The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Wales

  • Mr Major’s Commons Speech on the Constitution – 4 March 1998

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s Commons Speech on the Constitution on 4th March 1998.

    MR JOHN MAJOR:
    Mr Major: I echo the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) about the utter unacceptability of the fact that the time permitted to discuss this, perhaps the most crucial and central part of the whole Bill–the part upon which this whole constitutional experiment may founder to the damage of the whole United Kingdom–has been squeezed by a statement that could have been left until tomorrow, and an important Bill on broiler chickens.
    Mr. McAllion: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr Major: No, I shall not give way. I have things to say that are more important than answering the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I am delighted to speak after the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). Throughout the consideration of the Bill, he has bravely identified the difficulties inherent in it, as he did with its predecessor many years ago. He and I do not always agree. In Hebden Bridge terms, there have been moments when others, not myself, might have referred to him as a . . . nuisance, but the way in which he has campaigned against a very bad and blatantly wrong Bill that is self-evidently damaging to the United Kingdom redounds strongly to his credit. I much admire what he has done.
    This bad Bill will do more damage to the United Kingdom than any Bill for generations, and will institutionalise advantages for Scotland and for Scottish Members of Parliament. The Bill will do more: over time, it will institutionalise resentment against Scotland and Scottish Members of Parliament, which is not a light matter for those of us who care about the unity of the United Kingdom.
    Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr Major: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not. Many hon. Members want to speak, so I shall be brief. The key point–
    Mr. Andrew Welsh (Angus): The right hon. Gentleman has not attended a debate before today.
    Mr Major: The debate is brief because there is a guillotine at 5.30 pm, and the Government have outrageously wasted most of the available time. The key point–what has become known as the West Lothian question–is the way in which the Bill will unbalance the constitution. As the hon. Member for Linlithgow said, what the Bill proposes is unsustainable. Bluntly, what justification is there for Scottish Members of Parliament being able to vote on education, health and other matters affecting my constituents in England, when they cannot vote on those matters as they affect their own constituents?
    There is no logical reason for Scottish Members of Parliament being able to vote on matters that affect the English, the Welsh and the Northern Irish, when English, Welsh and Northern Irish Members of Parliament will be unable to vote on those matters as they affect people who live Scotland. What would happen–the hon. Member for Linlithgow touched gently upon this point–if a Government party had an overall majority in the United Kingdom, but was in the minority in England?
    Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland): What happened when the Government party was in the minority in Scotland?
    Mr Major: If the hon. and learned Gentleman cares to look back, he will see that previous Labour Governments have sustained a majority with Scottish Members of Parliament. The difference is that the Bill proposes that the Scottish Parliament will have exclusive responsibility for certain issues and the power to tax. If he does not understand that, he should listen to the debates and then contribute.
    Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr Major: No, the hon. Gentleman can make his speech in a few moments.
    Mr. Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Lord. The former Prime Minister, for whom I have some regard, seems to be unaware that we are continuing a debate that we were having 10 days ago. Is it in order to attend the second half of a Committee debate and refuse to take interventions?
    The Second Deputy Chairman: It is up to right hon. and hon. Members to decide whether to take interventions.
    Mr Major: I shall deal with that point briefly. Of course the debate was going on the other evening, but it was agreed that there would be a further two hours of debate today. There has not been a further two hours of debate, and some hon. Members who want to speak on this issue will not be able to do so. I intend to be brief so that the hon. Gentleman can contribute, if only he will cease interrupting.
    I return to the point about what will happen in England. Will the English be treated less favourably constitutionally than the Scots under this Bill and the Welsh under the Government of Wales Bill? That is not sustainable. With their majority, the Government can drive the Bill through the House, and show every intention of doing so. I beg the Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution to consider what that will do over time to opinion in England. Does he really want to arouse nationalism across an England that resents the Scots and the Welsh? I do not want that to happen; yet I fear that the nature of the Bill, and the way in which the Government are driving it through the Commons, will lead to such an outcome.
    Is there a credible answer to the West Lothian question? Not without a rebalancing of the constitution once the Bill has become law, as it now almost certainly will.
    Mr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr Major: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not. No one in the House has any doubt about my feeling on the issue over many years. I have never made any secret of the fact that I think that the sort of constitutional change that is proposed is very short-sighted. It is being introduced for party political advantage, and over time–a long time–it will backfire. I am concerned about the long-term future of the United Kingdom, not the short-term advantage of politicians who see some advantage in supporting the Bill at the present time.
    The only gainers from the Bill, over time, will be those who genuinely favour–the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) does, and has made no secret of it–a separatist Scotland, a Scotland broken away from the rest of the United Kingdom. The Government, who claim that that is not their position, will have to answer at the bar of history for having brought about circumstances that may create exactly that eventuality.
    If the Bill goes through, it will be necessary to bring about further constitutional change to minimise the damage and the resentment across the United Kingdom that the Bill will create. I do not know whether that means an English Parliament–which I do not myself favour–an English Grand Committee, or some other stratagem. Clearly, much more thought will be needed than we can give this afternoon, but changes there will undoubtedly need to be once the Bill is on the statute book.
    I say that changes will have to come, because the constitutional vandalism of this ill-thought-out pig’s breakfast of a Bill will demand further change elsewhere in the United Kingdom to protect the position of people elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and to protect the working practices of the House.
    Sir Robert Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr Major: Surely the hon. Gentleman heard me say that I would not give way. I want as many hon. Members as possible to be able to speak. I have made it clear repeatedly over the past seven years, and over the past few months when the Bill has been contemplated, that I absolutely understand, and admire, the sense of national pride in Scotland. No one disputes that. I believe, however, that the Scots will find that the menu that has been laid before them is a menu without price. There is a price to be paid, in Scotland and elsewhere–
    Mr. McAllion: You paid the price.
    Mr Major: If I did, I paid the price for standing up for what I thought was right for the United Kingdom. I did not stand up for what I thought was right for Labour party political interests, which is what the present Government have done.
    Scotland cannot have extra privileges; it cannot have more public expenditure; it cannot have excessive representation in the House; and it cannot have constitutional advantages over the rest of the United Kingdom–if that United Kingdom is to remain united, as I wish it to. This is a divisive Bill. Let us not mince words. Not so much in the short term, as in the long term, the Bill will damage the unity of the United Kingdom dramatically. It brings change, and it will create a demand for more change. It is a constitutional whirlwind, and we will reap the harvest–not just in the House, where we can cope with our procedures, but in regard to something far more important and far more long-standing: the unity of the United Kingdom itself.
    On that issue, the House may not be able to make changes in the Bill, given the majority in favour of it; but the time will come when those who railroaded it through will have to answer for what they have done, and others will have to correct the errors that they have made.

  • 1997 Conservative Party Manifesto – 2 April 1997

    Below is the text of the 1997 Conservative Party manifesto.

    Foreword

    The Conservative administrations elected since 1979 are among the most successful in British peacetime history. A country once the sick man of Europe has become its most successful economy. A country once brought to its knees by over-mighty trade unions now has industrial peace. Abroad, the cold war has been won; at home, the rule of law has been restored. The enterprising virtues of the British people have been liberated from the dead hand of the state. There can be no doubt that we have created a better Britain.

    Why, then, do we still need a Conservative Government? Because resting on what we have achieved is not enough. To stand still is to fall back. Our goal must be for Britain to be the best place in the world to live.

    We live in a tougher, more uncertain world. A fast-moving global free market is emerging. New economic powers are rising in the East. Family life and social attitudes are changing. Europe is adjusting to the end of communism. The European social model is failing. The nation state is under threat. We must respond to these challenges.

    We have turned around our economic fortunes. We have fewer people out of work and more in work than any other major European economy. British people now have the opportunity of a prosperous future. But that prosperity cannot be taken for granted. We have to compete to win. That means a constant fight to keep tight control over public spending and enable Britain to remain the lowest taxed major economy in Europe. It means a continuing fight to keep burdens off business, maintaining our opt-out of the European Social Chapter. If we relax for one moment, our hard won success will slip away again.

    We have strengthened choice and personal ownership for families, and rolled back the state from areas where it was interfering unnecessarily in our lives. But we now have the opportunity to achieve a massive expansion in wealth and ownership so that more families can enjoy the self-respect and independence that comes with being self-sufficient from the state. Our far-reaching proposals for personal pension funds are central to achieving this – so too are our plans to increase support for the family in our tax system. Our aim is to spread opportunity for all to succeed, whoever they are and wherever they come from, provided they are prepared to work hard. To turn the “have nots” into the “haves”. To support the family in providing security and stability.

    We have modernised and reformed many of the areas where the state still has a vital role. But we now have to build on these reforms to deliver even better services. We must continue providing the resources to invest in our modernised health service. We can now provide parents with a hard-edged guarantee of standards in schools. We need also to widen choice in areas where state bureaucracy has constrained it.

    We have pioneered new ways of building partnerships that engage the private sector in areas previously dependent on the public purse. We now need to capture private sector investment on a massive scale to regenerate our cities, transform our crumbling local authority housing estates and modernise other public assets.

    The only way to secure this future of opportunity is to stick with the Conservative programme of continuing reform. Now would be the worst possible moment to abandon the pathway to prosperity on which we are set. We must keep up the momentum.

    At the same time we must maintain the security that a stable nation provides in an uncertain, fast-changing world. We must protect our constitution and unity as a nation from those who threaten it with unnecessary and dangerous change. And we must stand up for our interests in shaping a free-market Europe of sovereign nation states.

    There is, of course, an alternative on offer: to load costs on business while calling it “stakeholding”; to increase the role of the state, while calling it “the community”; to succumb to a centralised Europe while calling it “not being isolated”; to break up our country while calling it “devolution”.

    To risk this alternative would be a disaster for our country. We have come a very long way. We must be sure that we do not throw away what we have gained, or lose the opportunities we have earned.

    Our Record

    The UK is on course to grow faster than both France and Germany for the sixth successive year in 1998 – a post-war record.

    Inflation has now been below 4% for well over 4 years, the longest period of low inflation for almost half a century.

    Mortgage rates are at their lowest levels for 30 years.

    Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for 6 years. We now have a lower unemployment rate than any other major European economy. Youth unemployment in Britain has fallen to less than 15% whereas by contrast, in France it has risen to 27% and in Italy to 33%.

    A higher proportion of our people are in work than in any other major European economy – 68% against a Continental average of 57%.

    The UK is the favourite location for inward investment into Europe, attracting around one third of inward investment into the European Union.

    We have the lowest tax burden of any major European economy, with the government taking almost 8% less of national income than the European average.

    Public borrowing has averaged 3.4% of GDP since 1919 compared with 6.8% (and a peak of 9.5%) under the last Labour Government. Our level of public debt is now one of the lowest in the European Union – whereas it was one of the highest in 1979.

    In 1994 the UK lost 300,000 working days through strikes, the lowest figure ever recorded; in 1979 the figure was 29,500,000: nearly 100 times that figure.

    Britain ranks fifth in the world in international trade, and exports more per head than America or Japan. Exports account for 28% of GDP as against 9% for Japan, 11 % for USA and 24% for Germany and France. Britain’s current account is broadly in balance, reflecting our increased competitiveness and improved trading.

    1. Doubling Living Standards

    The free market is winning the battle of ideas the world over. From Russia to Vietnam, from China to Romania, people are realising that the socialist model has failed. This is not just an economic triumph. It is a triumph for human freedom. Britain helped to secure it. We should take pride in it.

    The spread of the free market heralds a new age of global competition. That means new markets for British goods and services, but new competitors for British companies as well.

    If we try to protect ourselves from these challenges with more regulations, public subsidies and a cosy dependence on government then Britain will fail. But if we boldly embrace these new opportunities by pushing forward the economic revolution we began in 1979, then we will enter the next millennium with boundless prospects for growth and prosperity.

    That choice – between stagnation and dynamism – is the choice which faces Britain at this election. It is a stark choice between the British way – of trusting the people and unleashing enterprise – and the failing social model, practised on the continent, which the Labour Party wants to impose on us here under the guise of “stakeholding”.

    Hard economic evidence shows how great is the divide between these two strategies. Britain is now in its fifth year of growing faster than France or Germany. Unemployment in Britain has fallen to less than two million, while it rises across Europe. Britain attracts nearly forty per cent of all the American and Japanese investment in Europe. Our aim now is to safeguard these achievements and build on them, so Britain becomes the unrivalled Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    A Low Tax Economy

    For enterprise to flourish, the state must get out of the way of the wealth creators. We are the only party that can cut taxes because we are the only party which is serious about controlling public spending. The choice between the two economic philosophies is clean In the years before 1979, public spending in Britain kept pace with the average for Europe as a whole. Since then, it has continued rising on the continent, while we have restrained public spending here. Now, public spending takes about 40% of our national income as against an average of 50% on the continent. We have broken free from a trend in which the rest of Europe is still trapped.

    Conservative government will keep public spending under tight control and ensure that it grows by less than the economy as a whole over the economic cycle. At the same time we will continue to spend more on the services which matter most to people – hospitals, schools and the police.

    Over the next parliament, we will achieve our goal for the government to spend less than 40% of our national income.

    That means we can reduce the amount government borrows too, and meet our aim of moving towards a balanced budget in the medium term. Our plans show how we can virtually eliminate public borrowing by the year 2000.

    Thanks to our success in controlling public spending, Britain is now Europe’s low tax economy. This is one of the reasons why we are becoming the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    Our aim is to ensure Britain keeps the lowest tax burden of any major European economy.

    In the election manifesto of 1992, we promised that “We will make further progress towards a basic income tax rate of 20p”. Since then, we have cut the basic rate of income tax from 25p to 23p, and extended the 20p band so that over a quarter of all taxpayers now only pay income tax at the 20p rate. Achieving our public expenditure goals will mean we can sustain permanently low tax levels.

    Over the next parliament, our aim will be to achieve our target of a 20p basic rate of income tax, while maintaining a maximum tax rate of no more than 40p.

    Stable Prices

    Inflation has to be kept firmly under control for an economy to thrive. Britain is now enjoying the longest period of stable prices for almost fifty years. We are on target to reach our goal of 2½% inflation this year.

    Low inflation has delivered lower interest rates whilst preserving the value of people’s savings. Homeowners are now enjoying mortgage rates at the lowest levels for 30 years.

    It has taken tough decisions to break free from our reputation as a high inflation economy. No Conservative government will jeopardise this achievement.

    During the next parliament, we will maintain an inflation target of 2½% or less.

    Rising Living Standards

    The only secure base for rising living standards is a strongly growing economy, low levels of public spending and taxation, and stable prices. That is exactly what Britain is achieving. People are reaping the rewards of their hard work as their take home pay increases. Between 1974 and 1979, the take home pay for a family on average earnings rose, in real terms, by just £1 a week in today’s prices. Since 1979 it has increased by £100 a week; this year alone it will increase by £7 a week.

    The goal which we set ourselves in 1995 is to double living standards over 25 years.

    We are on course to achieve our goal.

    2. Jobs and Business

    Our priority is to create jobs. This is not just an economic priority, but also a social and moral one. Jobs and enterprise are the best ways of tackling poverty and deprivation.

    Britain is succeeding. 900,000 jobs have been created over the past 4 years. By contrast the European social model is stifling job creation on the continent by imposing regulations and burdens on business. In the United Kingdom unemployment is much lower than in the rest of Europe and falling whereas in Germany, France, and Italy it has risen to its highest level for a generation. This is no accident. It is because we have pursued very different policies from those on the Continent.

    Curbing the power of trade unions, opening up markets and cutting red tape, have given us a low strike, low cost economy: and as a result Britain is the number one location for foreign investment in Europe.

    Never have such policies been so important. For the first time this century we face a world full of capitalist competition. The only way Britain will be able to compete and win in world markets is by sticking to the Conservative policies that are delivering success. We can earn prosperity as one of the world’s most successful global trading nations. We should not risk this progress by adopting the very policies that have made the continent uncompetitive and have increased unemployment in Europe by 4.5 million over the past 5 years.

    Small Businesses – Britain’s Risk-takers

    Governments do not create jobs. Businesses do. The source of tomorrow’s jobs will be small businesses, the seedcorn of Britain’s prosperity. Over the last 15 years, small businesses have created over 2 million jobs. By the year 2000, over half the workforce should be working in companies which employ fewer than 50 people. Back in 1979 only a third of the workforce did.

    Entrepreneurs often risk everything when they set up their own business. We have already helped them: raising the VAT threshold, cutting employer’s national insurance contributions, simplifying audit requirements and much more besides. Now we intend to go further, tackling the remaining problems they face.

    High taxes and rates deter enterprise. Our low tax structure has been crucial to our industrial revival. We already have the lowest corporation tax of any major industrialised country. As we want small businesses to flourish, we will go even further.

    We will cut the small companies rate of corporation tax in line with personal taxation as we move towards a 20p basic rate

    Investment and enterprise are deterred if the taxman takes too much of the capital that is built up by a successful business. Capital is ever more mobile, flying around the world to places where the tax on it is low: Britain must be one of those places.

    We will continue to reduce the burden of capital gains tax and inheritance tax as it is prudent to do so.

    One of the heaviest burdens small businesses face is business rates. At the moment, this bears more heavily upon small businesses than large ones.

    In the next parliament, we will reform business rates to reduce the cost that falls upon small businesses.

    No businessman has time to fill out reams of forms. We will continue to simplify the administration of NICs and PAYE for small firms, allowing them to concentrate on satisfying customers not bureaucrats. We are also tackling a problem that hits small businesses particularly hard – the late payment of bills. On top of our programme to ensure government departments and local authorities pay on time we have legislated to require companies to publish their payment policy and to report their record on how quickly they pay their bills to small businesses.

    We have already abolished over a thousand regulations. New regulations must only be introduced if it is clear that their benefits exceed their costs and they do not place an undue burden on a small firm.

    We will introduce “sunset” requirements into new regulations whenever appropriate so that they are automatically reviewed or dropped after a specific period.

    Many businessmen suffer regulatory burdens imposed by local government and quangos.

    We will therefore insist that the whole of the public sector adopts the same stringent rules that we require of central government in justifying the benefits of new regulations against their costs.

    Reducing the Burden on Companies

    Jobs depend on British firms winning orders: the difference between success or failure can be wafer-thin. Any extra burden on business will destroy jobs.

    Britain is enjoying more jobs and record investment, thanks to the competitive edge we have over other European countries. We are a low cost economy But that does not mean we are a low pay economy. Our competitive advantage comes from the lower costs facing our businesses. It can be measured by the social costs an employer has to pay on top of every £100 of wages: in Germany it is £31, in France £41, but in Britain, it is only £15.

    Many countries in Europe have tried to cocoon themselves from global competition behind layers of red tape and regulation – such as the Social Chapter and a national minimum wage. This provides a false sense of security, playing a cruel trick on working people. It also excludes the unemployed from work. As companies in the rest of Europe have grown more uncompetitive, employers have found it too expensive to employ new workers, investment has gone elsewhere, and the dole queues have lengthened. The European social model is not social and not a model for us to follow. But if Britain signed up to the Social Chapter it would be used to impose that model on us – destroying British jobs.

    No Conservative government will sign up to the Social Chapter or introduce a national minimum wage We will insist at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam that our opt-out is honoured and that Britain is exempted from the Working Time Directive: if old agreements are broken, we do not see how new ones can be made

    We will resist the imposition of other social burdens on the work place through a new European employment chapter.

    Welfare into Work

    Although governments cannot create jobs, they can help people train and find work. We now have in place a battery of schemes working with Training and Enterprise Councils to provide targeted help and training, including remedial education in literacy and numeracy. We are also developing new incentives, alongside Family Credit, to help people move off benefit into work.

    We will always help those in genuine need: in return, the unemployed have a responsibility to look for work and accept a reasonable offer That belief underpins our new Jobseeker’s Allowance which ensures that no-one can refuse reasonable work opportunities and remain on benefit.

    As unemployment falls, we want to focus on those who have been unemployed for some time. At present, Project Work is helping 100,000 people who have been unemployed for more than 2 years in cities around Britain. They are first given help in finding a job – which includes giving employers incentives to take them on. Those who do not find jobs are then required to work for a specific period on a community project. This helps them regain work habits and ensures they are available for work.

    As Project Work succeeds and demonstrates that its costs can be met by the savings from getting people into work, we will extend the programme to cover the long-term unemployed nationwide

    We will also develop an innovative “Britain Works” scheme which uses the experience and ingenuity of private and voluntary sectors to get people off welfare into work.

