law in this country now protects the civil liberties of yobs, bullies, violent criminals and drug barons so effectively that the civil liberties of the law-abiding majority are endangered ? The Conservative party never wanted that, the people never wanted it and the Cabinet never wanted it. If the legal structure is being undermined, should we not find out who the termites are before introducing further criminal justice legislation?

    The Prime Minister : I think that it is necessary to look at the interests of the majority of the people in the country. I share my hon. Friend’s view : our present criminal justice legislation was formulated with that very much in mind, as were some of the ideas that I have outlined to the House on other occasions.

     

    Q3. Mr. Flynn : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Mr. Flynn : Will the Prime Minister confirm that, in support of his campaign for a more civilised Question Time, which I hope is still continuing, and in the hope of a rational reply, 24 hours ago I sent him the following supplementary question : because of his own personal responsibility and his Government’s responsibility for introducing and promoting personal pensions, will he now give, in clear and simple language, a guarantee that the millions of people who opted out of the state earnings-related pension scheme and occupational schemes and who have been subjected to bad advice will have all their losses made up and their full pension rights restored?

    The Prime Minister : The hon. Gentleman may not be quite aware of the present situation. The regulator has made it clear that he will use his powers to ensure that anyone who was mis-sold a pension will have a remedy. There is no need for investors in personal pensions to be too concerned ; the hon. Gentleman should have understood that. Within the next few weeks, the Securities and Investments Board is due to publish a full report setting out the terms of redress which should be applied to investors who have been disadvantaged by that advice. They would be wise to wait for that report and not listen to the hon. Gentleman’s scaremongering.

    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Does my right hon. Friend agree that before the national health service reforms there was no such thing as equality of health treatment in this country and it depended entirely on where one lived? If one lived in Lancaster, one received good treatment, but if one lived in parts of the rest of the country, one did not. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, following the reforms, best practice is spreading throughout the land?

    The Prime Minister : I can confirm that that is the case. The health reforms are spreading best practice in every part of the United Kingdom and removing many of the anomalies that existed previously. That, and the increased resources available to the national health service, are intended to ensure that we have the best possible national health service for our nation that we can possibly afford.

     

    Q4. Ms Eagle : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Ms Eagle : Is the Prime Minister aware that his Government are currently spending £121,800 a year of taxpayers’ money on the salary of the chairman of Railtrack, who works only a three-day week? Is that value for money?

    The Prime Minister : If he turns Railtrack into the efficient organisation that customers who use trains wish to see, yes.

     

    Q5. Mr. Duncan : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Mr. Duncan : Will the Prime Minister convey to the local government commission my constituents’ overwhelming gratitude for recommending the return of the ancient and valiant little county of Rutland? Will he hop across from Huntingdonshire and hang a horseshoe in Oakham castle to celebrate that sensible and popular decision?

    The Prime Minister : I know from my own experience how strong my hon. Friend’s campaign for the return of Rutland has been and I congratulate him on the outcome. He mentioned other counties. I am familiar with one near to Rutland, which I hope will also return. I believe that questionnaires are to be sent to every household, which means that local people will be able to express their views on the matter and on what they wish the outcome to be. That is the right way to proceed.

     

    Q6. Mr. Keith Hill : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 16 June.

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

    Mr. Hill : If the Cabinet is so bad that it needs a drastic reshuffle, as he promised on Monday, should not the Prime Minister take his fair share of the blame and reshuffle himself as well?

    The Prime Minister : In the interests of helping the hon. Gentleman, I can tell him, first, that whereas on Tuesday he told the House that unemployment was up in his constituency, today I can tell the House after yesterday’s figures that it is down–and I hope that he is grateful. The words that he metaphorically put in inverted commas–“drastic reshuffle”–have not crossed my lips.

    Mr. Lamont : May I urge the Prime Minister at the forthcoming summit in Corfu to reject firmly the candidature of the Belgian Prime Minister for the presidency of the Commission? Even if Britain did not have an excellent candidate with a brilliant negotiating track record, is it not true that Mr. Dehaene is a federalist of the old-fashioned type and that no Belgian candidate would resist the ever-increasing demands of the Brussels bureaucracy?

    The Prime Minister : At the moment there are only two declared candidates for the post–Sir Leon Brittan, whom we back strongly, and Dr. Ruud Lubbers. Both are highly respected in the European Community and are well known to all the member states. I have made no secret of my belief that Leon Brittan is the right candidate to be President of the Commission and he will have our strong support at Corfu. At this stage, I am not prepared to declare a position on any other candidate or possible candidate.

  • PMQT – 14 June 1994

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 14th June 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. McAllion : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 June.