    Britain has one of the most mobile economies in Europe. People move on, and up, into better paid jobs more easily than on the continent.

    The Information Society

    Britain is at the forefront of creating tomorrow’s information society Already we have exposed domestic telecommunications to competition and stimulated investment in cable and satellite entertainment systems. And by opening up international telecommunications we will continue to encourage companies worldwide to base their global operations here. We will make sure that the digital revolution comes to Britain first.

    We are launching an ambitious programme with industry to spread “IT for All”, giving every adult the opportunity to try out and learn about new IT services. We will work with industry to ensure that all schools are connected to the information superhighway.

    We will use the Millennium Lottery Fund to transform the computer facilities and information links available in schools, libraries, museums, voluntary organisations and other public places after the turn of the century.

    This will give the public much wider access to information services in the years ahead. We will also take advantage of information technology to transform the way government provides services to the public.

    We will keep Britain in the vanguard of new mobile service development – including mobile telephone and information services – by introducing a pricing system for the radio spectrum to achieve more efficient allocation of radio frequencies.

    We will maintain a strong, free and competitive broadcasting and press environment at both national and local level, while continuing to be vigilant in monitoring whether action is needed to curb breaches of standards, and prevent unacceptable press intrusion.

    Science

    British science enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence and cost-effectiveness, which makes Britain an attractive base for many domestic and overseas companies. We will continue to invest in science and target funds at basic research, which would not otherwise be funded by industry. At the same time we will provide an enterprising environment which encourages firms to invest with confidence in applied science.

    2020 Vision

    There is no part of the globe which has not been reached by British enterprise and British culture. We have always looked out beyond these shores, beyond this continent. Our language, our heritage of international trading links, our foreign investments – second only to America’s – are historic strengths which mean we are ideally placed to seize the opportunities of the global economy.

    Thanks to Conservative policies of liberalisation and privatisation we are strong in industries of the future such as telecommunications, financial services, and information technology. These are the industries that will benefit from opening up trade around the world. We will push for completion of the European Single Market and continue to pursue the objective of transatlantic free trade against the background of world trade liberalisation.

    Our aim is nothing less than tariff free trade across the globe by the year 2020.

    Free competition is important for free markets. Companies should not make agreements that restrict competition and hence result in poor value for consumers. We have set out proposals to give companies greater protection against price fixing, dumping, and other restrictive practices by larger competitors.

    We will introduce a Competition Bill to take forward these proposals in the first session of the next parliament

    We are committed to pushing forward our competitiveness agenda which is making Britain the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    Opportunity and Ownership for Individuals and Families

    Our Record – Opportunity

    The right to buy has allowed 1.5 million council tenants to become homeowners. There are over 4 million more homeowners today than in 1979.

    The Government has spent £6 billion through housing associations to provide homes for rent. Between 1992 and 1995 housing associations provided 178,000 new lettings – 25,000 more than promised in the 1992 Manifesto.

    There are now around 10 million private shareholders, up from about 3 million at the time of the last Labour government. 2.5 million people now have tax free savings in PEP accounts, and 4.5 million in TESSAs.

    Since 1979, the success of private pension provision has raised the average income of pensioners by 60% more than inflation. Almost 90% of recently retired pensioners now have incomes over and above state benefits.

    Savings in private pension funds have increased to £650 billion –more than 4 times the level in 1979. Their value is greater than the pension funds in all other EU countries added together.

    Over the period 1979 to 1995, education spending per pupil rose from £515 to £1,890 – an increase in real terms of 48%. Real spending on books and equipment per pupil rose 56%. Teachers’ real pay rose 57%: from £270 per week in 1979 to £420 in 1995.

    In 1979, 40% of three and four year olds attended nursery school; in 1995 the figure was 59%. Our nursery vouchers now give this opportunity to every child.

    The proportion of sixteen year olds staying on in full-time education rose from 4 out of 10 in 1979 to 7 out of 10 in 1995.

    Almost 1 in 3 young people now go on to university, compared with 1 in 8 in 1979.

    The proportion of adults with no academic qualifications has halved since 1979 and the proportion of adults with a degree or equivalent has more than doubled rising from 5% to 12%.

    3. Choice and Security for Families

    The family is the most important institution in our lives. It offers security and stability in a fast-changing world. But the family is undermined if governments take decisions which families ought to take for themselves. Self-reliance underpins freedom and choice.

    Families are stronger if they have the money to look after themselves: that is why we are shifting power and wealth back to working families and away from the state. We have already achieved much – the average family’s disposable income has gone up by 40% since 1979. But we want to go further. The next Conservative government intends to reform the tax system so that it gives substantially more help to families.

    We also want to encourage people to save so they have the security and self-respect that comes from being able to rely on their own resources rather than immediately turning to the state. We have already made much progress here too with widening ownership of homes, pensions, and the new PEPs and TESSAs. We now propose further radical measures for more saving for retirement.

    Families and Tax

    We believe families should be left with as much of their own money as possible. They know better than politicians how to spend it. We have already cut the basic rate of income tax from 33p to 23p, and our aim is to get it down to 20p, benefitting 18 million taxpayers. We intend to do even more to help families in particular

    At the moment, if one spouse does not take paid work in order to look after children or dependent relatives, they not only give up earnings but may also be unable to benefit from their personal tax allowance. Yet this is the time at which their income is often most stretched.

    We believe our tax system should recognise and support the crucial role of families in their caring responsibilities. We will give them that support.

    We will give priority to future reductions in personal taxation that help families looking after dependent children or relatives by allowing one partner’s unused personal allowance to be transferred to a working spouse where they have these responsibilities.

    This will provide a targeted reduction in the tax bill to those families who need it most. Around 2 million one-taxpayer couples with dependent children, or looking after elderly relatives and others needing care, would gain up to £17.50 a week – around £900 a year

    Family Savings

    In the old days people just depended on the weekly pay packet or money from the state. But no job can be secure and the state cannot provide for every eventuality. It is ownership which brings true security and genuine independence from the state. That is why Conservatives have long dreamed of a property-owning democracy. Now we are delivering it in practice. Home ownership is up by 4.7 million. 10 million people own a direct personal stake in our economy. 16 million are gaining shares in their building societies thanks to our deregulation of them. We intend to carry forward our vision of a people’s share. This is a significant increase in personal security. It is the Conservative vision of security through personal savings – not a socialist vision of security through the state.

    We want people to enjoy Britain’s success – especially by owning shares in the companies for which they work. We have already introduced a number of schemes to encourage employee share ownership. To encourage a further expansion of worker shares, our new Share Match Scheme will allow employees to be rewarded with additional free shares if they acquire a stake in their company.

    Our goal is that by 2000, more than half of the employees of Britain’s larger companies will own shares in those companies.

    Four and a half million people now benefit from tax free TESSAs and 2.5 million from PEP schemes to encourage the accumulation of long term saving. We will continue to build on this success by exploring ways in which existing tax exemptions for savings can be developed – allowing individuals to secure their future and protect their families against unexpected contingencies.

    We will continue to raise the threshold for inheritance tax as it is prudent to do so.

    People are not just saving for themselves but for their children and grand-children. These savings should not be penalised by the tax system.

    For many people their biggest asset is their pension. Thanks to the steps we have already taken to encourage occupational and personal pensions, we now have £650 billion invested in private pensions – more than the rest of the European Union put together We now plan to build further on this achievement.

    We will make it easier for small employers to set up personal pension plans for groups of employees.

    We will create more flexibility for people who save in personal pension plans to continue investing in those schemes if they subsequently move to jobs with company pension schemes.

    We will also create flexibility for employees with savings in Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVC) schemes to take part of that pension earlier or later than their main company pension.

    But we believe the time has now come to plan for another important step in improving Britain’s pension provision. Britain is already much better placed than many other countries to afford state pensions in the future, but we want even more people to be able to look forward to properly funded pension that grows with the economy and is free from dependence on taxes paid by future generations. We now propose a practical way of achieving a gradual transformation of the state pension scheme.

    At the start of the next parliament we will set out proposals to provide all young people entering the workforce with a personal pension fund paid for through a rebate on their national insurance contributions. At retirement they would be entitled to the full pension earned by this accumulated investment. This could give them a pension significantly higher than they would currently receive from the state. But they will be guaranteed a pension at least equal to the current bask state pension, increased in line with inflation.

    This will be one of the most significant improvements in the state pension system since it was introduced.

    Older people currently in the workforce would be unaffected – they will continue to contribute as now and receive the normal state pension when they retire.

    This policy would come into effect early in the new millennium. Gradual phasing in of the new system over 40 years will make the impact on public finances affordable. Even at its peak, the net revenue forgone will be only a fraction of the savings from the recent Pensions Act. And eventually, the new policy will produce massive public expenditure savings.

    This far-sighted idea is in the best Conservative tradition. The growing wealth of the nation will provide for the next generation through private funding, underpinned by a state guarantee. British people will be able to look forward to retirement with even greater confidence. And our young people will have a pensions opportunity unrivalled in the world.

    Support for Families

    Conservatives believe that a healthy society encourages people to accept responsibility for their own lives. A heavy-handed and intrusive state can do enormous damage.

    Some families need help to cope with their responsibilities. For them, Social Services play a vital role. They help with children where parental care has failed. They deliver an ever wider range of services to people with learning difficulties or who are mentally ill. Our community care reforms have given them a central role ensuring that elderly people get care of the highest quality: and in their own homes where possible. We need to ensure that role is properly fulfilled.

    Early in the next Parliament we will introduce a Social Services Reform Bill which will create a new statutory framework for social services. The Bill will provide for greater openness and accountability in social services.

    We will provide new guidance to ensure social workers properly reflect the values of the community – focusing their efforts on those families who most need support, and minimising unnecessary interference. Social workers working with children will receive special training to cope with the often heart-rending cases they face.

    We will raise standards through a new regulatory framework which will apply the same standards in both the public and private sector.

    We will also remove the power of local authorities to operate care homes where this is in the best interests of the people for whom they are responsible.

    We believe that families who use social services should be able to exercise choice wherever practicable. We have given cash payments to disabled people to purchase the services they need directly.

    We also want new ways of reinforcing individual choice where possible. We will therefore ensure no barriers stand in the way of local authorities wanting to issue their users with vouchers to buy certain services.

    We will review the direct payment scheme, and provided it has been cost effective, we will extend it to other users of social services.

    Above all, we want to help families to help themselves. Caring for older – or disabled – relatives is one of the most natural human instincts. We recognise the crucial and often demanding role carers play, and will help them more.

    We will introduce a Respite Care Programme. This will enable family members with heavy responsibilities caring for a relative to take a much needed break. We will also offer more practical advice for carers who want to go back to paid work.

    But in some cases, elderly people need more care than their friends or relatives can provide. Financing long term care worries many families. We will create an imaginative, fair partnership between individuals and the public sector to resolve this problem.

    In the first session of the next Parliament we will implement our partnership scheme for long term care, making it easier for people to afford the cost of care in old age without giving up their lifetime savings.

    Good preparation for marriage can be an important aid to a successful family, while timely help in meeting difficulties can often avoid family breakdown. These are matters for voluntary effort, not the state, but we will continue to support such effort.

    We need to make sure efforts to help struggling families does not turn into unnecessary meddling.

    When the state goes too far, it is often the children who suffer They become victims of the worst sort of political correctness.

    We will introduce legislation to remove unnecessary barriers to adoption and introduce new rules to make adoption from abroad more straightforward.

    We will also monitor the workings of the Children Act, and act if necessary to ensure it maintains a proper balance between the rights of children and the responsibilities of adults.

    Social Services departments are now the fourth arm of the welfare state. Most people will need them at some point in their lives. We will ensure that the Conservative revolution in public services now reaches Social Services.

    Disabled People

    We have quadrupled real spending on long term sick and disabled people since 1979, to £22 billion.

    We have introduced the Disability Discrimination Act. This is the first legislation of its kind anywhere in Europe and it provides positive proof of our commitment to disabled people. We will monitor it to ensure it continues to meet its objectives.

    We are also providing a continuing fund to enable the most severely disabled people to stay in their own homes.

    Security in Retirement

    Pensioners continue to make a positive contribution to society in retirement. They give more of their time in charitable work than any other age group. They lift some of the pressures on their own families. They help keep our nation’s history and traditions alive.

    They have paid their National Insurance contributions and taxes and rightly expect us to continue to protect the value of the basic state pension against price rises. We will do so. We will also ensure that less well off pensioners continue to get extra help on top of the basic pension.

    At the same time as protecting the state pension, our encouragement of private pensions is already transforming the living standards of pensioners. The average net income of pensioners has risen by 60% since 1979. This has been achieved by our encouragement of saving for retirement.

    The tax system must help pensioners who have saved. Our new lower 20p rate on income from savings directly helps 1.7 million pensioners and the special age allowances raise the point at which pensioners start to pay income tax.

    A Better Social Security System

    People in need can rely on our continuing support. To ensure that taxpayers are

    willing to go on paying for that support, we have shaped a social security system we can afford, taking a steadily declining share of our national income. We are doing this by focusing benefits on those most in need, helping people off welfare and into work, and curbing welfare fraud. These policies are underpinned by our measures to help families help themselves.

    Social Security must be there to help families, pensioners and people in need. We will protect the value of Child Benefit and Family Credit which help with the cost of bringing up children. This is our Family Benefits Guarantee.

    We will bring the structure of benefits for lone parents into line with that for two-parent families. We will continue to help lone parents obtain maintenance, and assist with childcare in work: both these measures help lone parents obtain work. We will pilot our “Parent Plus” Scheme that gives special help to lone parents who want to work, and extend it if it proves successful.

    Social Security fraud must be stamped out.

    We will intensify our current initiatives of inspections and checks, including more home visits, to crack down further on benefit cheats. We will introduce benefit cards across the country. We will establish a Benefit Fraud inspectorate to monitor local authorities’ performance. We will also improve the sharing of information between government departments to catch more fraudulent claims.

    To ensure as much of the Social Security budget as possible goes into benefits, we will continue to improve the efficiency of administration, using the best mix of public and private sector operations.

    Housing

    Owning one’s own home is an aim shared by millions of people. Over the last 18 years, the number of homeowners has increased by 4.7 million – including 1.7 million who have bought their home under the right to buy scheme. Over the next 10 years, we expect to see another one and a half million people buying their own homes – some 3,000 every week. To meet that demand, we will continue to allow local authority and housing association tenants to buy their homes, or move to houses which they buy.

    We will also carry through our draft Bill, creating the option for those buying flats to choose a new form of commonhold ownership.

    For those who wish to rent their home, we are encouraging a thriving private rental market, building on the success of housing investment trusts and protecting assured tenancies.

    Easier renting will help us meet our target of reducing the proportion of empty homes below 3%. The number of empty houses has fallen in each of the last 3 years. But nothing is more frustrating for people who need social housing, than the sight of a suitable property owned by the public sector boarded up and empty. We will stop that.

    Public landlords will have to sell houses which are available for occupation yet have been left empty without a good reason for more than 12 months.

    Housing associations and housing companies will continue to receive help in building new homes, and we will encourage more public-private partnerships. Together, these policies will help meet the demand for new public housing and make sure that there are decent homes for those in need.

    Opportunities for Women

    Women are succeeding in Britain. More women have jobs in Britain than in almost any other European country. Women have a better education, more financial independence and more opportunities than at any other time in Britain’s history.

    This success reflects the efforts and determination of many women. Government’s role has been simpler – to level up the playing field, whether in education, where girls are now doing better than boys, or in the workplace, where opportunities for women are the best in Europe.

    But we know our job is not yet done. Some women still face barriers to doing well. Some still do not have the financial security they deserve. And crime, and the fear of crime, often affect women more than men.

    We will ensure women have equal opportunities in education and the workplace. This can best be achieved by keeping our economy buoyant and our labour markets flexible. And our proposals to bring crime rates down further will help women especially.

    But many women – and some men – face a particular problem: how to juggle job and family. For those who need or want to work, we will seek further ways to minimise the barriers to affordable, high quality childcare. For those who wish to be full-time parents, our proposals to enable them to transfer their unused personal allowance to their spouse will be worth up to an extra £17.50 a week.

    We also want to give women more financial independence, particularly when they retire. We propose, as explained elsewhere, to improve flexibility in saving for retirement and to allow courts to split pensions on divorce.

    Looking Outwards

    The spread of share ownership, the transformation of pension provision, and the sale of council houses are revolutionising our nation. Personal prosperity and property ownership are not selfish or inward-looking.

    People who are secure at home can look out for others in their community. Over two thirds of adults engage in some form of voluntary activity. By the end of 1997 all young people aged between 15 and 25 who want to volunteer will be helped to find an opportunity to do so.

    We will make it easier for those receiving incapacity benefit to volunteer by removing the 16 hour weekly limit on their voluntary work.

    We will encourage voluntary work by others living on benefit while continuing to insist that those who are capable of work should actively seek employment. We will also develop accreditation for voluntary work to encourage employers to see it as preparation for a paid job.

    It is wrong to imagine that compassion must be nationalised and that we can only help our fellow man through state action.

    4. Education and Opportunity

    All children dream of what they might do when they grow up. Our task is to help them turn those dreams into reality whatever their background may be. It is an exciting world, full of new opportunities for inquiring minds: it should be open to every child. Their future – and Britain’s prosperity – depends on the quality of their education.

    Our Education Guarantee

    A good education is the birthright of every child. Literacy is the building block of all future learning: English is the global language of commerce and, much more, a thing of beauty. Without basic science and mathematics, the modern world is incomprehensible. Every child therefore must be taught to read, write and add up from an early age.

    Years of mistaken, progressive education in the 1960s and 1970s denied these precious skills to too many children. We have worked ceaselessly since 1979 to put that right. Our decision to test children and publish the results has allowed standards to be measured and exposed. We have reformed the curriculum, toughened inspections, and given more information and power to parents. Our many excellent teachers now know what is expected of them, and already standards in schools are rising. But they are still not good enough. We must do more.

    Building on what we have done, we can now offer a new pledge to parents – a guarantee of education standards.

    First, we will set national targets for school performance that reflect our objective of ensuring that Britain is in the top league of international standards across the whole spectrum of education.

    Second, we will require every school to plan how to improve its performance, and to set targets which relate to similar schools and national standards.

    Third, we will give all parents full information on the performance of their child’s school

    Fourth, to underwrite our pledge, we will ensure action is taken to bring any under-performing school up to the mark.

    We will meet this pledge by using the full set of levers for improved standards that we have put in place.

    We are revising and simplifying the National Curriculum in primary schools to emphasise high standards in the basic skills.

    Parents and teachers must have an overview of not just how much a child has learnt while at school, but how the school performs against others. Poor schooling must not be protected by a veil of secrecy. Parent power is a vital force for higher standards.

    Regular tests and exams are essential if teachers are to discover how much their pupils have learnt, and parents are to know how much progress their children are making against national standards. That is why children are already being tested at 7, 11 and 14.

    We will publish all school test results, including the results of tests of 7 and 14 year olds.

    We propose also to assess every child at five.

    This will give teachers and parents a benchmark against which they can measure future progress. To give a better measure of pupil’s performance, marks out of 100 will be made available to parents as well as the broad-brush levels.

    We will also introduce a new test for 14 year old children that covers the whole National Curriculum – assessing progress before they choose subjects for GCSE.

    Tests and exams need to be rigorous and demanding. We will insist that they establish children’s command of spelling, punctuation, and grammar in English tests. Children will sit arithmetic tests without calculators. We will not allow such extensive use of open books in tests and in GCSE exams. We will establish an English Language GCSE. We will continue to uphold the gold standard of A-levels, and ensure that the great classics of our literature are studied at A-level. At the same time students should have the chance to study more subjects in the sixth form.

    Rigorous tests show how individual children and schools are performing and expose schools that are not giving children the education they deserve. To underwrite our guarantee, we will then take action to improve standards. We cannot tolerate schools that fail their pupils.

    By this summer every secondary school in the country will have been inspected by independent inspectors, and by summer 1998, every primary school will have been inspected as well. We have the power to take over failing schools directly and close them if necessary We will now go further and require every school to set, and publish, regular targets, and plans for improving their academic results. Independent inspectors will monitor the results of weaker schools and their plans for improvement at regular intervals.

    Sometimes, though, schools are failing because the local education authority which runs them is failing. The authorities with the worst GCSE results and the worst results at Key Stage 2 (11 year olds) are run by Labour. Those children need our help.

    We will allow for on independent inspection of education authorities and intervene directly to raise standards where education authorities are letting children down.

    Failing authorities will be required to set out their plans to raise standards, and work with education teams – directed by independent inspectors – to implement those plans.

    The vast majority of teachers do an outstanding job. They have played a key part in implementing the reforms that we have introduced. A few, though, let their pupils down.

    We will establish a more rigorous and effective system of appraising teachers, which reflects how well their pupils perform in tests and exams: this will identify which teachers need more help and, where necessary, which teachers need to be replaced.

    Many feel that the professional standing of teachers would be strengthened by the creation of a single body which could speak with authority on professional standards. We will consult with teachers and other interested parties about the possible role of such a body.

    The school should be a place of stability and stimulation for children, especially if they come from a hostile or turbulent environment. To improve standards in future our new teacher training curriculum will stress traditional teaching methods –including whole class teaching and learning to read by the sounds of letters. We will also encourage more teachers to enter the profession through practical training schemes focused on classroom experience such as the Graduate Teacher Scheme. A child is likely to learn more in a well-ordered school. Teachers must have the powers they need to maintain discipline. We will give teachers greater power to set detentions, to exclude disruptive pupils and to use reasonable physical restraint where necessary.

    Schools also have an important role to play in spiritual and moral education. We will take steps to ensure that every school fulfils its role of providing religious education and collective worship.

    Choice and Diversity

    When we came to power in 1979 the school system was totally dominated by one type of school – the monolithic comprehensive. The system failed our children. It treated every child the same. It told parents where to send their children. It did not give schools the freedom to run their own affairs.

    Since 1979 we have created a rich diversity of schools, to serve the varied talents of all children and give parents choice within that diversity, because we believe that parents know what is best for their children.

    That is why we – and only we – are committed to giving the parent of every four year old child a voucher for nursery education so they can choose the pre-school education they want for their child, whether in a play-group, a reception class, or a nursery school in the private or state sector.

    We will give more talented children, from less well-off backgrounds, the opportunity to go to fee-paying schools by expanding the Assisted Places Scheme to cover all ages of compulsory education, in line with our current spending plans. We propose to develop it further into a wider scholarship scheme covering additional educational opportunities. The freedoms and status of fee-paying schools will be protected.

    Grant-maintained schools have been popular with parents across the country –whatever their politics. We will encourage more schools to become grant-maintained and will allow new grant-maintained schools to be set up where there is sufficient local demand. We will give all grant-maintained schools greater freedoms to expand and to select their pupils.

    Grant-maintained schools are leading the way. Local authority schools are also benefitting from our policy of local management of schools. Our ultimate objective is that all schools should take full responsibility for the management of their own affairs. In the next parliament we will take another step towards giving them that freedom.

    We will extend the benefits of greater self-governance to all LEA schools. We will require local authorities to delegate more of schools’ budgets to the schools themselves. We will give them more freedom over the employment of their staff and over admissions. And, where they want it, we will allow them to take over ownership of their assets, so they can make best use of the resources.

    Local authorities will continue to be responsible for their schools’ standards. They will provide funds, and compete with other organisations to provide services to schools. We would expect the increased responsibility of head-teachers, and their role in achieving efficiency-savings, to be recognised by their pay review body.

    Schools are stronger and more effective where head-teachers and governors can shape their own distinctive character Sometimes that means developing a speciality in some subjects. Sometimes it means selecting children by their aptitudes: where parents want this we should not stand in their way. Special abilities should be recognised and encouraged.

    We will continue to encourage the establishment of more specialist schools in technology, arts, languages and sport. We aim to help one in five schools become specialist schools by 2001.

    We will allow all schools to select some of their pupils.

    We will help schools to became grammar schools in every major town where parents want that choke.

    The high standards, real choice and genuine diversity which we have introduced will produce the best results for all our children.

    Lifetime Learning

    Lifetime learning is a reality in Britain today. Over a half of all students in universities, and seventy per cent of those in further education colleges, are adults who have returned to education later in life. We will continue to create new opportunities for more people to participate.

    There has been a revolution in further and higher education. Three and a half million people are in further education –up from just half a million in 1979. The number of young people going to university has risen from one in eight to one in three over the same period.

    We will ensure consistently high standards and will consult on the development of higher education when we receive the results of the Dearing Review. We have world class research in British universities which we will continue to support.

    Every young person should have the opportunity to continue in education or training.

    We will give students between 14 and 21 a learning credit which will enable them to choose suitable education or training leading to recognised qualifications up to A levels or their equivalents.

    We will also introduce National Traineeships and encourage employers to offer more work-based Modern Apprenticeships to young people. Objective external assessments of a proper syllabus will be made a part of all National Vocational Qualifications.

    We will continue to support the network of Training and Enterprise Councils, which have created a valuable partnership between business and government. We will encourage more employers to become involved in “Investors in People”, with the public sector matching the performance of the private sector.

    Competitive markets demand high skills. If Britain is to win, we need to encourage learning and give people the opportunity to go where their interests and inquiring minds take them.

    World Class Health and Public Services

    Our Record – Health and Public Services

    Government spending has concentrated on priorities, not wasteful bureaucracy and overmanning. Despite tough overall public spending plans, real spending on the NHS has risen nearly 75% since 1979 , on schools by 50% and on the police by more than 100%.

    The Health Service is treating over 1 million more patients each year than before our reforms.

    The number of people waiting over 12 months for hospital treatment has fallen from over 200,000 in 1990 to 22,000 last year. The average wait has fallen from nearly 9 months to 4 months.

    The Government has set up the Citizen’s Charter to provide first class public services for all citizens. Nearly 650 organisations have received a Charter Mark for meeting demanding standards of performance, customer satisfaction and value for money.

    There are now 55,000 more nurses and midwives and 22,500 more doctors and dentists than in 1979. For every senior NHS manager, 77 people are providing direct patient care.

    Nurses average earnings have grown 70% in real terms: from £68 a week in 1979 to £325 in 1995. Doctor’s pay has risen by a third. Under Labour both were cut.

    Infant mortality has fallen from 13.2 to 6.2 per thousand over the last 18 years.

    Deaths through road accidents are now the lowest since records began in 1926. Since 1979 road deaths and serious casualties have fallen by 43% despite an 85% increase in motor traffic.

    The government has invested record amounts on transport – more than £26 billion since 1979 in investment on motorways and trunk roads; £16 billion in investment on railways; and £8 billion in investment on London Transport.

    Privatisation is delivering better services at lower costs. BT’s main prices are down by more than 40% in real terms. Average household bills for gas and electricity have also fallen in real terms since 1990.

    5. Security in Health

    We have been the guardians of the NHS for most of its life, improving its services and securing its funding. The benefits can be seen in our rising standards of health. 1993 was for example the first year in which no child in this country died of measles. Between 1979 and 1995 life expectancy at birth in England has increased from 70.4 years to 74.3 years for men and from 76.4 years to 79.6 years for women. We are getting healthier and we are better looked after when we are sick.

    Growing Resources for a Modern Health Service

    This progress has been possible because we have increased spending since 1979 by nearly 75% more than inflation, to almost £43 billion. And we are not stopping there. The next Conservative Government will honour a firm guarantee to the NHS.

    We will continue, year by year; to increase the real resources committed to the NHS, so NHS spending will continue to share in a growing economy

    Under Labour there have been years when resources for the NHS actually shrank – something that would be inconceivable with the Conservatives.

    Money is only really a means to an end: better patient care. Now we are treating 9.2 million hospital in-patients and day cases as against 6.9 million in 1992 and 5.1 million in 1979.

    Investing in Skilled Staff

    We are committed to expanding the medical staff of the NHS. We shall therefore increase medical school intakes to 5,000 a year by the year 2000 and are ahead of schedule in reaching the target.

    Good nursing is the bedrock of the NHS. In particular we will increase the number of nurses with specialist qualifications in paediatric intensive care,emergency care, and cancer care. The number of nurses qualifying each year will increase by 2,500 within the next 5 years as we continue to expand Project 2000 training.

    Higher Standards of Service

    We are tackling the problem of long waiting times which can cause so much worry; distress, and pain. We have set tough targets under the Patient’s Charter and as a result average waiting times for in-patient hospital treatments have fallen from more than 6 months 5 years ago to 4 months last year.

    Patients no longer put up with being kept in ignorance. They want to know more.

    We will publish more information on how successfully hospitals are treating patients so that they and their GPs can make more informed choices between services in different hospitals and help stimulate better performance

    Better Primary Care

    Our vision of the NHS is one in which hospitals and family doctors gain greater power to run their own affairs. That is why we will continue to encourage the spread of fundholding among GPs. Labour by contrast would destroy the new freedoms that fundholding doctors enjoy by imposing a new layer of bureaucracy on top of them.

    However, we do not want the benefits of better healthcare to be confined to patients of GP fundholders. Our proposals to shift more healthcare towards family doctors are open to all

    We shall implement the new Primary Care Act which will enable all family doctors to provide a broader range of patient services within their surgeries. This will include (“super surgeries” and practice-based cottage hospitals that can offer faster and more local treatment.

    We expect to see the number of nurses working in GP practices continue to grow, as will the number of GPs.

    We will extend nationwide our plans to enable more nurses to prescribe a wider range of drugs for patients, recognising their contribution to primary care.

    Mental Health

    The last decade has also seen major changes in the care of mentally ill people. We will continue to develop a full range of services – including 24-hour nursed hostels and secure units – that can care for them in a way which is most appropriate to them and the interests of the wider community.

    We will not close any long-stay mental hospitals unless it can be shown that adequate care services exist in the community.

    We will strengthen co-operation between health and social services in the delivery of mental health services. Our recent Green Paper showed how this can be done. And we will monitor the progress of Health Authorities in developing proper mental health care plans.

    Health of the Nation

    A modern health service is not just about treating illness, it is also about keeping people healthy. This is why we launched the Health of the Nation strategy in 1992 – the first time England has had a strategy for health. Its aim is to reduce illness and premature death by identifying common causes of ill health, like excessive smoking and obesity. Different groups in and outside the health service then work together to tackle the problems.

    We are already seeing progress. Between 1990 and 1994, deaths from coronary heart disease among the over-65s, the suicide rate, and the number of teenage pregnancies fell substantially And last year we announced that environmental targets would be added to Health of the Nation.

    Improved general health means fewer people requiring attention in hospitals and GP surgeries – and more resources available for patients who need them. Our Health of the Nation strategy is a vital part of our vision for creating a health service fit for the 21st Century.

    A Modern Health Service

    Healthcare is changing fast. Modern technology is constantly increasing the range of treatments which are available. Conservatives believe that the benefits of these advances should be made available to patients on the basis of their clinical need, without regard to their ability to pay.

    Furthermore we also believe that the NHS must have access to sufficient resources to allow it to invest in the facilities required to deliver up-to-date healthcare. Since 1979 capital investment in the NHS has proceeded at an unprecedented rate. In the future we believe these requirements will be best met in a partnership with the private sector which allows the private sector to improve the facilities in which NHS healthcare is delivered.

    We will promote the Private Finance Initiative which will unleash a new flow of investment funds into the modernisation of the NHS.

    The NHS is a British success story. It commands universal support in Britain. It is widely admired all over the world. Conservatives are proud of the part we are playing in improving the NHS still further.

    6. Better Public Services

    The public sector is being transformed the world over. Britain is in the vanguard. Everyone else wants to learn from our vision of a smaller state doing fewer things and doing them better.

    Old style public services were centrally planned with little information or choice for the public who used the service. Our reforms have made these services more responsive to the public by breaking up cumbersome bureaucratic structures and shifting power to small responsive local institutions and the people who work in them. The schools, hospitals and police have all been transformed in this way. We support the people who do, not the people who plan.

    In order to get better standards we are liberating services from centralised control over capital. We will push forward our Private Finance Initiative to break down these old barriers.

    We have made public services genuinely accountable, with useful information and real choices for the people who use them. We set tough standards and they will get tougher. The Citizen’s Charter has raised standards of customer service. When these high standards are reached we recognise and reward excellence through our Charter Mark initiative. There are now 647 Chartermarks and we will aim for more than 2000 Chartermarks by the year 2000.

    We will require all government agencies to apply for Chartermarks.

    The days of the bureaucratic paperchase are behind us. The future is “government direct”. We will harness the latest information technology to place the public sector directly at the service of the citizen. People will be able to use simple computer terminals to enter information directly. This will transform time-consuming transactions like completing a tax return or registering a new business.

    Privatisation and Competition

    In 20 years, privatisation has gone from the dream of a few Conservative visionaries to the big idea which is transforming decaying public sector industries in almost every country in the world. Britain has led the way with this new industrial revolution: we can be proud of what we have achieved.

    In 1979 the Government inherited a range of businesses which had come into the public sector for different reasons. Many were known for their poor standards of service, and most were making large losses.

    Over the past eighteen years that situation has changed substantially. Privatisation has enhanced productivity, improved customer services, raised safety and environmental standards and substantially reduced prices.

    Telephone, gas and electricity bills to the customer have fallen as never before. Telephone waiting lists are unknown, and water, gas and electricity disconnections have fallen dramatically. Nearly £40 billion in private sector funding has been committed to a major investment programme to meet higher quality water standards. We can now look forward to water prices falling over the years ahead.

    Service standards have improved substantially. Before privatisation published service standards did not exist. Now industry regulators monitor legal requirements to provide quality services in a competitive environment. Refunds may be made when performance standards are not met.

    Privatisation has benefitted – and will continue to benefit – consumers, shareholders, employees, and taxpayers. In 1979 the then-nationalised industries required a £50 million per week subsidy from the taxpayer In 1996 those now privatised companies paid taxes of £60 million per week.

    We will ensure private ownership, competition and regulation continue to deliver lower prices and better services for consumers.

    We will extend competition for domestic gas users, and introduce competition in the water industry, starting with large users.

    The Post Office occupies an important part in national life. It comprises Counter Services, the Royal Mail and Parcelforce. The network of sub-post offices is vital and most are already run as private businesses. The Royal Mail provides a universal service at a standard price in every part of the United Kingdom. No one can imagine a stamp that does not bear the Queen’s head. These characteristics must continue, but reforms are needed to allow the services to develop. The Royal Mail must face up to the challenges and opportunities that are arising from increasing competition and the international liberalisation of services.

    We will guarantee to preserve the national identity, universal service and distinctive characteristics of the Royal Mail, while considering options – including different forms of privatisation – to introduce private capital and management skills into its operations.

    We will transfer Parcelforce to the private sector whilst ensuring that every Post Office in the land continues to provide a full parcel service at an economical price

    Privatisation works. We will therefore continue to pass government activities into private ownership where this can bring benefits to consumers and taxpayers.

    Local Government

    We are developing a new vision for local government.

    We believe local government should take a lead in the planning and development of their communities. To achieve that, we have encouraged them to work in partnership with central government, with private enterprise, and other organisations in their community. The impact of local government is multiplied when they work in this way.

    To encourage this partnership, we have developed the new approach of Challenge Funding. We set up a fund to meet a particular objective and then invite competing bids for the money. Those who form effective partnerships are far more likely to win those bids. The Single Regeneration Budget Fund, for example, has stimulated many working partnerships that are bringing new life to their communities.

    We will push Challenge Funding further to reward effective local government.

    This innovation has the potential to transform the financing of the public sector.

    In addition, we are encouraging higher standards and more cost-effective provision of local services. Local authorities can enable things to happen rather than necessarily running them themselves. They must look after the interests of users of their services – and that is often best done by being a purchaser, not an employer.

    Standards of service are rising in many local authorities. There are, however, still great disparities between the best and worst performers, as the Audit Commission shows in their thought-provoking reports.

    We will keep up the pressure for higher standards and improved value for money by insisting on compulsory competitive tendering.

    The development of Challenge Funding and the shift in the role of local authorities from direct employers to purchasers of services will transform local authorities over the coming years. In the meantime we will, for so long as is necessary, retain the power to cap local authorities to protect taxpayers.

    Strikes in Essential Services

    Industrial relations in this country have been transformed. In so far as there is a still a problem it is concentrated in a few essential services where the public has no easy alternative and strikers are able to impose massive costs and inconvenience out of all proportion to the issues at stake. We will protect ordinary members of the public from this abuse of power.

    We will legislate to remove legal immunity from industrial action which has disproportionate or excessive effect Members of the public and employers will be able to seek injunctions to prevent industrial action in these circumstances. Any strike action will also have to be approved by a majority of all members eligible to vote and ballots will have to be repeated at regular intervals if negotiations are extended.

    Transport

    Our railways are already improving now they have been liberated into the private sector Passenger numbers are up: more people are using the railways every day. Investment is up: Railtrack plans to spend £4 million each day on improving stations and maintaining and renewing the network. The new train operators are committed to investing £1.5 billion in new and refurbished rolling stock. And key fares are set to fall in real terms for the first time in a generation, with guaranteed price controls keeping fare increases below the level of inflation until at least 2003. We intend to build on this growing success story to create a thriving railway network for the new century.

    We will complete the successful transfer of British Rail into the commercial sector

    We now want to draw in private investment to modernise London Underground and improve services to passengers.

    We will bring forward plans to privatise London Underground. Proceeds from privatisation will be recycled in order to modernise the network within 5 years – creating an underground system to serve the capital in the 21st Century. We will regulate fares so they rise by no more than inflation for at least 4 years after privatisation. We will also protect services – including the Travel Card and concessionary fares.

    After completing the modernisation of the network, the majority of the remaining surplus from privatisation will be channelled into additional support for transport investment in London and elsewhere in the country.

    We will continue to encourage public transport. In particular, we will use the existing funding for local authorities to promote developments which make it easier to interchange between bus and rail.

    We recognise the needs of road users, and will continue to work with the private sector to sustain our road building and maintenance programme. Already under the Private Finance Initiative the private sector is contributing some £1 billion to investment in roads and achieving significant savings in construction costs. We will also tackle road congestion by introducing new regional traffic control centres, by extending the use of variable speed limits, and by ensuring that local authorities have the necessary powers to act. We will promote a cleaner environment by supporting a Europe-wide reduction in vehicle emissions, and encouraging the manufacture of more fuel-efficient vehicles.

    We will continue to build on our record of improving safety on roll-on roll-off ferries and cargo ships through higher standards of survivability and the measures in the Merchant Shipping Act.

    We will continue to make it easier for people to travel by air Already over the last 5 years opening up the market in Europe has led to more services and lower fares. We will build on that success in negotiations with the United States and other countries. We will also continue to encourage the development of regional airports offering new direct services to the rest of the world in the same way that we have already opened up new regional links with Europe and the United States. We will privatise the National Air Traffic Service because it will be run better in the private sector.

    Competition and enterprise are the best way to improve our transport system.

    A Safe and Civil Society

    Our Record – A Safe and Civil Society

    Spending on the police has doubled since 1979 after allowing for inflation. There are now about 16,000 more police officers than when we took office. 2,360 more constables have been recruited since the last election and the Government is giving Chief Officers the resources to recruit 5,000 police constables over the 3 years to 1999.

    Recorded crime has dropped in each of the last 4 years. It is now over 10% down on 1992 levels – more than half a million fewer offences – the biggest drop since records were first kept.

    There are now 153,000 Neighbourhood Watch schemes in England and Wales – 38,000 more than in 1992 – covering 5.5 million homes. We have helped fund over 4,000 closed circuit TV schemes over the last 2 years for additional security.

    Our national DNA database – the first in the world – now has over 112,000 samples on it. 3,300 matches have so far been made between suspects and crime stains.

    The Government has increased the maximum penalty for taking a gun to a crime and for attempted rape to life imprisonment. Since 1985 the average sentence for violence against the person has risen by a third and for sexual offences by nearly 40%.

    The number of cars stolen has fallen by nearly 20% in the last four years – that is about 100,000 fewer cars stolen.

    We have built 22 new prisons since 1980. Slopping out has ended. No prisoners now sleep three to a cell designed for one. Prison escapes have fallen by 80% since the last election.

    Mandatory drug testing has been introduced throughout the Prison Service. Home leave has been cut back – down by half in two years.

    We have made witness intimidation a crime. 500 people were charged with that offence in 1995 alone.

    We have stepped up the fight against drugs and organised crime, giving the Security Service powers to support the police and Customs and Excise in tracking down the serious criminals.