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

    Mr. McAllion : The family of Andrew de Vries, the British citizen gunned down in Texas earlier this year, has been campaigning for a federal investigation into the misconduct of the homicide inquiry by the local authorities in Houston. So far, it has uncovered many inconsistencies and blatant lies in the flawed official version of events. Will the Prime Minister now overrule the Foreign Office which, until now, has steadfastly refused any Government support for the family’s campaign? Does he accept that if he, too, chooses to ignore the massive injustice inflicted on that British citizen travelling under the protection of a British passport, many people will conclude that those who travel under that passport in future will do so at their own risk, as they will receive no protection whatever from the British Government when they face the direst emergencies in a foreign land?

    The Prime Minister : That was a very tragic death in unusual circumstances and I should like to add my sympathy to Mr. de Vries’s parents and friends. It was an appalling incident and I know that the hon. Gentleman has given a great deal of help and comfort to the family. The trial was conducted according to Texan law and procedures and the grand jury decided not to proceed with an indictment. I believe that the best way forward at present is for Mr. de Vries’s parents to put their points to their US legal representatives and be guided by the advice that they receive from them. I will certainly ensure that the hon. Gentleman and, of course, Mr. and Mrs. de Vries, are kept fully informed of any information that may come to the Government. We shall offer any advice that we can, but I do not think that it is for us to campaign. Advising is a different matter.

    Mr. Peter Ainsworth : Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning tomorrow’s strike by railway signalmen, which will bring misery and inconvenience to millions of people trying to get to work or go on their holidays? Does he agree that those running for the Labour party leadership should condemn that selfish action with equal vigour?

    The Prime Minister : I agree with my hon. Friend that the strike is unnecessary and very much regret that it is taking place. I hope that, even at this late stage, it will be possible for the two sides to negotiate on the package that is there to be discussed. If the strike is to go ahead, I assure my hon. Friend that action has been taken by the relevant Department to ensure that a substantial amount of parking space will be available in London to enable as many people as possible to continue with their normal work.

    Mrs. Beckett : Can the Prime Minister confirm that it is still his intention to increase VAT on gas and electricity from 8 per cent. to 17.5 per cent?

    The Prime Minister : It is very interesting that the right hon. Lady does not want to discuss the question of a strike. [Interruption.] I think that the whole country will have noticed that that is the case and will probably understand precisely why. If my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has any changes in taxation plans, he will announce them in the usual way at the usual time.

    Mrs. Beckett : Is not it the case that next year, with VAT up– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order.

    Mrs. Beckett : Is not it the case that next year, with VAT up and tax allowances–including mortgage interest relief–cut, people will be paying more VAT, more national insurance and more income tax and, as a result, a typical British family who are paying £500 more tax this year will be paying £800 more tax next year?

    The Prime Minister : If the right hon. Lady is so concerned about tax, perhaps she would like to make clear, as she indicated that she would a day or so ago, what her own tax proposals are. Does she want to raise higher taxes– [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. The House must come to order and listen not only to questions, but to answers.

    The Prime Minister : Does the right hon. Lady want to raise taxes for those people earning more than £60,000, like the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), or for those people earning more than £50,000, like the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), or for those people earning more than £40,000, like the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone)? Those are matters that the right hon. Lady ought to make clear to the House, if she is interested in taxation. She cannot hide from the results of her policies and her promises.

    Mrs. Beckett : I can certainly tell the Prime Minister that we will vote against any such increase in VAT, but is not it still more evidence of the Government’s sheer dishonesty that they are speaking about tax cuts at a time when the only things in the pipeline are tax increases for every British family? Does not the Conservative party realise that it is that sheer deception and dishonesty which have led directly to the biggest defeat suffered by the Conservative party in any national election?

    The Prime Minister : The right hon. Lady knows very well that day after day she and her hon. Friends make promises, with no indication of how those promises will be paid for. The shadow Chancellor then denies that there are promises. The right hon. Lady never indicates what the impact of her own promises and her own policies are. As the Government, we have to make decisions and carry them through ; she makes promises and runs away from them.

    Mr. Brazier : Will my right hon. Friend give his personal attention to the threatened prosecution of a number of Falklands war veterans? Is not it wrong that a civilian court should hear a case, not to do with something that happened in a prisoner-of-war camp or a safe area, but arising from allegations about what happened in the heat of battle? We expect a great deal of our young soldiers and may have to ask it again of them one day. May I ask my right hon. Friend to give instructions to the Director of Public Prosecutions that that case should be speedily discontinued, in the public interest?

    Hon. Members : Hear, hear.

    The Prime Minister : I understand the strong feelings set out by my hon. Friend and the strong feelings of many people, but I do not think that it is an advisable principle for the Government to seek to instruct the DPP in that fashion. I do not think that that principle would be regarded as proper, whatever the circumstances.