    7. Law, Order and Security

    People have a right to sleep safely in their homes and walk safely on the streets. Governments have a duty to maintain that security.

    Our reforms are aimed at ensuring that crime does not pay. And they are working – the pessimists and the scoffers are wrong. Recorded crime has fallen every year for the last 4 years. It is now 10% lower than it was in 1992. That is over half a million fewer crimes – the biggest drop since records were first kept in the middle of the 19th century.

    But crime is still too high. We must do more. Our aim is to keep crime falling over the lifetime of the next parliament. This is what we will do.

    Safer Communities

    Anti-social behaviour and petty crime disrupt communities and spread human misery. The police are rightly now vigorously tackling problems such as graffiti vandalism and drunkenness. Where such behaviour goes unchecked more serious crimes will follow.

    We will support chief constables who develop local schemes to crack down on petty crime and improve public order.

    Closed circuit television has proved enormously successful in increasing public safety.

    We will fulfil the Prime Minister’s pledge to support the installation of 10,000 CCTV cameras in town centres and public places in the 3 years to 1999. We will provide £75 million over the lifetime of the next parliament to continue extending CCTV to town centres, villages and housing estates up and down the country that want to bid for support.

    We will also continue to take other steps to improve the safety of our streets and communities. In this parliament we have given the police power to seize alcohol from under-18s caught drinking in public. The police have been given the power to stop and search in a specified area for up to 48 hours if they reasonably believe people to be carrying knives.

    Identity Cards can also make a contribution to safer communities.

    We will introduce a voluntary identity card scheme based on the new photographic driving licence it will, for example, enable retailers to identify youngsters trying to buy alcohol and cigarettes or rent classified videos when they are under age.

    Tackling Juvenile Crime

    A fifth of all crime is committed by under-18s. We are encouraging schools to reduce truancy through the publication of league tables and by supporting local projects to tackle the problem. We are developing a network of local teams to identify children who are at risk of turning to crime and to take early steps to address the factors which put them at risk.

    We will encourage these local child crime teams to refer children from primary school age upwards who are at risk of, or who are actually, offending to programmes to tackle their behaviour and fully involve their parents.

    The courts would be able to impose an order – a Parental Control Order – on the parents of children whom they believed could keep control of their children but were refusing to do so.

    Courts will be given the power to attach conditions to Parental Control Orders. Conditions might include a requirement to keep their children in at night, taking their children to and from school, attending a drug rehabilitation clinic or going to sessions to improve their skills as parents. Parents who breached these conditions – in defiance of the court – would face a range of possible sanctions.

    Appearing before a youth court should be a daunting experience for the juvenile concerned. All too often it is not. At the moment about a third of all juveniles appearing before the youth courts are discharged without any punishment at all This sends all the wrong signals to youngsters – particularly first time offenders – who then feel they can get away with crime.

    We will give the courts the power to impose speedy sanctions on youngsters, involving wherever possible an element of reparation to the victim. The probation service – rather than social services – will be responsible for enforcing community punishments for under-16s.

    Persistent juvenile offenders need to be properly punished. We are piloting a tough new regime, with a heavy emphasis on discipline, at a young offenders institution and at the military prison in Colchester In 1994 we doubled the maximum sentence for 15-17 year olds to 2 years detention in a young offenders institution. We have given the courts the freedom to allow the publication of the names of convicted juveniles. We will give the courts the power to detain persistent 12-14 year old offenders in secure training centres once the places become available.

    We have given the courts the power to impose electronically monitored curfews on 10 to 15 year old offenders. We will introduce pilots to test their effectiveness. If successful we will consider extending them nationwide.

    Catching, Convicting and Punishing

    We back the police every inch of the way. There are now about 16,000 more police officers – and over 18,000 more civilians helping them – than when we took office. We are providing chief constables with the resources to recruit 5,000 extra police constables in the three years to 1999.

    We support police initiatives to target the hard core of persistent criminals. Intelligence is crucial for this.

    We will establish a national crime squad to provide on improved nationally coordinated approach to organised crime.

    Once caught, criminals must be convicted and then properly punished. The public needs to be protected. We have reformed the right to silence, despite opposition from Labour. The number of suspects refusing to answer police questions has nearly halved as a result.

    We have piloted curfew orders for adult offenders. They have been shown to keep criminals indoors – curbing their freedom as a punishment – and keeping them out of trouble in the meantime.

    We will extend electronically monitored curfew orders nationwide for those aged 16 and over.

    Persistent offenders account for a high proportion of all crime. Prison works – not only as a deterrent, but in keeping these criminals off the street. Those sent to prison are less likely to re-offend on release than those given a community punishment. We will provide another 8,500 prison places by the year 2000.

    We will introduce minimum sentences for violent and persistent criminals to help protect the public more effectively, reversing Labour’s wrecking amendments to our tough Crime Bill.

    Anyone convicted of a second serious sexual or violent crime, like rape or armed robbery, will get an automatic life sentence.

    Persistent house burglars and dealers in hard drugs will receive mandatory minimum prison sentences of 3 and 7 years respectively.

    We will restore honesty in sentencing by abolishing automatic early release.

    Support for Victims

    Concern for the victim must be at the heart of our entire approach to the criminal justice system. We will continue to give strong backing to Victim Support.

    We will give courts in all cases the discretion to allow witnesses to give evidence anonymously if they believe them to be at risk from reprisal.

    We will also take action to allow a judge to stop a defendant from personally questioning the victim in rape cases and other cases where the victim is particularly vulnerable.

    Conservatives are on the side of the victims not the criminal.

    Strengthening the Fight Against City Crime

    Crime that takes place through manipulation of financial accounts and markets is as serious as crime on the street.

    The City’s unchallenged position as Europe’s most dynamic and successful financial centre owes a great deal to its reputation for honesty and fair dealing. We will help ensure that this reputation is maintained.

    We will bring forward in the next parliament a package of measures designed to modernise the current systems for dealing with City fraud.

    This will include legislation to allow the Inland Revenue to pass confidential information to the police, the Serious Fraud Office and the financial regulators to assist in the investigation of cases involving serious financial fraud. We will also remove the remaining legal obstacles to the controlled exchange of confidential information between the police and the regulators in this kind of case.

    Faster Justice

    Justice delayed is justice denied. It is wrong that people who are innocent should face an excessive wait before the start of their trial. The guilty must be held to account for their actions promptly. And victims should be given the chance to draw a line under their experience as quickly as possible. We are determined to speed up justice without diminishing the genuine rights of every citizen to a fair trial.

    Last October the government set up a review of delays in the criminal justice system. It made a series of detailed recommendations. We see merit in those recommendations and will seek the views of interested parties. We believe that taken together they could dramatically speed up the prosecution process, bringing the guilty to justice and acquitting the innocent more quickly.

    All defendants would appear in court the next working day after they were charged. At least half of them would be convicted the next day compared with just 3 per cent at the moment. And the time taken to bring juveniles to court would be cut from 10 weeks to a matter of days.

    Civil Justice

    The civil justice system of this country is a vital part of its competitive economy and has a high international reputation. The commercial courts attract substantial litigation from all over the world, generating significant foreign earnings. We will work to maintain the high standing of these courts.

    We have greatly improved the service the civil courts provide for the aggrieved citizen. The simple procedure for small claims has been extended to claims up to £3,000. For large claims the county court now provides an efficient local service with specialised courts in many locations around the country leaving the High Court to deal with the more complex and difficult issues.

    We will push ahead with the major reforms now under way which will greatly speed up the process and improve the delivery of justice without imposing additional burdens on the taxpayer.

    The Legal Profession

    We will ensure that the framework in which the legal profession operates is responsive to the changing needs of our people and is one in which unjustified restrictions have no place. We have, for example, given most solicitors rights of audience in the higher courts under appropriate conditions.

    Legal Aid

    People are rightly concerned about the rising costs of legal aid. We have taken many steps to control the burden and to deny access to legal aid to the “apparently wealthy” – those who qualified technically, but whose lifestyles suggested they should not.

    But more is required:

    We will change the structure of legal aid to ensure that it, like other vital public services, functions within defined cash limits.

    This will enable us to identify priorities and serve them much more efficiently than the present system.

    Drugs

    Drugs are a menace to the very fabric of our society They ruin the lives of addicts and their families. They can destroy whole neighbourhoods. The promising youth of today can too easily become the sad dropouts of tomorrow turning to crime and violence.

    The Conservative Government has a comprehensive strategy, launched in 1995, committed to fighting drugs in communities and in schools. It is tough on criminals and vigilant at our ports. It is respected throughout the world. We spend over £500m every year in tackling all aspects of drug problems.

    We will continue the fight against drugs through a coordinated approach: being tough on pushers; reducing demand by educating young people; tackling drug abuse at local level through Drug Action Teams; saying “No” to legalising drugs; and working with international agencies and foreign governments to resist the menace spreading.

    This pernicious evil has to be fought by all of us.

    A Confident, United and Sovereign Nation

    Our Record – The Nation

    Many of our old cities have been rejuvenated through a partnership of public and private investment.

    The area of green belt has doubled since 1979.

    Water and air quality in the UK have improved significantly.

    We are one of only a few nations on course to meet our commitment to return emissions of all greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2000.

    The Lottery has been established as the most successful in the world – raising £3 billion for good causes in a little over 2 years.

    More support is now given to arts and heritage than at any time in our nation’s history. We now provide nearly 20% more for the arts than the last Labour Government, over and above inflation.

    British talent was this year nominated for 30 Oscars. British music is again receiving international acclaim. The industry is worth £2.5 billion, more than shipbuilding or electric components: one in 5 CDs and records sold anywhere has a British connection.

    There is record investment in our sports facilities. Already the Lottery has provided £480 million for sport, including the planned British Academy of Sport, English National Stadium and, for the first time, direct funding for British athletes.

    We have continued to stand up for British interests in Europe, protecting our opt-out from the Social Chapter, maintaining our border controls, and preserving our budget rebate – worth £18 billion since it was introduced.

    We have the most professional armed forces in the world. We have modernised our nuclear deterrent by replacing Polaris with Trident.

    8. The Best Place in the World to Live

    Britain is admired the world oven Every year, millions of tourists travel here to enjoy our heritage and culture, our cities and countryside, our way of life. Our nation’s history is an anchor in a sea of change. We need to protect, cherish and build upon what is great about our country so our children grow up in a better Britain. We also must make sure that everyone, wherever they live, has the support of a strong, tolerant and civilised community.

    Our aim is for this generation and future generations to take pride in Britain as the best place in the world to live.

    Britain’s Cities

    London is one of the world’s greatest cities. It is livelier than even Our vision of its future is set out in a separate manifesto.

    Many of our cities have undergone a complete transformation over the last decade. We have promoted partnerships –through schemes such as Urban Development Corporations, the Single Regeneration Budget and City Pride – to attract private enterprise and investment back to inner-cities. These initiatives are bringing hope, opportunity and prosperity to what were once wastelands of urban decline.

    As the country thrives and becomes more prosperous, one of our central tasks is to apply the same approach in transforming the legacy of soulless, decaying public housing estates. They are places that suffer from the very worst kind of poverty – poverty of aspiration.

    We have already made a start – spending more than £2bn over the last 10 years on improving 500 of the worst estates. And we have shown how it is possible to tackle the economic and social problems alongside new investment in buildings – where possible, bringing in a greater mix of public tenants and private housing to recreate a more balanced community. Now we will extend this approach, focusing the Single Regeneration Budget to launch a combined attack on crime, unemployment and under-achievement, and developing the government’s partnership with the private sector to help fund the massive investment that will be required.

    Over the next decade, we aim to raise some £25bn of new private investment in housing estates by encouraging tenants in more than half of the remaining public sector housing stock to opt for transferring their homes to new landlords. These transfers will only occur where tenants choose this mute to improve theft estates.

    We will use this approach to regenerate the worst housing estates and transform the lives of those who live in them –targeting support for programmes to improve education standards, employment and crime prevention alongside new private sector investment.

    As well as this attack on poor housing, we will continue to help the homeless. We will carry through our planned extension of the Rough Sleeper Initiative from London to other big cities.

    We will provide sufficient hostel places to ensure that no-one need sleep out on the streets.

    Rural Communities

    Britain is blessed with some of the most beautiful countryside in Europe.

    We need to protect the best of the countryside whilst ensuring good jobs and living conditions for people who live there.

    We have to strike a balance: our rural communities must not become rural museums, but remain vibrant places to live and work. We will make sure government departments work together to ensure that balance is kept.

    We will continue to protect the green belt from development, making sure that derelict and under-used urban land is developed in preference to greenfield sites.

    We will use the planning system to ensure that more new homes are built on reclaimed sites in our towns and cities. We will aim for more than 60 per cent of all new homes to be built on derelict sites.

    This will reduce the pressure to build in our countryside and expand choice where it is needed most.

    We will support our rural communities, by giving special rate support to small village shops and post offices. The planning system can do more to help too.

    We will introduce a new Rural Business Use Class to encourage job creation in the countryside.

    We will increase support for schemes which promote care for the countryside – like Countryside Stewardship.

    We believe participation in traditional country pursuits, including fishing, is a matter for individuals. A Conservative Government will not introduce legislation that interferes with the rights of people to take part in these activities.

    We will also encourage managed public access to private land – in agreement with farmers and landowners – but strongly resist a general right to roam, which would damage the countryside and violate the right to private property.

    We aim to double Britain’s forest cover over the next fifty years. We will continue to encourage tree planting by targeting grants, encouraging investment in wood processing, and using new freedoms with the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.

    Agriculture and Fisheries

    We will continue to provide robust support to the British beef industry through the BSE crisis until its long term strength is restored. We will vigorously pursue the eradication of BSE in the United Kingdom, as we have been doing successfully for the last eight years. We will spare no efforts in our fight against the unwarranted ban on British beef exports.

    Public health and food safety have been the government’s top priorities throughout the BSE crisis.

    We will tighten up control over food safety by appointing a powerful and independent Chief Food Safety Adviser and Food Safety Council to advise government

    We will continue to push for fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, moving away from production support to measures that will give our farmers the opportunity to compete while safeguarding the rural environment. We will ensure that no change to the Common Agricultural Policy unfairly disadvantages British farmers.

    Fishing is a vital industry in many parts of coastal Britain. We will continue our fight to secure a prosperous long term future for the industry and sustainable management of our fish stocks.

    We will insist at the IGC and elsewhere on measures to stop quota hopping and prevent the vessels of other countries from using UK fishing quotas.

    The integrity of our 6 and 12 mile fishing limits is not negotiable. We reject any idea of a single European fishing fleet.

    We believe that fishermen should have more say in decisions affecting their industry We will press the European Commission to establish regional committees to give fishermen a direct influence in fishing policy. We will use these committees to develop new ways of managing quotas and regulating fisheries which are more sensitive to the industry’s needs.

    Animal Welfare

    A civilised society respects animals. Britain will continue to take the lead in improving standards of animal welfare in Europe. In 1995 we secured a major breakthrough in the treatment of animals in transport; in 1996 we won victory in our campaign to ban veal crates throughout the EU. We are determined that standards should continue to rise and that all EU countries should have to meet them.

    We will seek to ensure that all European countries have to raise animal welfare standards.

    We are not going to take any risks with rabies. There may however be ways other than quarantine which maintain or increase protection for public health, while improving the welfare of pets and reducing the costs to travellers.

    We will publish a Green Paper on rabies protection, setting out all the options including the existing controls, early in the new parliament.

    Britain’s Environment Britain has an enviable track record in protecting our environment. Our rivers, beaches and water are cleaner and we are using our energy more efficiently. We are leading the world in reducing the level of the “greenhouse gases” that cause global warming and pressing for policies that will enable the world to sustain development without long-term damage to the environment. Our Green Manifesto is published separately.

    We have clear objectives to build on this record. We will set tough, but affordable targets, with published environmental strategies to improve air quality and banish city smog – with tighter standards on vehicle emissions and pollution crackdowns around the country We aim for sustained improvements in water quality, at a pace which industry and consumers can afford. We will develop labelling of products that gives consumers information to show the environmental impact of how they were made.

    In addition, we will continue to use the tax system and other incentives to encourage the use of vehicles and fuel which do not pollute the environment. And we will continue to explore policies based on the principle of polluter pays: those who contaminate land, pollute the environment or produce harmful waste should be made responsible for their actions and pay for the consequences.

    Britain – A Tolerant Country

    Tolerance, civility and respect have always been hallmarks of our nation. It is thanks to them that we have an excellent record in race relations.

    Everybody, regardless of colour or creed, has the right to go about his or her life free from the threat of intimidation. We are taking tough action to tackle harassment. Under proposals in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, it will be a crime to behave in a way which causes someone else to be harassed. The maximum penalty will be 6 months in prison.

    Firm, but fair, immigration controls underpin good race relations. We will ensure that, while genuine asylum seekers are treated sympathetically, people do not abuse these provisions to avoid normal immigration controls.

    A World Leader In Sports, Arts and Culture

    Britain is enjoying a cultural renaissance. British music, films, television, fashion, art and food are winning plaudits the world oven They add excitement, fun and enjoyment to our lives. Our success brings pride to everyone.

    The National Lottery, which John Major set up, will pump billions of pounds into Britain’s good causes. Its proceeds will weave a new, rich thread of opportunity and charity into the tapestry of British life. In addition to benefitting major national institutions, about half of the awards are for amounts under £25,000 – benefitting local communities up and down the country. We will encourage new ways of distributing awards to support the performing arts – through support for amateur productions and community events, providing more musical instruments, and helping productions tour round the country.

    The National Lottery will also help us train and promote British sporting talent. The English National Stadium and British Academy of Sport, funded by the Lottery, will be new focal points for sporting events and excellence. We will encourage more young people to play sport by ensuring every school plays a minimum level of sport, including competitive sports, and developing a network of Sporting Ambassadors – sporting celebrities who will visit schools to inspire young people. We will also encourage the Sports Council to use Lottery money to employ over 1000 additional community sports coaches to assist in schools.

    We will encourage the use of Lottery money to train young athletes and artists, with revenue funding for bursaries, concessionary tickets to professional performances and support for young people’s organisations and productions.

    The development of young talent is important in all fields.

    The Lottery will also fund our Millennium celebrations. They will be inspirational as well as enjoyable. We want these be a showcase of British excellence. Britain will be able to look back on past achievements with pride, and look forward with confidence.

    9. Europe and the World

    Britain is a world leader as well as a European nation. Our economic strength, our history and our language make us a global trading nation with links right around the world. Only the United Kingdom is a member of the European Union, the United Nations Security Council, the Commonwealth, NATO and the Group of Seven leading industrial nations. In the Gulf, Bosnia, Cyprus and Northern Iraq, John Major has shown how our nation can contribute to world peace.

    We will continue to work with international partners to secure peace and stability in areas of tension such as former Yugoslavia; in Kashmir; in Cyprus; and in the Middle East. We will promote reform of the United Nations to make it a more effective organisation for securing international stability. Britain will continue to deploy our outstanding Armed Forces as peacekeepers under the United Nations. And we will support the aspirations of the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and others to join the European Union and NATO.

    After the transfer of Hong Kong, we will work under the terms of the Joint Declaration to help sustain the prosperity and way of life of the people of Hong Kong and build on the substantial British interests that will remain.

    We will continue to support the Commonwealth, our unique global network, to encourage the spread of democracy; as set out in the Harare Declaration. We will focus our aid programme to encourage sustainable development in countries that are growing towards self sufficiency under democratic government. We have taken the lead in alleviating the burden of debt for the world’s poorest countries. We also have significant flows of private investment to developing economies. We are more than achieving the long term UN target of 1% of GDP for the transfer of wealth to less developed countries. We will continue to maintain a significant bilateral and multilateral aid programme reflecting the aspiration of meeting the UN’s target of 0.7% of GDP for aid as a long-term objective.

    We will also continue to provide leadership in Europe and internationally on environmental issues, building on the Rio Conference to encourage sustainable development – meeting our commitment to reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions by 10% on 1990 levels by 2010 to prevent climate change. The Prime Minister has committed himself to attending the next UN Environmental Conference in June.

    Britain and the European Union

    We believe that in an uncertain, competitive world, the nation state is a rock of security. A nation’s common heritage, culture, values and outlook are a precious source of stability. Nationhood gives people a sense of belonging.

    The government has a positive vision for the European Union as a partnership of nations. We want to be in Europe but not run by Europe. We have much to gain from our membership of the European Union –in trade, in co-operation between governments, and in preserving European peace. We benefit from the huge trade opportunities that have opened up since Britain led the way in developing Europe’s single market. We want to see the rest of Europe follow the same deregulated, enterprise policies that have transformed our economic prospects in Britain.

    However, in June, the nations of the European Union will gather in Amsterdam to negotiate possible amendments to the Treaty of Rome. It is a moment of truth, setting the direction in which the European Union will go. It will also be crucial in ensuring that we have a relationship with the rest of Europe with which we can be comfortable.

    A Conservative Government will seek a partnership of nation states. Some others would like to build a federal Europe. A British Conservative Government will not allow Britain to be part of a federal European state.

    The diversity of Europe’s nations is its strength. As more nations join the European Union, it needs to become flexible not more rigid We must also ensure that any developments which only include some members do not work to the disadvantage of others.

    Our priorities for Europe’s development will be enlargement of the Community, completion of the single market, reform of the European Court of Justice, and further strengthening of the role of national parliaments. We will seek more co-operation between national governments on areas of common interest – defence, foreign policy and the fight against international crime and drugs. We also believe the European Union itself should do less, but do it better. So we have proposed incorporating the principle of subsidiarity – that the European Union should only do that which cannot be done by member states acting alone – into the Treaty. This is how we are approaching the Inter-Governmental Conference.

    We will argue for a flexible Europe which fully accommodates the interests and aspirations of all its member states and where any new proposals have to be open to all and agreed by all. We will not accept other changes to the Treaty that would further centralise decision-making, reduce national sovereignty, or remove our right to permanent opt-outs.

    We will retain Britain’s veto and oppose further extension of qualified majority voting in order to ensure we can prevent policies that would be harmful to the national interest. We will defend the rights of national parliaments and oppose more powers being given to the European Parliament at the expense of national parliaments.

    We will take whatever steps are necessary to keep our frontier controls. We will resist attempts to change the inter-governmental nature of co-operation in justice and home affairs. We will not accept the development of new legal rights that extend the concept of European citizenship.

    Britain’s rebate has so far saved British taxpayers £18bn and we will protect it.

    One of the greatest challenges Europe faces is to cut unemployment and make its businesses competitive. Here Britain is leading the way. We will continue to argue for deregulation and lower costs on Europe’s businesses, the policies that have helped give Britain one of the strongest economies in Europe. We will not put that achievement at risk by signing up to the Social Chapter, which would open the door to imposing the high costs of the European social model on British business. Once Britain accepted the Social Chapter we could not stop many of these damaging policies being imposed on us by qualified majority voting.

    We will insist that any new Treaty recognises that our opt-out from the Social Chapter enables Britain to be exempt from the Working Time Directive, and prevents any abuse of our opt-out. And we will not accept a new employment chapter in any revised Treaty, which would expose British businesses to new costs.

    We made it clear in the previous chapter that we will continue to work for further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the lifting of the worldwide ban on British beef and will insist on measures to stop quota hopping by foreign fishing vessels.

    Protecting Britain’s interests demands tough, experienced negotiation. John Major has proved he has these qualities – including the resolve to say no when necessary even if that means being isolated. Labour have said they would never let Britain be isolated in Europe: they would damage Britain’s success by undermining our veto, signing up to the Social Chapter and following in others’ footsteps – even where they lead in the wrong direction. They support policies that would fragment the United Kingdom’s influence within a Europe of Regions. The Liberal Democrats welcome the end of the nation state. Only the Conservatives can be trusted to stand up for Britain in Europe: our national interest must be protected.

    A Single Currency: Our Referendum Guarantee

    The creation of a European single currency would be of enormous significance for all European states whether they are members or not. We must take account of all the consequences for Britain of such a major development of policy.

    John Major secured for us at Maastricht an opt-out from the commitment to enter a single currency. It is only because of this opt-out that we have the right to negotiate and then decide whether it is in Britain’s interest to join.

    It is in our national interest to take part in the negotiations. Not to do so would be an abdication of responsibility. A single currency would affect us whether we were in or out. We need to participate in discussions in order to ensure the rules are not fixed against our interests. The national interest is not served by exercising our option – one way or the other – before we have to.

    For a single currency to come into effect, European economies will have to meet crucial criteria. On the information currently available, we believe that it is very unlikely that there will be sufficient convergence of economic conditions across Europe for a single currency to proceed safely on the target date of January 1st 1999. We will not include legislation on the single currency in the first Queen’s Speech. If it cannot proceed safely, we believe it would be better for Europe to delay any introduction of a single currency rather than rush ahead to meet an artificial timetable. We will argue this case in the negotiations that lie ahead.

    We believe it is in our national interest to keep our options open to take a decision on a single currency when all the facts are before us. If a single currency is created, without sustainable convergence, a British Conservative government will not be part of it.

    If, during the course of the next parliament, a Conservative government were to conclude that it was in our national interest to join a single currency, we have given a guarantee that no such decision would be implemented unless the British people gave their express approval in a referendum.

    Defence in an Unstable World

    The old rivalries of the Cold War have been replaced by new tensions. Britain must be able to react rapidly to protect our security and interests around the globe.

    Our armed forces are the most professional in the world. We have cut unnecessary bureaucracy and increased efficiency, and directed money to support our Services in the frontline. We have made the changes necessary to adapt our Services to the threats which we might now face. We have set out defence plans based on stable levels of funding. There is no need for a defence review, which would raise fear and uncertainty about the future.

    We will continue to ensure the Services have the modern weapons they need to guarantee their superiority against potential aggressors. We will make sure we can conduct military operations throughout the world, and develop our capability to deploy the three services together and rapidly, including the ability to transport heavy equipment into an operational zone. We will take part in ballistic missile defence research so we can decide whether we should procure any such system for the United Kingdom.

    We will continue to target our efforts on recruiting for the armed forces. We will set up an Army Foundation College, which will provide 1,300 places for 16 and 17 year olds who want to join the Army. We will also enable the reserve forces to play a more active role in operations. We appreciate the enormous value of cadet forces, and our current plans include resources to encourage their further development.

    We will continue to support Britain’s defence industry, and we will work with companies to identify the technologies of the future.

    NATO will remain the cornerstone of our security. We will resist attempts to bring the Western European Union under the control of the European Union, and ensure that defence policy remains a matter for sovereign nations.

    10. The Constitution

    Alone in Europe, the history of the United Kingdom has been one of stability and security; We owe much of that to the strength and stability of our constitution – the institutions, laws and traditions that bind us together as a nation.

    Our constitution has been stable, but not static. It has been woven over the centuries – the product of hundreds of years of knowledge, experience and history.

    Radical changes that alter the whole character of our constitutional balance could unravel what generations of our predecessors have created. To preserve that stability in future – and the freedoms and rights of our citizens – we need to continue a process of evolution, not revolution.

    Conservatives embrace evolutionary change that solves real problems and improves the way our constitution works. In recent years we have opened up government, devolved power and accountability, and introduced reforms to make parliament work more effectively. It is that evolutionary process that we are committed to continue.

    Open, Accountable Government

    In recent years we have taken significant steps to open up government to public scrutiny, and give individuals more information to hold government and public services to account.

    We have introduced a code on access to government information, policed by the Ombudsman. We have published information on the workings of government previously held secret –including the composition of cabinet committees, and the structure of the security and intelligence services. We have introduced a new civil service code, and reformed the process for public appointments. We are pledged to legislate on the commitments in our 1993 White Paper on Open Government, including a statutory right of access by citizens to personal records held about them by the government and other public authorities. And we have set up the Nolan Committee and have implemented its proposals to ensure that the highest standards are maintained in public life.

    But our reforms go even wider than that. We have transferred power from central bureaucracies to local organisations such as school governors and hospital trusts. We have introduced the Citizen’s Charter We have also required them to publish information on their performance – information which enables the local community to keep a check on standards and apply pressure where needed. Wherever possible, we are widening competition and choice in public services. We showed in Chapter 6 how we wished to push this agenda forward.

    Regional government would be a dangerously centralising measure – taking power away from elected local authorities. We wish to go in the opposite direction, shifting power to the local neighbourhood – for example, by giving more power to parish councils.

    Parliament

    Parliament – alongside the Crown and our legal system – is one of the three key institutions that uphold our constitution. The supremacy of parliament is fundamental to our democracy, and the guarantee of our freedoms. The last 17 years have seen many changes to strengthen parliament and make it more effective – the flourishing of select committees, new procedures to scrutinise European legislation, reform of parliament’s working day, and a budget that brings together tax and spending.

    We have therefore already done much to improve the way parliament works and will do more. We have accepted the proposal from the Public Service Select Committee and put before the House of Commons a clear new statement of the principles underlying ministerial accountability to parliament.

    All these developments have made parliament open to the citizen, and the government more accountable. In the next session of parliament we will continue this careful reform.

    To give parliament more time to consider legislation thoroughly we will extend the Queen’s Speech to cover not only legislation for the immediate year but also provisional plans for legislation in the year after that

    This will mean that more draft bills will be subject to public scrutiny before they reach the floor of the House of Commons. It will give select committees more time to take evidence and report. And this should also mean better legislation.

    We do not believe there is a case for more radical reform that would undermine the House of Commons. A new Bill of Rights, for example, would risk transferring power away from parliament to legal courts – undermining the democratic supremacy of parliament as representatives of the people. Whilst this may be a necessary check in other countries which depend upon more formalised written constitutions, we do not believe it is appropriate to the UK.

    Nor do we favour changes in the system of voting in parliamentary elections that would break the link between an individual member of parliament and his constituents. A system of proportional representation would be more likely to produce unstable, coalition governments that are unable to provide effective leadership – with crucial decisions being dependent on compromise deals hammered out behind closed doors. This is not the British way.

    We have demonstrated we are not against change where it is practical and beneficial. But fundamental changes which have not been fully thought through – such as opposition proposals on the House of Lords – would be extremely damaging. We will oppose change for change’s sake.

    The Union

    The Union between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England underpins our nation’s stability. The Conservative commitment to the United Kingdom does not mean ignoring the distinctive individuality of the different nations. On the contrary, we have gone further in recognising that diversity than any previous government. We are publishing separate manifestos for Wales and Scotland.

    While preserving the role of parliament at the centre of the Union, we have given new powers to the Scottish Grand Committee and Welsh Grand Committee – enabling Scottish and Welsh MPs to call Ministers to account and debate legislation which affects those countries – something that would be impossible with separate Assemblies. For the first time, Welsh members of parliament can ask their questions to Ministers in Welsh in Wales. Most recently we have similarly extended the basic powers of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee.

    We believe this is the right way to go. By contrast, the development of new assemblies in Scotland and Wales would create strains which could well pull apart the Union. That would create a new layer of government which would be hungry for power. It would risk rivalry and conflict between these parliaments or assemblies and the parliament at Westminster. And it would raise serious questions about whether the representation of Scottish and Welsh MPs at Westminster – and their role in matters affecting English affairs – could remain unchanged.

    Nor do we believe it would be in the interests of the Scottish or Welsh people. A Scottish tax-raising parliament, for example, could well affect the choice of where new investment locates in the United Kingdom.

    In a world where people want security, nothing would be more dangerous than to unravel a constitution that binds our nation together and the institutions that bring us stability. We will continue to fight for the strength and diversity that benefits all of us as a proud union of nations.

    Northern Ireland

    While we cherish the Union and Northern Ireland’s place within it, we recognise that there exist within the Province special circumstances which require further action to be taken.

    After a quarter of a century we wish to see the unique and originally temporary system of direct rule ended and a successful restoration of local accountable democracy achieved. We want to see this brought about in a form which carries the broadest agreement possible. And we want to see the rights, traditions and interests of all parts of the community recognised within any such agreement.

    We will accordingly continue to pursue a policy of dialogue and negotiation with and between the democratic Northern Ireland parties. We will continue to underpin such negotiations with the guarantee that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland cannot and will not be changed without the broad consent of the people of Northern Ireland. At the same time we will continue to take whatever security measures are required to protect the people of Northern Ireland from those who seek to achieve their political goals by violent means.

    We seek peace. But we will never be swayed by terrorist violence nor will we ever compromise our principles with those who seek to overthrow the rule of law by force.

    A Choice of Two Futures

    At this election the British people face a stark choice. A choice of two futures.

    They can elect to continue down the road of success and achievement. An opportunity that has been hard won by the efforts and sacrifices of the British people. An opportunity that has only come about because successive Conservative governments have been determined to face up to the long term problems facing Britain, and take the tough steps needed to arrest our slow decline.

    Or they can elect to take a huge risk with that future – the future of themselves, their children, their nation – by handing over the government of the country to politicians who have fought, opposed and denigrated every step that has been taken to restore Britain’s economic health and standing in the world. Politicians whose own declared policies would burden the United Kingdom with new spending and taxation, new regulations, and new threats to the stability and sovereignty of the nation itself.

    You can only be sure with the Conservatives.

    Our Vision for Britain:

    25 Pledges for the Nation

    The Enterprise Centre of Europe

    TAX AND SPENDING. keep tight control of public spending priorities, aiming for our target of a 20p basic rate of income tax over the next parliament.

    PRICES AND MORTGAGES. Stick to the policies which have delivered the lowest inflation levels and mortgage rates for a generation, meeting our inflation target of 2½ % or less.

    JOBS. Protect jobs by keeping Britain out of the European Social Chapter; build on our record of falling unemployment; and help get the long term unemployed back to work – including by requiring those on benefit for some time to undertake work experience on a community project.

    ENTERPRISE. Support growth and investment by keeping Britain the lowest tax major economy in Europe. pursuing Britain’s global trade opportunities. and curbing unnecessary regulations.

    SMALL BUSINESS. Reform business rates to help small businesses.

    THE FUTURE. Keep Britain ahead in the technologies of the future, encouraging new entertainment and information services and using the Millennium Lottery Fund to give people access to new computers and information links in schools, libraries, and other public places.

    Opportunity and Ownership for Individuals and Families

    HELP FOR FAMILIES. Give priority to reducing tax bills for families looking after dependent children or relatives by allowing one partner’s unused personal allowance to be transferred to a working spouse where they have these responsibilities.

    HELP FOR CARERS. Help family members with heavy responsibilities caring for a relative to take a much needed break through a new Respite Care Programme.

    OWNERSHIP. Encourage schemes that help employees build a shareholding in the company they work for, alongside tax benefits for other savings schemes.

    PENSIONS. Transform pensions by providing all young people entering the workforce with a personal pension fund paid for by a rebate on their national insurance contributions, while maintaining a state pension guarantee.

    CARE IN OLD AGE. Make it easier for people to afford the cost of care in old age without giving up their house and savings.

    SCHOOL STANDARDS. Guarantee school standards by intervening directly to raise standards where schools or local education authorities are letting children down.

    SCHOOL CHOICE. Widen choice and diversity in schools, with more freedom for schools to develop their own character, more specialist schools, and a grammar school in every town where parents want that choice. We will also maintain our nursery voucher scheme offering a choice of places for parents of all 4 year olds.

    World Class Health and Public Services

    NHS FUNDING PLEDGE. Continue, year by year, to increase the real resources committed to the NHS, so NHS spending will continue to share in a growing economy.

    FAMILY DOCTORS. Enable all family doctors to provide a wider range of services in their surgeries and in practice-based cottage hospitals – offering faster and more local treatment.

    CITIZEN’S CHARTER. Continue to improve the standards and value for money of Britain’s public services, giving those who use them more information and, where possible, wider choice.

    ESSENTIAL SERVICES. Introduce measures to protect the public against strikes that cause excessive disruption to essential services.

    A Safe and Civil Society

    PUBLIC SAFETY. Support local police schemes to crack down on petty crime, and continue our funding for the installation of TV security cameras in town centres and public places that want them throughout the next parliament.

    JUVENILE CRIME. Give the courts power to impose speedy sanctions on youngsters, including an element of reparation to the victim; and continue our war against drugs.

    PERSISTENT CRIMINALS. Ensure persistent house burglars and dealers in hard drugs receive mandatory minimum prison sentences.

    A Confident, United and Sovereign Nation

    QUALITY OF LIFE. Continue the renaissance of our towns and cities, in particular harnessing private capital to regenerate the worst public housing estates; continue to protect our countryside and heritage; and use the National Lottery to help promote British sports, arts and culture.

    THE ENVIRONMENT. Maintain our international leadership role in protecting the environment, and continue improving air and water quality at home alongside effective conservation of our wildlife.

    THE NATION. Maintain the unity of the United Kingdom and preserve the stability of the Nation through an evolutionary – rather than revolutionary – approach to constitutional change.

    EUROPE. Seek a partnership of nation states in Europe, and not allow Britain to be part of a federal European state.

    THE POUND. Guarantee that Britain will not join a single currency in the next parliament unless the British people give their express approval in a referendum.

  • Mr Major’s Commons Statement on the British Constitution – 20 February 1997

    Below is Mr Major’s Commons Statement on the British Constitution, given on 20th February 1997.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Madam Speaker Because of the large number of hon. Members who wish to speak, I have had to limit speeches – other than those from Front Benchers, of course-to 10 minutes throughout the debate.

    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major) Last summer, the other place had a two-day debate on the constitution. It was a worthwhile and constructive occasion, and I hope that today will prove to be so as well.

    We have no written constitution in this country – it evolves. It has changed in this Parliament, and it will change in the future. I agreed with the leader of the Labour party, when he said last week: ‘The idea that the British constitution should never change and evolve and develop is completely absurd.’ I entirely agree with that – of course it is right – and I made precisely the same point myself when speaking in Wales. The point is not whether our constitution should change, but how it should change and at what pace it should change.

    We have given a new role to the Welsh and Scottish Grand Committees; we have devolved powers to schools and hospitals; and we have reformed procedures in this House and increased Government accountability to Select Committees. I am in favour of more change. We have agreed to set up a Northern Ireland Grand Committee similar to those for Scotland and Wales.

    I favour further reform of the procedures in this House. We have set out our proposals to ensure that new legislation is better considered, with a two-year parliamentary programme and more draft legislation for consultation. As the two Houses are complementary, I see a case for similar examination of the other place. We will continue the process of improving public services, because we wish to give people more choice and opportunity.

    Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister I want to make progress – I shall give way a little later. All that change has been gradual; it is sensible, and it has been thought through before it has been produced. We on this side of the House have always advocated a Europe of nations. Labour’s plans would undermine the strength of the nation state. Like many on the continent, Labour seems to be advocating a Europe of the regions, but England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not regions – they are four nations within a united kingdom. A Europe of the regions would be the sure way to enable a bureaucracy to bypass national Governments. It is the wrong way forward, and it is not for us.

    That is only one reason – it is by no means the principal reason – why I do not favour a tax-raising parliament for Scotland.

    Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield) Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister If the right hon. Gentleman will let me make a little progress, I undertake to give way later.

    Mr. Benn It is on the European question.

    The Prime Minister Oh, all right.

    Mr. Benn May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in that capacity, what democratic justification there could be, in principle, for handing over his powers on public expenditure, taxation and interest rates to a central bank in Frankfurt, so that the responsibility that he now exercises – accountable to Parliament and the people – would no longer be exercised through the ballot box? Has he read the book of Genesis and of how Esau handed over his birthright for a mess of pottage, and has been remembered ever since as having made the biggest mistake of his life?

    The Prime Minister I have, but I am not sure that I would draw a direct relationship between that story and the treaty of Rome, although the right hon. Gentleman might do so. There was a pained expression on the faces of the Labour Front Benchers as he asked his question. As he knows, if we had not obtained the opt-out that I obtained at Maastricht, we in this House would not have the option to make at some stage in the future the decision that the right hon. Gentleman wishes us to make.

    Let me return to saying what I was about to turn to. I do not favour a tax-raising parliament for Scotland, or a toothless Welsh Assembly, or 10 regional assemblies, taking powers either from this House or from local government or from both – it is uncertain where they would come from. Nor do I favour unpicking the House of Lords, changing the voting system and ceding further powers from this House to Europe.

    The Labour party has given in to the temptation to put party before country. [Interruption.] There is no nice way of expressing that, nor does there deserve to be. The plans drawn up by the Labour party, with the Liberal Democrats in tow, are a blueprint that would undermine the unity of the United Kingdom and erode the authority of this Parliament. As they stand, any Member of this House should be ashamed to endorse them.

    Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon) A moment ago, the Prime Minister recognised the nationality of Wales and Scotland, but the provisions that he suggested might be available for changing the government of those two countries were all encapsulated within this institution in London. Does that mean that, if the Conservative Government are elected to power, for however long they are in office, there will in effect be an English veto on any aspirations of Wales and Scotland to national autonomy, and that the only alternatives for Wales and Scotland are the status quo or full self-government?

    The Prime Minister As the hon. Gentleman knows, the last time the people of Wales had the opportunity to choose, they chose by a majority of four to one not to have devolution, but to remain part of the United Kingdom.

    The plan to set up an income-tax-raising parliament in Scotland, partly elected by proportional representation, on the bogus mandate of a referendum with two questions, before the legislation has even been considered, is deeply flawed. So is the plan to have an assembly in Wales without tax-raising powers, and a pre-legislative referendum with one question.

    In essence, it is proposed that Parliament would be presented with what is little more than a public opinion poll and told to endorse it, however absurd examination of the subsequent proposals showed them to be; and if this Parliament exercised its constitutional right and radically changed the legislation, as well it might, there is no plan in the minds of the Labour party or the Liberal party for a subsequent referendum to discover whether that change would be acceptable. I believe that this is an abuse of the way in which constitutional change should be approached.

    Mr. Tony Banks A moment ago, the Prime Minister talked about putting party before country. Is he not doing precisely that by keeping the whole country guessing about the date of the next general election? Is not that all about putting party before country? Does he not find it outrageous that one person should have the power to decide when the rest of the country will be allowed to vote? Would he support fixed-term Parliaments?

    The Prime Minister A straight answer to the hon. Gentleman is no, and I will waste no more time on him.

    Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart) Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister I will give way a little later, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

    We have in the House constitutional parties that favour separatism – an independent Scotland and an independent Wales. Devolution plans, for them at least – and for others – cloak separatist ambitions. The Labour and Liberal parties may well believe that they are buying off the separatists. I believe that they are selling out to the separatists. [HON. MEMBERS: “Hear, hear.”] Let me now consider their plans for Scotland.

    Of the 129 members of a Scottish Parliament –

    Mr. Maxton rose –

    The Prime Minister Just a minute. Of its 129 members – [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker Order.

    The Prime Minister Of its 129 members, 56 would be placemen, drawn from lists approved by party leaders, with no accountability to constituents or responsibility for them. There would be gender quotas – a politically correct idea, which many people would find patronising.

    There will be no revising chamber – no second chamber. The House of Lords would not be permitted to scrutinise Scottish legislation; neither would anything replace it. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see Labour Members hoot. Nor would anything replace it. Five million British subjects, on the threshold of a new millennium, would be brought under unicameral Government – the object of suspicion to every democrat for centuries. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh.”] That is what they propose. No checks; no balances – that is the plan, and it is a complete rag-bag.

    Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian) rose

    The Prime Minister I am sorry. I give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton).

    Mr. Maxton As the Prime Minister is talking about devolution, will he explain why he is prepared to devolve power to Northern Ireland but not to Scotland and Wales?

    The Prime Minister I shall come directly and in detail to Northern Ireland, to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. It is – [HON. MEMBERS: “Answer.”] It is a fair point, and I will discuss it in detail.

    If I may return for a moment to Scotland, the other question unanswered is whether, in any legislation, there is to be Royal Assent. I am not sure, and I hope that it can be made clear. Then, of course, there is the – [HON. MEMBERS: “Why should there be?”] I did not hear what was said; perhaps it was not worth hearing. Then there is the West Lothian question.

    Mr. Home Robertson rose

    The Prime Minister I wish to make a little progress, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

    Mr. Home Robertson What about the East Lothian question?

    The Prime Minister West Lothian is more logical that East Lothian. I shall deal with West Lothian.

    The Labour leader has the opportunity to make history today: he can answer the West Lothian question. How could Scottish Members of Parliament in this House continue to legislate on matters in England, if English Members had no control over the same matters in Scotland? I hope that we will get an answer.

    More insanely than that, those Scottish Members of Parliament voting on, say, health and education, and law and order, in England would not be able to vote on the same issues affecting their own constituents, because that would be the privilege of the Scottish Parliament.

    Let me illustrate the point more clearly. The shadow Chancellor, who, alas, is not here this afternoon, would not be able to vote on health, education or other important matters relating to his constituents in Dunfermline, but he could get stuck into Dagenham or anywhere else in England, closing down grammar schools, abolishing GP fundholding practices and all the other regressive nonsenses that Labour supports. I do not understand how anyone can defend such unconstitutional nonsense.

    Several hon. Members rose

    The Prime Minister In a moment. I shall finish this passage, and then give way first to the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel). We have long known that those difficulties exist. The Labour leader himself has honestly admitted that “the anomaly is there” and said that the answer to the West Lothian question is – [Interruption.]

    Madam Speaker Order. Mr. Campbell-Savours, I am sick and tired of hearing you shout out from a sedentary position – [Interruption.] Order. There was a great deal of pressure last Thursday on the Leader of the House to bring the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to the Dispatch Box today for this important debate. I want to hear the debate in silence. I call the Prime Minister.

    The Prime Minister Let me, Madam Speaker –

    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) I want to ask the Prime Minister a question.

    The Prime Minister I think that we have heard enough from the hon. Gentleman for the moment. Let me repeat what hon. Members may not have heard. The Labour leader has honestly admitted that “the anomaly is there”, and said that the answer to the West Lothian question ‘is the answer we’ve always given”.’ But what is that answer that he has “always given”? And where is it? It is as elusive as the Loch Ness monster. Has anyone seen it – or heard it? Will we hear what it is today?

    Then, of course, there is the position of Scottish Members of Parliament who might be appointed as Ministers at Westminster. Will the leader of the Labour party confirm the statement of the shadow Foreign Secretary who, when responsible for health, said: ‘Once we have a Scottish Parliament handling health affairs, it is not possible for me to continue as Health Minister administering health in England”?’ The same principle would apply to education, the legal system, local government, home affairs and so on.

    Since the 19th century, all devolution schemes have foundered on the question whether to withdraw voting rights from Westminster Members of Parliament representing nations with devolved Parliaments, or whether to reduce their number. The Liberal Democrats, to their credit, recognise that. They are already advocating a cut from 72 to 60 Scottish Members. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) does ‘not believe it will be possible to get a devolution Bill through Parliament without a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs to 57 or less.’ The Labour leader has said: ‘of course there are consequences in what we plan; we don’t ignore them.’ So what are those consequences, and what does he plan?

    At present, Scotland has more Members of Parliament than a strict justification on grounds of population would produce. The Labour Opposition wish to keep them in Parliament, because, without them, they would have a diminished chance of a UK majority. So, in their party interest, they are prepared to gerrymander the electoral system. The powerful office of Secretary of State for Scotland would also be abolished, lessening the voice of Scotland in the House and in Whitehall.

    Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) I recognise that the Prime Minister believes strongly and genuinely that creating any devolved Parliament could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. I hope that he would respect the reverse view, which is that, without devolution, we risk the break-up of the United Kingdom. No anomaly that he has so far mentioned is as great as the present one, where 580 non-Scottish Members of Parliament determine purely Scottish legislation, such as the poll tax, which we had in Scotland before it was introduced in the rest of the United Kingdom.

    The Prime Minister The right hon. Gentleman referred to the poll tax and the grievance that it was introduced in Scotland first. The tartan tax is to be introduced in Scotland only.

    Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) I wonder whether the Prime Minister had time to look at a survey published in The Scotsman on Monday, which showed that three quarters of Scots believe that the Tories are an English-based party with little relevance to Scotland. That included a third of Tory voters, although that was admittedly a small sample. After almost seven years of his prime ministership, why do so many Scots believe that he leads an anti-Scottish party? Might it be something to do with his implacable hostility to legitimate Scottish aspirations?

    The Prime Minister I know that the hon. Gentleman would wish to peddle that line, but if he looked at what has happened to the quality of life in Scotland during the 18 years of Conservative Government, he would see the extent to which it has improved. If he looks at the growth of employment prospects, he will see the extent to which they have improved. If he sees the improvement in the education system or the health system, that has happened under Conservative Government during the past 18 years. If he were totally frank, he would acknowledge that that was the case.

    I come to the point led into by the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale – the infamous tartan tax. Why should people in Scotland pay income tax at a starting rate 15 per cent. higher than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?

    Mr. Brian H. Donohoe (Cunninghame, South) Or lower.

    The Prime Minister Or lower? The hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) clearly thinks that the extra public expenditure voted by the House to Scotland per head of population would continue, so that the Scottish Parliament could offer lower taxes to the people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He knows that that is unreal.

    The Labour party has just put up posters giving a five-year pledge by the Labour leader not to put up income tax rates. However, Labour would put them up in Scotland, where it is pledged to establish a tartan income-tax-raising Parliament within a year, which would put up tax rates. That is a little insensitive of the right hon. Member for Sedgefield. The Islington elite clearly forgot about Scotland, and certainly forgot about the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), although I suppose that that is part of the Labour constitution. The hon. Gentleman should move to Islington.

    Perhaps today the Labour leader will clarify the situation: income tax up in Scotland or not? If he has no plans to raise tax, why shackle his party to a policy that enables tax to be raised? What would the tartan tax do to jobs, investment and pensioners’ savings in Scotland?

    An increase of 3p in the basic rate of tax would leave someone on average earnings in Scotland £6 a week worse off. For a married couple who both worked, it could be double that. It would cost families £300 with one person in employment, and perhaps as much as £600 with two people working. Scottish pensioners who saved all their lives or contributed to pension plans would be worse off, just because they live in Scotland.

    If that injustice goes ahead in Scotland, how would it work? How much would it cost? Would not the Inland Revenue have to set up a separate tax regime for Scotland? Does not a separate tax regime acknowledge the blatantly separatist implications of Labour’s plans for a different tax system? Separate tax regimes define separate nations.

    Several hon. Members rose –

    The Prime Minister I am not the only one who thinks so. As another critic said: ‘The moment powers to raise taxation are offered and taken … the fracture of the United Kingdom will have begun.’ They are not my words – although I agree with them – but those of Mr. Neil Kinnock when he was a Member of Parliament. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Workington has shouted at me from a seated position often enough over the years, so he can stay seated today.

    Would the tartan tax be levied according to where people live, where they work, or where their company is located? Could it become the tweed tax, spreading across the border? If someone from Islington was employed by a Scottish company, would he pay the tartan tax?

    I shall give the right hon. Gentleman a practical example to chew on and respond to. Take the case of an important Scottish company, Kwik-Fit. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to listen, as he may wish to respond to this point. I am sure that the conversation of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) is diverting, but he can talk to her later. Kwik-Fit has 4,000 employees in England and 1,200 in Scotland, but all are paid from the payroll in Edinburgh. Would they all pay the tartan tax, or would Kwik-Fit be expected to apply different tax rates to different employees? [Interruption.]

    When Labour Members do not like it because they do not have the answers, they try to drown it out. I repeat: would Kwik-Fit be expected to apply different tax rates to different employees? If not, employees in England would pay the tartan tax. If they did not, they would face a tax rise if they were transferred to their head office in Scotland. What would that do to the competitiveness of an extremely successful Scottish company? Opposition Members have not thought about any of that.

    Mr. Campbell-Savours We have.

    Mr. Major Good, then the Leader of the Opposition will give us the answers this afternoon.

    Mr. Campbell-Savours Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Major No, we want the organ grinder, not the monkey.

    What of Scottish Members of Parliament who advocate the tartan tax? Would they not be exempt from paying that tax? Within three months, the people of Scotland and the rest of Britain will have to vote on those crazy proposals. They have a right to answers, and, if those answers are not forthcoming today, they will be entitled to draw their own conclusions.

    If anything could be as much of a mess as Labour’s plans for Scotland, it must be its plans for Wales. Wales is to have an assembly instead of a parliament.

    Mr. Home Robertson rose –

    Mr. Major I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I am now talking about Wales. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh”.] Perhaps I shall give way in a minute.

    What is it about the people of Wales that means that Labour would not trust them with the powers that it is prepared to give to the people of Scotland? When the shadow Welsh Secretary, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), talks of a Welsh assembly not having tax-raising powers, he adds “initially”. He says that Labour’s plans for Wales are “clear and becoming clearer”. What is becoming clearer –

    Mr. William McKelvey (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister to refuse to give way to a Scottish Member of Parliament who wishes to ask a question about Wales, when the Prime Minister is arguing about the United Kingdom?

    Madam Speaker It is entirely up to the right hon. Gentleman to develop his speech in his own way. Perhaps the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) will be called to speak later in the debate.

    The Prime Minister The hon. Member for East Lothian knows that I have given way often enough in my speech, and shall do so again.

    The shadow Welsh Secretary talks about a Welsh Assembly not having tax-raising powers initially. However, it is becoming clearer to the people of Wales that, in due course, they too will have to pay higher taxes for the privilege of living in Wales. I shall tell hon. Members why, and I quote: ‘No level of Government has been denied some control of revenue raising … indeed, the lack of such a power and the conflict this could provoke is a more significant danger than having it”.’ In essence, not having a tax-raising power is more dangerous than having a tax-raising power. That is not my view, but the view of the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). If the Labour leader does not repudiate that view, we know the fate for Wales – increased taxation.

    Plans such as those mean that conflict between devolved Parliaments and the House would be inevitable. The outcome would be to damage the unity of the United Kingdom and lead to its fracture.

    Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) Why does the Prime Minister persist in his nonsense of claiming that the choice before the people over Wales is for or against a devolved assembly? The choice is whether we have a vote or not. The Government are offering Wales no choice and no vote. That is what the people will decide in the general election. The Prime Minister is trying to stop Wales having a choice on devolution.

    The Prime Minister Wales had a choice and expressed its view very clearly in the past.

    Let me now move to what is proposed for England. A parliament for Scotland – [Interruption]. An assembly for Wales – [Interruption]. The more Opposition Members shout, the less they have the answers to the questions that I have put. There is a lot of sound and fury. We will see whether we get the answers. Then there are to be new assemblies for the regions of England.

    Where is the appetite for a whole extra tier of government?

    Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) Ask the people.

    The Prime Minister “Ask the people,” says the hon. Gentleman. I bet that they would be very pleased with more bureaucrats, more politicians, more taxes.

    Labour say that they will set up regional assemblies ‘if that is what local people want’ Presumably that means yet more referendums.

    Mr. Tony Banks What is wrong with that?

    The Prime Minister The Labour leader says that he is not in favour of referendums – that is one thing that is wrong with it. I suppose that the hon. Gentleman shares very few views with his leader, so it is unsurprising that he does not share that one.

    If some regions choose to have an assembly, what will happen in those regions that do not? What would the assemblies do? The shadow Environment Secretary is very vague about that. He says that they will have “a say” over health. What that means, heaven alone knows. He is not certain, but just possibly he might want them to monitor water and electricity companies. He goes on to say that their demand for “more services” would be “unstoppable”. What services? What nonsense! He has not the faintest idea what they are going to do.

    The real reason for establishing regional assemblies across England has nothing whatever to do with good government in England; rather it has to do with giving the Labour party a spurious justification for keeping the present number of Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament in the House, even after establishing a parliament in Edinburgh and an assembly in Cardiff. That chaos – more government, more regulation – is the price that England would be asked to pay as the Labour party tries to appease separatism and tilt the electoral system in its favour.

    Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) Has the Prime Minister not noticed that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee pointed out that the people of England have £17 billion of public expenditure per annum spent by his placemen and women through quangos, and the regions and the people living in the regions have no say in what the quangos are doing?

    The Prime Minister If that is a new Liberal policy to abolish them all, I am very interested to hear it. No doubt they want to set up whole new elected tiers of bureaucracy. I note very carefully what the hon. Gentleman asks.

    Let me turn to the point originally raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) about Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland remains one area where the Opposition parties have constantly supported Government efforts, and that has given the peace process added strength. I have publicly thanked them for that often enough, and I willingly do so again today. Unfortunately, some of them attempt to use the special circumstances of Northern Ireland to promote other views.

    The hon. Gentleman asked why we can contemplate an assembly for Northern Ireland but not for Scotland and Wales. [Interruption.] It is a fair question, and if Opposition Members will listen, I will give them a detailed answer. The best answer is that given by the shadow Scottish Secretary, who said: ‘We would be unwise to draw a parallel between Scotland’s … desire to have a parliament and anything going on in Northern Ireland.’ I shall elaborate the point. He is right, because the circumstances are not comparable. That is only the background to why the hon. Gentleman made that statement.

    What we have suggested for Northern Ireland is radically different from the plan that the Labour party has for Scotland and Wales. There is no suggestion of an assembly with tax-raising powers. There are no pluralist politics in Northern Ireland, as there are in Scotland and Wales. There is no representation by parties likely to form a United Kingdom Government. What we are seeking in Northern Ireland is a widely accepted accommodation based on consent. That would provide the surest possible foundation for maintaining Northern Ireland’s place firmly within the United Kingdom. That is our wish. Labour’s flawed proposals for Scotland and Wales would ultimately drive them out of the United Kingdom, and we oppose that.

    Labour also proposes to fiddle with the House of Lords, despite the fact –

    Mr. Campbell-Savours rose –

    Mr. Donohoe rose –

    The Prime Minister I shall not give way to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) until he has learnt better manners. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe).

    Mr. Donohoe Will the Prime Minister’s proposals for Northern Ireland lead to a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament in the House?

    The Prime Minister When Northern Ireland had an assembly in the past, it had 12 Members of Parliament and constituency sizes were about 50 per cent. larger than constituency sizes across the rest of the United Kingdom. There is already over-representation in Scotland: there are 72 Scottish Members, as against 17 for Northern Ireland. Its powers were not comparable with the powers that would go to a Scottish Parliament.

    Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) Does the Prime Minister agree with me that, if Northern Ireland had proper representation in the House, comparable to that for Scotland, we would have 23 Members of Parliament? Does he further accept that the plan is to return devolved local administration with powers to Northern Ireland? Does he also accept that the signing over of certain consultative positions to the Dublin Government is an anomaly in a kingdom that expects to rule itself?

    As a graduate of Trinity college, I would have understood if the Government were guiding the appointment of a person to the senate of Trinity, but why, in the name of all that is wonderful, do we have to consult in quangoland on appointments to the senate of Queen’s university, the numbers of which must be sent to Dublin?

    The Prime Minister The hon. Gentleman is entirely right about the comparable number of Members of Parliament. Indeed, there would be rather more English Members of Parliament on a comparable basis were we to have the same population representation as Scotland. As I said a few moments ago, we are seeking to provide the surest foundation for maintaining Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. That will remain our constant policy.

    The Labour party also proposes to fiddle with the House of Lords, despite the fact that it works well as a revising chamber and as a forum for debate. There are times when we hear a little less from Labour Members about the House of Lords, such as last week, when they used it to undermine our plans to get tough on drug dealers, violent criminals and burglars. The House of Lords is all right then. What the shadow Home Secretary will not do in this House, he has his colleagues do in the other House if he possibly can. When the House of Lords so misbehaves itself that it agrees with the Government, Labour says that it is a bastion of unacceptable privilege.

    Labour proposes to change the House of Lords in a two-stage reform. First, it would remove the right of hereditary peers to sit. For stage two, with characteristic firmness of purpose, it undertakes to work it all out later. Labour risks creating the largest and most powerful quango in history, to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth). It would be a House filled with hand-picked appointments, which would give a whole new meaning to the term “trade union barons”: an Islington focus group writ large. If those people are not to be appointed, will they be elected? If so, would the Upper House set itself up in opposition to this House? Who would arbitrate between them? Indeed: ‘The prospect of a second Chamber challenging or replicating the power of the first would produce instability and inefficiency, and is to be avoided.’ That is my view, but that is also how the Labour party put it in its document. So it admits the dangers, but it still proposes the change.

    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) The Prime Minister has already referred to a revising Chamber two or three times, saying, for instance, that one would not be available in Scotland under Labour’s plans. Is he happy with the fact that, on Tuesday, this House reversed the decisions of the House of Lords on every amendment?

    The Prime Minister This House is sovereign. It is because the hon. Gentleman does not believe that that he follows the politics he does, but I do believe that this House is sovereign.