    Mr. Ashdown rose

    Mr. Skinner : Yesterday’s man. [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker : Order. I know that Members are pleased to see each other, but this is going over the top. I want to hear Mr. Ashdown.

    Mr. Ashdown : I am glad that the Prime Minister agrees that these 15 minutes of Prime Minister’s Question Time need to be reformed to make them more intelligible to us and make them more like what the British people say they would like to see, but will he now tell us what specific proposals he has for the House to consider?

    The Prime Minister : As I have indicated to the House before, I believe that there is a widespread feeling that these 15 minutes could be more productively used, but I am conscious that on this occasion the Prime Minister of the day– [Hon. Members :– “Answer the question.”] I will come directly to the point as to my personal view. Let me make another point first. I believe that it is right for the Prime Minister of the day to be here to respond to whatever questions may be put to him by Members. If the right hon. Gentleman asks for my personal view on the subject, I believe that it would be more appropriate if contemporary questions were tabled the night before, so that the Prime Minister of the day can deal with relevant matters.

    I am prepared to answer whatever questions, in whatever fashion, may be put to me. However, I believe that there is a view among people in the country that we should be discussing more relevant matters than is sometimes the case during some of the exchanges that take place during Prime Minister’s questions.

    Mr. Nicholls : Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to study the survey by Manpower, which shows that job prospects are now at their best for the past four years? Is not the reason for that in large measure that we have not allowed the European Community to dictate our labour market policies? Is not it quite shameful that Labour Members of both this Parliament and the European Parliament are committed to destroying the very policies that have brought about that success?

    The Prime Minister : Thankfully, unemployment has been falling for the past 15 months–by some 300,000–and I believe that that trend will continue, unlike in other countries in Europe. The significant difference between us and them is that we do not have the additional costs on employment that prevent so many people on the continent from finding jobs. Some 20 million people across Europe are unemployed ; only in this country has there been a significant drop in the unemployment level.

    Madam Speaker : I call Mr. Robert Ainsworth. He is not here. Therefore, I call Mr. James Hill.

    Mr. James Hill : This is an unusual event, but I am fortunate to be called. Does my right hon. Friend agree that during the extensive canvassing over the past two weeks, the issues raised were not education or the national health service, but the ways in which we could protect the public through our police and defence forces? Should not the Treasury team make that a priority and put more money into the police and defence forces as and when it becomes available?

    The Prime Minister : I am sure that my right hon. Friends at the Treasury will have heard my hon. Friend’s plea. There is no doubt about the concern about crime that is felt throughout the country. We are seeking to deal with that concern through legislation and other means and we shall continue to do so. The matter cannot readily be solved at the stroke of a legislative pen. However, it does require legislation and that is being provided, together with other areas of assistance to improve the fight against crime.

     

    Q4. Mr. Keith Hill : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 June.

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

    Mr. Hill : If the Prime Minister can recall life before Labour’s triumph last Sunday, does he remember telling television viewers last Wednesday that we were through the recession and that he was glad that the rich had become richer? Can he explain why, in my south London constituency, unemployment is higher than it was 12 months ago? What comfort can he offer my unemployed constituents who have become poorer?

    The Prime Minister : I do not think that even the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be in any doubt about the fact that the recession is over and we are back in mature growth. They would also have noticed the falls in inflation, in interest rates and in unemployment throughout the country. I very much hope that that fall in unemployment will soon extend to Streatham, an area which I know extremely well. The hon. Gentleman, who also knows it well, will be aware that the policies of inner London councils in recent years have forced many employers out of inner London. That is one significant reason why, for many years, unemployment in areas such as Streatham has been higher than it otherwise would be. If the hon. Gentleman is proud of Lambeth council, I would be very surprised.

     

    Q5. Mr. Ian Bruce : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 14 June.

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

    Mr. Bruce : Is my right hon. Friend aware that despite large job losses in the Ministry of Defence, unemployment in my constituency fell 10 per cent. in the last quarter? Is not that a tribute to my constituents’ positive action on job creation and to their refusal to take strike action? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the enemy of full employment is the strike, and that pious words on “Panorama” about full employment come ill from people who refused to cross picket lines just a few days previously?

    The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend is entirely right. Actions speak louder than words and, thus far, we have seen that Opposition Members will not cross a picket line although they are prepared to talk about unemployment. [Interruption.] I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman, as ever, say that the Opposition are on the side of the strikers, whatever the circumstances may be. I hope that the whole country noted that. The reality is that strikes are outmoded and unnecessary and they penalise innocent bystanders. I regret that the Opposition were prepared to do that last week and are prepared to do so in respect of tomorrow’s strike as well.