    The final lunacy in Labour’s plans is, of course, reform of the voting system. The Liberal Democrats have long favoured that, for reasons that I well understand. It is true that the “first past the post” system does them no favours, but I think that it is right for the country. Proportional representation would deliver permanent coalitions, for ever depending on back-room deals with minority parties that would withdraw support whenever it suited them. [Laughter.] It is interesting to see that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) knows that that is true.

    Labour’s view, however, is very murky. We are told that Labour flirts with the idea of a referendum on proportional representation – one of the dozen or so referendums that it now plans in order to keep the Liberal Democrats happy. But, at the same time, the Labour leader uses his familiar tactic of sending people out into the Lobbies to whisper that he personally is opposed to PR. We know that he says one thing in public and another in private; now we see that he says different things in private whenever it suits him. Today, he can tell us his position in public.

    We are told that constitutional reform would be a priority for a Labour Government. [HON. MEMBERS: “Hear, hear.”] I am glad that Labour Members confirm that. Constitutional reform would be a priority – not jobs, not taxes, not health, not law and order, but gerrymandering the constitution with these barmy propositions.

    Our constitution is the foundation of our democracy. It is the base on which our freedoms appear, and our economic prosperity. That is why I defend it. I would change it only cautiously, and after careful examination. If the case were to be made, I would support it, but no case has yet remotely been made for the changes proposed by the Opposition.

    The constitution should not be a political plaything for party gain. Ours is a united kingdom, a proud nation state, part of a Europe that is and should remain a partnership of nations and not a federal state. Labour’s constitutional proposals would affect not just Scotland and Wales, but the whole United Kingdom. They would affect this Parliament. They would affect the way in which this nation is governed. The damage they would do is massive, and the benefits they would bring are dubious. They are rightly an election issue, and we shall make them so.

  • Mr Major’s Speech on British Constitution – 26 June 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech on the British Constitution, made on 26th June 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    This evening I want to address a vital debate – the state of the British constitution.

    This debate is about the very nature of our nation. About the United Kingdom, and the constitutional fabric that underpin our freedoms and make us what we are.

    The British constitution is complex and, in many ways, intangible. Too many people are put off by the word “constitution”, and make the mistake of thinking it a technical subject that only the experts can understand.

    Well I don’t claim to be a constitutional expert. But I am a politician and a citizen, and it is from that practical experience that I want to address the issues. Because the constitution is not, to me, simply a matter of institutions – Parliament, the Crown, our legal system. At its heart I believe it’s about individuals and individual freedom. How we influence and control the kind of nation we live in. The Constitution is shorthand for our rights and our democracy.

    This is a huge subject. A number of members of the Cabinet will be focusing on aspects of it in speeches over the coming weeks.

    Tonight I want to start the process by setting out my view of the constitution, its enduring strengths. and how it has adapted and must continue to adapt to serve the people of this country.

    And I shall cast a clear eye on some of the proposals for change that others have floated. Some are pointless. Others are damaging. But many are, in practical terms, irreversible.

    We are fortunate. The British constitution is vibrant and robust. But it is not indestructible. People must realise that our Constitution is not a piece of architecture that one can re-engineer by knocking down a wall here or adding an extension there. It’s a living, breathing Constitution. Its roots are ancient, but it has evolved. And it has been stable because it has popular support.

    Let me give you an example – the Monarchy. This has evolved over centuries. No alternative institution, fabricated by political theorists, would be designed with its current role and powers. And yet no alternative could ever match it in the affections of the British people.

    It is one of the great features of our nation. Binding us together as a people and ensuring that political debate – the rough and tumble that swirls around Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State – leaves our Head of State untouched and untarnished.

    So our constitution isn’t just dry institutions and legalistic relationships. It embodies a set of values, a legacy of understandings, that have developed year by year over the centuries – an understanding that is breathed in Parliament, reflected every day in the media, taken for granted in the saloon bar arguments about the state of the Nation.

    And at its centre is something we are all instinctively proud of when pointed out to us, but – thankfully – rarely need to think about in our day to day lives. That is the fundamental freedom we each have as subjects of The Queen and citizens of the United Kingdom.

    And you only have to pause a moment and think how few countries can boast such freedom, for so long, with so little national strife and struggle, to realise what a precious gift that freedom is and how much we owe to the unseen, unsung constitutional backbone that binds together our British way of life.

    A living constitution that changes with the times.

    Look at the history of this century and the changes there have been – not fundamental but significant nonetheless – in Parliament, our electoral system, the Civil Service, local administration, even the Monarchy and Church. Not change for change’s sake. Not the result of some technocratic plan. Not to serve the interests of the institutions themselves. They have been changes to strengthen the links with the individual citizen who they are there to serve.

    That’s the kind of constitutional change that I support. Practical change, not grand plans. And above all, change that is driven by what people want. Conservatives believe in giving the citizen the reins wherever possible.

    It is not right to suggest, as some do, that this Government has generally centralised power. In some areas, it’s true, we have introduced strong national controls over limited areas where most people would agree that it’s right and proper for national government to be responsible. The most obvious examples are the overall level of local government spending, and the definition of the national curriculum.

    But these are areas where there was a specific problem which Government could not ignore. And they are the exceptions. Wherever possible, the record shows that we have moved Government closer to the people.

    Moving power from centralised bureaucracies to smaller structures, closer to their local communities and consumers.

    Decisions on health care from the NHS executive to individual hospital trusts.

    Decisions on education from local government to individual school governing bodies.

    And buttressing that with choice and information for the parents and patients who use them.

    Opening up government, with more information now available than ever before.

    The Citizen’s Charter – restoring the individual’s rights to hold large, impersonal organisations to account.

    Privatisation – replacing government control with popular ownership, encouraging competition and putting consumers, not producers, in charge.

    Curbing the power of trade unions, who for too long were out of touch with the interests and instincts of ordinary members.

    Strengthening the independence of individuals by reducing taxation, encouraging home ownership, private pensions.

    That’s my idea of freedom.

    Protecting the freedom of the individual is an old principle, embodied in basic freedoms of speech and association.

    The principle of Habeas Corpus still lies at the heart of English common law today, although born before our language itself.

    But basic freedoms need to be constantly updated and applied to match the challenge of new technologies and social change.

    Where should the rights of the many give way to the rights of the few?

    When and how should a free and vigorous press be restrained from infringing the privacy of the individual?

    What are the right safeguards for people in their homes as information – and other things – flood down the superhighway?

    Some countries leave such questions to be decided by reference to a written constitution: we do so in the ordinary process of politics.

    I believe ours is the right way. Vigorous politics offers the best safeguard of individual freedoms.

    And in Britain it is our Parliament – the Parliament of the United Kingdom – that is, and should be, at the centre of that democratic, political process. That’s why piecemeal reforms that threaten to erode the power and supremacy of Parliament are so dangerous.

    I know that some people argue that the freedom of the individual would be better protected if Britain had a written constitution or a new bill of rights, setting out a list of fundamental rights.

    I don’t agree. I simply don’t believe that you could enshrine in a single piece of legislation the British conception of freedom. It’s no exaggeration to say that we believe our individual freedom is absolute, unless restrained by law.

    It’s a way of life.

    And we have no need for a bill of rights because we have freedom.

    Any attempt to define our freedoms by statute would diminish Parliament’s historic role as the defender of individual freedoms.

    Judges would become the guardians of a written constitution or bill of rights, and the supremacy of the elected representatives of the people in Parliament would – for the first time since the 17th Century – be eroded. Is that really the way we want to go? I think not.

    It is not as though the processes of judicial interpretation are infallible.

    In the United States, at different times, the Constitution was held both to support and to outlaw slavery. More recently, Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights has been held to be inconsistent with earlier laws on Sunday Trading, drug trafficking, and abortion.

    It is no slur on our judicial system to say that such great issues should be decided by elected representatives, not judges and courts.

    All of this is based, not on any formal separation of powers, but on a silent boundary: a boundary of mutual restraint. No-one has the power to make final pronouncements about that boundary.

    But collectively as part of our living constitution, I believe we all know, understand and respect where that boundary lies.

    Some suggest that boundary is under pressure. That the greater use of judicial review means the Government is in conflict with the courts.

    I see nothing surprising in the increasing role of judicial review. I believe it is a function of the increasing complexity or administration, and the legislation which governs it. And it is clearly right that the courts should hold Ministers and departments to the proper use of their powers, and should safeguard the procedural quality of public decision-making. This is merely an example of our constitution working. But, by the same token, it is of course ultimately up to Parliament to decide the laws on which judges and courts make their judgements.

    In our constitution, Parliament is supreme, because the people are supreme. Parliament is the process through which the representatives of the people control the Executive.

    Our Parliament may have its quirks and its faults, but it is hard to find another country today whose Parliament is so central to its national life. The proceedings of national Parliaments are televised in many other countries. But in how many others are they followed as avidly as here?

    In Britain, Parliament is where things happen. It is the voice of the people of Britain, fighting out all the complexities of our national interest on issues which in some other countries are settled in smoke-filled rooms.

    It is the focus of the nation’s unity at times of national grief or outrage. And it is the theatre for the great convulsions of political history.

    So-one should lightly contemplate tampering with an institution that is so ancient and yet so alive. But that is not to say that nothing about Parliament can ever change.

    Nor has that been our philosophy.

    The last 17 years have seen the introduction and flourishing of Select Committees; new procedures to scrutinise European legislation; reform of Parliament’s working day; and a Budget, that brings together tax and spending. Now even Hansard and Bill papers may soon be on the Internet.

    All these developments have made Parliament more open to the citizen, and the Government more accountable. Now I want to carry this process further.

    I believe we could start by looking at the Parliamentary year. The House is swamped at the turn of the year with debates on The Queen’s Speech, the Budget, and the Second Reading of the bulk of the Government’s major bills.

    I think there’s a case for change here. I would like to examine starting the Parliamentary year in May not November, so that some of these processes can begin sooner and be spread more evenly.

    There are also legitimate complaints about the speed with which detailed legislative proposals are prepared and put through both Houses.

    We have already made significant progress in tackling this through publishing bills in draft form for early scrutiny.

    I’d like to develop more structured planning of the legislative programme and more time for consultation. I believe this could be done by preparing each year not only detailed proposals for the Queen’s Speech covering the next Session, but provisional plans for what would be in the Speech for the year after that. This would give Departments the opportunity to bring forward detailed proposals including, in some cases, draft Bills, for consultation in the year before the actual legislation was brought before Parliament.

    That would allow Select Committees time to take evidence and report, and give Parliament a much more positive and forward-looking role in the policy process. It should also mean better legislation.

    Improving Parliament’s ability to scrutinise legislation is the sort of constitutional change I favour: it identifies a problem, and comes up with a practical solution which could help. It is not change for change’s sake.

    The same cannot be said for some of the proposals being floated for change to the House of Lords.

    For example, some have suggested removing hereditary Peers’ voting rights, and developing the House of Lords in some other way.

    But if you actually look at what the House of Lords does in its Parliamentary role, it is hard to cast it convincingly as the villain.

    Has the House of Lords been overstepping the mark with the House of Commons? Of course not.

    Has it been showing bias over the years, dispensing favour to one political party in Government and refusing it to another? Not at all.

    So what precisely is broken, that needs to be fixed?

    I find no convincing answers to these questions. To people who say that a House of Lords with a strong hereditary element is an anomaly, I say that it works. The fact is that the House of Lords has been far more effective than many overseas equivalents as a revising Chamber. But precisely because the Lords has no rival democratic mandate, the supremacy of the elected Chamber is guaranteed.

    And what, anyway, are the alternatives?

    A wholly appointed House of Lords. Is that more representative?

    Or is it to be another elected Chamber If so how? And if we had two elected chambers, how would we avoid a situation where the two Houses are pitted against each other in legislative gridlock, or the executive plays one chamber off against the other?

    I believe passionately in the House of Commons as the vital link between Government and citizen. That is why I don’t want to see it weakened by the establishment of a competing elected body.

    Nor do I believe that the link between citizen and Government would be as strong if we were to change our electoral system and move to proportional representation. This carries a number of dangers. First, the idea that PR leads to short-lived coalition governments is not just theoretical. Take Italy, where I was last weekend – there they’ve had 55 governments since the War. And instability has other consequences. Politicians spend more of their time campaigning than governing. And the electorate have less and less influence over Government since so much of the agenda is the result of back-room barter.

    Some of the models of proportional representation would damage Parliament in other ways too, by breaking the link between every citizen of this country and their MP. It is that individual responsibility which alone can balance the pressures of party loyalty and gives Westminster its unique electricity.

    But Parliament is more than simply the focus for our democracy. It’s the cement that holds together the countries of the United Kingdom. Countries with distinct traditions, culture, history and language. But countries which have remained one nation because it was in their interests to do so. Unity brought stability. And stability bought prosperity.

    Threaten the central role of our National Parliament, and you threaten that unity and stability.

    Why do I feel so strongly about the Union? In many ways, the cynics would say I shouldn’t. After all, a purely English Westminster would be to the advantage of the Conservative party. But the unity of the nation, all parts of it, is so crucial to our future that our duty is to stand up to protect it.

    The Conservative commitment to the United Kingdom doesn’t mean ignoring the distinctive individuality of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. On the contrary, we’ve gone further in recognising that diversity than any previous Government.

    The new powers we’ve given to the Scottish Grand Committee are a huge step forward. They mean Scottish MPs can call Ministers to account and debate legislation. We’re making similar changes to the Welsh Grand Committee too, which will involve for the first time Welsh Members of Parliament asking their questions to Ministers in Welsh in Wales.

    Some seek to exploit the ideas we put forward some time ago for a possible Assembly in Northern Ireland, as part of an agreed overall political settlement there, by suggesting that they form a justification for proposing a Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly. But they do no such thing.

    There are plainly differences, self-evident even on the most casual examination. I have set them out before.

    For one thing, the kind of Assembly that might emerge is not likely to be the same as is proposed for Scotland. The ideas we put forward did not, and for good reason, extend to an Assembly with power to raise taxes, unlike the Assembly that is proposed for Scotland.

    And the political background is quite different too.

    In Northern Ireland, there has been a sectarian divide for years. That does not exist elsewhere.

    In Northern Ireland, none of the parties could obtain a majority in the UK Parliament or form a UK Government. In Scotland and Wales, all of the major Westminster parties are represented.

    In Northern Ireland, because of its history, there has been an Assembly in the past. That does not apply elsewhere.

    These are some of the differences. And they explain why a solution tailored to the special circumstances of Northern Ireland would not threaten the stability of the United Kingdom.

    By contrast, the alternatives floated by the Opposition could not fail to destabilise and, in the end, diminish the British Parliament.

    This audience needs little reminding of the intractable problems they raise.

    The West Lothian question, for a start. Simply put, why should Scottish and Welsh MPs be able to vote on English matters, but English MPs unable to vote on Scottish and Welsh matters?

    Would devolution mean a cut in the number of Scottish and Welsh MPs at Westminster? If not, why not?

    At the moment, the Government spends more in Scotland and Wales than it raises in tax. Would that continue? And if so, who would fund it?

    Would we still have Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales in the Cabinet? If yes, what if one party has a majority in Scotland or Wales, and another in Westminster? Which one would choose?

    Why give the Scottish Parliament the power to raise tax and make the Scots pay more tax than any part of Britain?

    Why should Scotland have a tax raising Parliament, but Wales only an assembly?

    And why should a Scottish Parliament be elected by PR, but a Welsh Assembly by first-past-the-post?

    It’s no use the Opposition retreating and trying to dodge the argument by pledging a referendum. Who would vote in this referendum? The Scots of course. But who else? Because the result would affect the whole of the United Kingdom. And would the result be decided by a simple majority or a higher threshold?

    Frankly the opposition don’t know as they wriggle and turn to try to avoid answering the questions that expose the folly of their plans. A referendum would do nothing to make these plans less dangerous. People would still need to know the answers to the questions and precisely what they’d be voting for.

    These are serious questions. The Opposition have implicitly acknowledged this. Why else did they come forward with the wholly unwelcome proposal that, to justify a Scottish parliament and a Welsh Assembly, we should have English regional assemblies too.

    But what are the regions? How do we define them? Why must we carve up England in some arbitrary way just for the sake of legitimising devolution elsewhere in the UK?

    Where is the demand for these assemblies?

    Anyway, surely what would be required to match a Scottish Parliament would be not a set of regional assemblies but an English Parliament?

    But one thing is clear. Go down this route, and there will no longer be a single focus for democracy. Set up rival parliaments or assemblies, and they will grow hungry for more power.

    Of course, there’s nothing to stop people voting to undermine or destroy the Union. Our unity depends on democracy. At the next election, just as at the last, people will be able choose if they want to embark on a voyage into the unknown, uncharted waters of tempestuous change. The choice is – rightly – theirs. Our task is to warn them of the perils of doing so.

    And there’s another choice people will face come the election. Not only could they undermine the role of Parliament in the United Kingdom, but also its relationship with the European Union.

    The choice could not be clearer. I have often set out my view of a flexible Europe, a Europe of nation states. Not a federalist State. Not a Europe of regions that would effectively bypass national governments and weaken our strong national voice. I will not reiterate those points again this evening, except to say that they rest on my belief that our national Parliament must remain the primary focus for our democracy.

    People might disagree. They might want greater integration, and see Britain become part of a European superstate. Or they might want a wholly federal Europe.

    But they should recognise that both of these would affect the role of Parliament. And having given powers away, it would be all but impossible to get them back.

    I intend to make sure that the issues at stake in the constitutional debate are properly understood.

    So over the coming weeks, a number of Ministers will directly address current constitutional issues.

    The Lord Chancellor, James Mackay, will speak on Parliament and the Judiciary and the vital role each plays in our Constitution.

    The Home Secretary, Michael Howard, will develop the same themes and speak on the need to retain our present method of election to Parliament.

    The Leader of the House of Commons, Tony Newton, will be talking about parliamentary reform: how do we preserve and build on Parliament’s strengths.

    The Environment Secretary, John Gummer, will speak about the importance of local government, and the absence of a convincing case for regional assemblies.

    The Chancellor of the Duchy, Roger Freeman, will talk about the improvements we have made to provide the public with services which are more accountable, open and efficient.

    The Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, Michael Forsyth and William Hague, will address the Opposition’s devolution plans.

    And I expect other colleagues will want to add to the debate too.

    This will be the most thorough debate on the constitution for a generation. And it is right that we should have it. Right because it’s too easy to take for granted the traditions and institutions that make us a nation. Our constitutional fabric has been woven over the centuries. It’s the product of hundreds of years of knowledge, experience and history.

    It’s been stable, but not static.

    Along the way the key events stand out, spanning generations of our ancestors – the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Act of Union, the First and Second Reform Acts, step by step progress towards universal suffrage, Reform of the House of Lords, and the introduction of Life Peers. Each one a footprint in our nation’s story, a step down the path towards today’s modern constitution.

    Out of this evolutionary change has grown one of the finest, strongest and most admired constitutions in the world.

    I’m all for practical change that would solve real problems or improve the way our constitution works.

    But pointless fiddling with our constitution wouldn’t solve any problems. It would just create new ones.

    In the end, it would begin to unstitch our way of life. One group of politicians could unravel what generations of our predecessors have created.

    I don’t make any apology for defending what works. I’m a Conservative and I reject change for change’s sake.

    That doesn’t mean I avoid change where it’s needed.

    We live in a world that is changing rapidly in many areas.

    In the economy, for example, I am committed to following through the changes necessary to ensure Britain can compete and prosper. Many of our opponents resist such changes.

    But on the Constitution, the arguments are reversed. There, our opponents favour experiments that would undermine our stability and introduce new uncertainties for no good purpose.

    Our constitution is the lifeblood of the United Kingdom. It upholds our freedom. It binds Parliament and the Government to the Citizen. It provides the checks and balances that prevent abuse of power. It cements the Union together.

    It’s not just precious because it’s ancient. It’s precious because it’s alive.

    I said earlier that the three key institutions in our constitution were Parliament, our legal system, and the Crown. We British have a great gift for underselling our virtues. We should not do so with our Constitution.

    Just ask yourself: if you had to face a court of law, where is justice more impartial than in Britain?

    In which country is parliament more accountable, more accessible, more likely to right a wrong?

    And if we had no Monarchy, how would we find a Head of State who was so much above party politics, who would provide the impartiality, the continuity and the focus of so much of our national life?

    To ask those questions is to know the answers.

    That is why I care so much about our constitution. It’s why I will defend our tradition, our heritage, and guard against any needless change which threatens the institutions that make us one nation.

    It is that which makes me a Conservative and Unionist.

    To conserve what is best.

    To change what is needed.

    And to make one nation a stronger nation.

  • John Major’s Speech to the 1996 Welsh Conservative Party Conference – 14 June 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the Welsh Conservative Party Conference in Porthcawl on Friday 14th June 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Britain Transformed

    People will ask you ‘What have the Tories ever done for me?’

    It’s an honest question – bluntly put – and deserves an honest answer, equally straightforward.

    So spell it out for them.

    Remind the questioner there’s been a revolution in education. In 1979 one in eight young people went on to higher education. Today it’s almost one in three. A third of all families can look with pride to their child’s achievement. A third of our young people enter the world of work armed with a better education.

    ‘Well’, they may say “So there’s education. But what else have the Tories ever done for me?”

    Under the last Labour government, if you needed an operation, you had a one in five chance of waiting over two years. Today, only a handful of people are waiting that long.

    ‘Fine – there’s education, health. Fair enough. Anything else?’

    Inflation. There’s another certainty. If we’d kept inflation at the level we’d inherited and followed Labour’s policies, today a loaf of bread would cost £1.25 and a pint of milk 70p. About double today’s prices.

    ‘All right. I give you that. But what else have the Tories ever done for me?’

    Well, there’s tax. If we still had the tax system we inherited from Labour, the average earner would be paying £17 more a week- £17 a week – in tax. How about that?’

    “Mmmmm. Education, health, inflation, tax. Is that all the Tories have ever done for me?’

    Look, don’t have to tell you ladies and gentlemen, they’re tough on the doorstep. So come right back at them.

    There’s the unions. In 1979, we lost twenty nine and a half million days to strikes. Twenty nine and a half million. The dustmen, the council workers, the car workers all proving Labour doesn’t work. Since then, the number of days lost to strikes has hit the lowest since records began.

    ‘Yes, well’ they may say. ‘Apart from education, health, inflation, tax, strikes. That’s all very well, but what have the Tories ever done me?’

    Take a deep breath, and broaden the picture.

    Under Labour, loss-making nationalised industries cost the taxpayer £50 million a week.

    Today, privatised industries contribute £50 million a week in tax. £50 million a week – enough to pay for 11,500 hip replacements, 1 new hospital a month and 5 new schools.

    What’s more, electricity bills are down £18. Gas bills – excluding VAT – down over £90. Phone bills still falling – down £44 in the last three years. Privatisation works.

    ‘So there’s education, health, inflation, tax, strikes, household bills. But what have the Tories ever done for me?

    Jobs. Under Labour, unemployment rose by 122 per cent. 2.500 people became unemployed every week. This week, unemployment fell again – down by 800,000 since its peak. We’ve more of our people in work than any major country in Europe.

    ‘Sure, sure. That’s all very well. But how else have the Tories helped me?’

    There’s mortgages. Average monthly mortgage payments are around £170 lower than they were 6 years ago. At less than 7%, they’re at a 30 year low. The average rate under Labour was 11 per cent.

    ‘So that’s it, is it?’

    No. Here in Wales. William has been working to improve the environment. Intending to designate the Menai Straits as a nature reserve. Aiming for 50 of Wales’ beaches to be of the highest, blue flag, quality. Helping to protect Wales’ coast. So there’s health. Education. Inflation. Tax. Strikes. Bills. Jobs. Mortgages. The environment. How about that for a success story?

    ‘Yes … but why didn’t you tell me about all that in the first place?’

    Madam Chairman, that’s what life under the Tories has brought about: it’s quite a story. The story of a Britain transformed.

    Which part of our United Kingdom do you think has recorded over 1,500 new inward investment projects, worth billions, during the last thirteen years?

    Where has unemployment fallen by almost 26,000 over the last three years?

    Where has self-employment risen by almost 30 per cent since ‘79?

    Where have days lost from industrial action fallen to less than 1% of those lost in 1979?

    Here in Wales. That’s the kind of change Conservatism brings in its wake. Change for the better. And it doesn’t stop there.

    Look at Caerphilly. Once overshadowed by Cardiff and Newport, today a thriving major retail and commercial centre in its own right.

    Or the new Severn Crossing. Built with private finance as a vote of confidence for the growing South Wales economy.

    Or the new Ford plant I visited this morning, a £340 million investment bringing almost 500 new jobs to Bridgend.

    One success after another under a Conservative Government. To borrow a phrase you may have seen about town: ‘Yes, it worked’,

    Life is better. And if people want a change, they need to be clear what they’re changing from, and what they’re changing to.

    The Next Election

    At the moment too many people are sleepwalking into the next election – which is precisely what Labour want them to do. It’s the whole point of their strategy. They want to drug people into thinking that voting Labour is risk free. They don’t warn people to realise that if they vote Labour, Britain will never be the same again.

    Madam Chairman, that’s not my idea of politics. Britain is the oldest democracy in the world. I’ve always believed that if you give the people the facts, and treat them like adults, then you can trust them to make their own minds up.

    Our job is to set out our case. To make people think before they vote. And to leave them in no doubt what the consequences would be for Britain if they decide to cast aside everything we’ve achieved and take a massive step into the dark.

    Because the next election is a watershed election. Many of the changes Labour want to slip past us are irreversible.

    Three over-arching issues will lift this election out of the run of the mill. Issues that will decide the kind of country we live in.

    First, there’s the United Kingdom itself. You might think it’s right to give Scotland its own Parliament and Wales an assembly. Or you might think that’s a rotten idea, as I do. But whatever you think, once you go down that route, it’s difficult to turn back. The change might be irreversible. It would be no use saying ‘No one told me that would happen’. It would be too late. The Union would be gone.

    Then there’s Europe. You might think that Britain’s destiny lies in being drawn ever deeper into a federal Europe. Or you might, like me, believe we should resist that tooth and nail. Because once you’ve given powers to Europe it’s all but impossible to get them back. No use saying ‘Oh I didn’t think that would happen’. It would have happened.

    Finally, there’s the economy. You can eve an argument about whether you have more state control, as Labour believe, or less, as you and I think we should. Whether or not you agree, don’t doubt what’s at stake. You’d be throwing away the strongest economy in Europe – I repeat the strongest major economy in Europe. No point in complaining ‘Oh, I didn’t think that would happen’ when taxes, strikes, inflation all start going up – as they always do under Labour. By then it would be too late.

    Britain’s success, our Union, our nation – that’s what Labour threaten. Between now and the next election I’m going to set out the difference, the major difference, if I may say so, between us and Labour – and I’m going to say it and say it and say it until everyone understands all that is at stake.

    The Choice

    On the day they go to the polls, people will think of a number of things. High on their lists will be which party will make me and my family better off?

    The Conservative answer is simple. We believe in rewarding hard work. Encouraging people to set up their own business, to save and invest for the future.

    We want to give people the chance to spend more of their money as they wish.

    So as soon as we can safely do so, our instinct is to cut taxes. They’re still too high.

    Britain will never be able to compete in tomorrow’s world if we’re lumbered with high taxes, cramping enterprise and investment. That’s what you’d get under Labour.

    But to cut taxes we need to keep spending under control. We’re doing just that. For the first time in its history, spending on the welfare state will grow slower than the economy. Of course we’ll always help those in genuine need. But let spending spiral out of control, and we can wave goodbye to a strong economy.

    Now look at Labour, they’re addicted to the spending state.

    Look at what they’re planning.

    First, anyone earning as much as Clare Short could be taxed more. Care has a bee in her bonnet. She thinks they’re doing too well. So it’s bad news for them.

    It’s also bad news for anyone living in Scotland. They’d be clobbered by Labour’s Tartan Tax.

    Bad news for any middle class parent with a child staying on at school. They run the risk of losing their child benefit. Labour’s Teenage Tax.

    Bad news for anyone who owns shares in a privatised utility. Labour’s Windfall Tax.

    And heaven help anyone who uses a company car or drives to an out of town shopping centre. They’d run straight into Labour’s Shopping Tax.

    Oh, they’re high on tax in the Labour Party. So to keep your money, make your choice: lower taxes under the Conservatives, higher taxes under Labour.

    As for jobs, we’ve the lowest unemployment of any major European economy.

    Why? Because of our policies.

    Look how much it costs to employ someone across Europe. I don’t mean wages. I mean extra costs over and above wages.

    For every £100 an employer spends on wages, he’d have to pay an extra £32 in Germany. An extra £34 in Spain. An extra £41 in France. An extra £44 in Italy.

    But here in Britain, the cost is just £18. That’s why we’re competitive. It costs less in overheads to employ people here than in other European countries.

    That’s why we’ve attracted more foreign investment than any other country in Europe.

    And that’s why I won’t sign the Social Chapter or have a minimum wage.

    But Labour would. They say they’re after full employment – what they’d get is more unemployment. The minimum wage would price job-seekers out of the market. The Social Chapter would price Britain out of the market.

    So once again, the choice is clear. Policies to create jobs under the Conservatives. Policies to destroy jobs under Labour.

    Of course, the only way Britain will remain competitive is if our children learn the skills of the future. Education is vital.

    Conservative Britain has come a long way. Schools are no longer a secret garden. Just look at our record. A national curriculum, tests, performance tables, regular inspection. Choice for parents – every parent – even Labour politicians. That’s all right. We’re broad minded. And more young people going on to higher education than ever before.

    That’s the Conservative record on education and I’m proud of it.

    And here’s the future under the next Conservative Government.

    More choice.

    More grant-maintained schools.

    Tougher teacher training.

    More selective schools – including grammar schools.

    More Assisted Places.

    More results published.

    Every child is different. Every parent deserves choice. Opening doors for everyone. That’s Conservative policy.

    Labour’s idea of education is a scorched earth policy. First they enjoy it, then they destroy it.

    Some Labour politicians went to private school. But do they support them? Not a bit of it. They’d deny others the chance they had by abolishing assisted places.

    Some of them went to grammar schools. So now they’d like to abolish them.

    Some of them make the most of choice. They send their children to grammar or grant- maintained schools. They’d be abolished too – once the children have left.

    Labour standards are double standards. And their motto: ‘do what I say, not what I do’.

    When it suits them Labour mouth platitudes about teaching children the basics. But when it came to the crunch, oh, that’s different. Where were they when we had to fight to introduce the national curriculum, tests, and league tables and the rest? Who opposed us at elections, in Parliament and in councils up and down the country?

    You’re right – Labour. My motto is: ‘watch what they do, not what they say’.

    So it’s clear. More choice, higher standards, more freedom under the Conservatives. Less choice, more control, more restriction under Labour.

    The Nation

    A strong economy. A skilled workforce. A nation that’s winning in markets around the world. That’s how we’ll become the Enterprise Centre of Europe.

    But, just when we’re enjoying economic success, nothing would be more disastrous than Labour’s plans to carve up Britain. It would be an act of constitutional vandalism.

    Our nation’s prosperity and future depends on unity. Once broken up, it would be difficult – probably impossible – to put it together. And that’s the second reason why the next election is all important.

    I don’t say this for party political reasons. Nothing would improve the partisan, political fortunes of the Conservative Party than to see Scotland and Wales with Labour and Nationalist MPs going their own way. But we don’t want that.

    For one thing, we want Scotland and Wales electing more Conservative MPs. But irrespective of how they vote, we believe the people of Scotland and Wales want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

    Our United Kingdom has been moulded over the centuries, battered by the tide of history. Yes, it has changed. And it is changing. But necessary change, not change for change’s sake.

    Yet Labour’s plans are just that.

    When was the last time you heard someone looking for a job saying ‘What we really need is an assembly. Then I’d get a job?’

    Or parents concerned about their children’s education. Are they thinking ‘An assembly! That’s what my child needs to get through school’?

    And how many pensioners have you heard muttering ‘Welsh assembly. Welsh assembly – that’s what we need to fight crime on the streets’?

    Madam Chairman, a Welsh assembly is as pointless as a blunt pencil.

    Worse still, Labour’s plans are an humiliating, patronising slap in the face for Wales.

    Labour’s lust for power has forced them to promise Scotland a tax-raising Parliament. Why? Because the only way Labour can hope to compete against the Scottish Nationalists is to propose barmy plans for their own party political advantage. That’s why Labour want a Scottish Parliament. It’s their bid for Scottish votes.

    As a result, Scotland would become widely over-represented at Westminster. The only way Labour could attempt to redress the balance is by lumbering England and Wales with totally irrelevant assemblies.

    I come to Wales as an Englishman. A Conservative Prime Minister. But Prime Minister of a United Kingdom.

    Labour Prime Ministers – one of them even sitting for a Welsh seat – have governed the United Kingdom without holding a majority of seats in England. But they never said they had no mandate to rule England. They never said England should go its own way.

    But now Labour are singing a different tune. My duty is to point out the dangers of following Labour down the route they’d take us.

    Wales will choose.

    If the Welsh people want a focus for division, then a good way of doing so is to vote for a Welsh assembly. If they think an inspiring way to greet the Millennium is to have more politicians, chattering away in an assembly, then by all means they can vote for one.

    If, unlike Mr Blair, they can guarantee that an assembly won’t demand powers to spend other people’s money, they can vote for one.

    If they know why a Scottish Parliament should be elected by PR, but a Welsh Assembly by first past the post, they should telephone Mr Blair- because he hasn’t the foggiest.

    I have only one vote. I know how I’ll be using it. To protect and defend the United Kingdom from policies that would hurt and never work.

    But Labour’s madness knows no bounds. It spreads to the third great issue – Europe.

    Labour believe that our future lies in a sort of superstate. Let me remind you, Labour would undermine the veto. Jeopardize our rebate. Sign up to the Social Chapter. Give more powers to the European Parliament.

    No wonder Mr Blair says he’d never be isolated in Europe. Armed with a blank cheque, he’d agree to what is wholly against our nation’s interests. With his set of policies, he’d have little choice.

    Some people might like his idea of being part of a European superstate. If so, they can vote Labour. That’s their prerogative.

    Others – like all of us here – have a very different vision. It’s a vision of a Europe of nation states, linked by traditions of freedom and democracy and a single market, trading together but preserving their own identity.

    I don’t want to see our nation swept aside. Our Parliament at Westminster must remain the focus for British democracy – not Brussels.

    Yes, of course we must remain a part of the European Union. We can’t afford to be outside the world’s largest single market. We created that single market. It remains in our national interest to be part of it. The Union has made co-operation, not conflict, the habit between the nations of Western Europe.

    But we need to persuade our partners that the way forward is by building a partnership of nation states. A partnership that respects the cultures and traditions of European countries.

    We will argue for the Europe we want. And if we disagree, and think Europe is going in the wrong direction, we’ll simply say politely but firmly – ‘no, that’s not for us’.

    Europe must be flexible enough to allow us to do that. As more countries join, we can’t hope to fit into some universal blueprint. Nation states can’t be expected to march in institutional step.

    Flexibility, patience and understanding are essential. So I say again, if Europe goes federalist. Britain will not follow.

    Peroration

    Madam Chairman, no party has the right to point the British people towards the polling booth anaesthetised by warm words, hollow generalities, and a vague wish for change.

    We Conservatives inherited a Britain on the rocks.

    We’ve spent seventeen years rescuing this country from that inheritance and turning it round.

    Turning the tide of progressive thought in schools takes years.

    Reversing liberal approaches to crime takes years.

    Curbing the powers of the unions takes years.

    Getting inflation down to all time lows takes years.

    Building a Europe of nation states takes years.

    But on Britain’s doorsteps pointing to what we’ve achieved is only half the picture.

    We need to alert people to the choice they will have to make. When they go into the polling booth and pick up that stubby little pencil, what they’re voting for will be nothing less than the future of Britain.

    Say to the people before they vote ‘If you want a fragmented country, a weaker Britain, the end to our economic strength and that’s what you vote for, then fair enough, that’s democracy. You have that right’.

    But don’t leave them on the doorstep under the illusion that they’re voting for something else. Don’t let them be conned by that sort of thing: it’s a false prospectus.

    These issues are too great, too important to be brushed aside. If Labour had their way, the face of Britain would be changed for good. Forever. And irredeemably for the worse.

    We Conservatives can’t afford to let that happen – and we won’t. Which is why New Labour, Old Labour, any old Labour, are trying to pull the political wool over people’s eyes.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to South Wales Businessmen – 28 October 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to South Wales Businessmen Lunch made on 28th October 1994.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am delighted to be back in South Wales, an area full of innovation and enterprise. Wales has a great manufacturing tradition, of which we are all justly proud. I know British Steel, for example, don’t need telling that the steel industry is now highly efficient and is the largest manufacturing employer in the Welsh economy.

    The strength of Welsh manufacturing is unquestionable. Manufacturing output in Wales is growing at a rate twice as fast as the UK as a whole. I know that for this successful performance to continue the economic recovery experienced by the whole of the UK must continue. That is why the Government is committed to securing sustained economic growth with low inflation.

    The UK economy has been performing very well of late. Exports are up by 10 per cent over the past year, and are at record levels. Investment is up by over 5 per cent, and unemployment has been falling for almost two years now. Remarkably, output is growing by more than the rate of inflation. That doesn’t happen too often. In fact it has only done so on three occasions over the past 30 years.

    But the continued success of the British economy will only come about if we get two things right. First, the Government has to keep inflation down and retain control of its own finances. I know that some of you were surprised when the Chancellor raised interest rates just over a month ago. I fully supported that decision. Getting inflation down, and keeping it down, has been one of my top priorities since becoming Prime Minister. Stability is the best help the Government can provide to businesses.

    Second, the Government must adopt policies that work for business. That is why we will not sign the Social Chapter. And that is why we will not introduce a minimum wage.

    I know you understand the reasons for this approach in Wales. Developments like that at Pontprennau, on the outskirts of Cardiff, have only come about because businesses have been willing to step forward and take their share of the risks and rewards. The benefits will be considerable: a new link road between the M4 and A48, over 1,600 homes, a 90 acre business park and a 20 acre district shopping centre. And Pontprennau is not an isolated example. In Cardiff Bay, the Development Corporation have already identified sites where they want the private sector to take part in their unique regeneration programme. The Government has an important part to play in this regeneration but it cannot do it alone. That is why the Private Finance Initiative is equally important, not only in Cardiff, but throughout Wales. John Redwood has already announced his intention to attract £1 billion of private sector investment into the South Wales valleys to create more housing and employment.

    You don’t need me to tell you that Wales has also had great success in attracting foreign investment. This has meant an enormous boost to the local economy. The UK economy, and Wales in particular, has become a magnet for foreign investment in Europe. The UK is by far the largest recipient of inward investment into the European Union, and receives more than France and Germany combined.

    Like the rest of the UK, the Welsh economy is well-placed to take advantage of the lowest inflation for 27 years, the lowest interest rates for 17 years, improved competitiveness and economic growth in our main export markets. There is every indication that Welsh businesses are responding well. To take some recent examples, Nippon Electric Glass of Japan and Schott Glasverke of Germany are joining forces in a joint venture to manufacture cathode ray tubes. This significant development will bring £193 million investment and the promise of 750 new manufacturing jobs to South Wales. And, a recent trade mission led by the Welsh office to Korea and Taiwan returned with firm and potential orders worth £18 million.

    I could go on. A difficult time is over, and a better time lies ahead. After the long and bruising recession, British businesses have now regained their confidence. The last few years have not been easy, but by getting inflation and interest rates down we have laid the foundations for the steady and sustainable growth that we are now seeing. By working together we can make that growth last.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Devolution – 26 October 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on devolution on Wednesday 26th October 1994.

    QUESTION:

    [Mr Major was asked why he was against devolution in Wales but more supportive in Northern Ireland].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    When the issue was presented to the people of Wales before they voted 4-1. The relationship with Northern Ireland does not run. Northern Ireland has no proper system of local government in the sense that it exists in Wales, there is no local democracy in Northern Ireland, there is local democracy on a fairly significant and entrenched scale in Wales so there is a sharp difference between the two.

    The reason I am concerned about devolution is really twofold. The first is constitutional. There are two elements to that argument; firstly, more in the case of Scotland, it has to be said, than Wales, there is a risk that devolution will be the beginning of a slope that would lead to a separate country and the break-up of the United Kingdom, that is the first point; the second constitutional point is simply the quantum of government, we already have borough councils, district councils, parish councils, county councils, parliament, the European Council, another tier of government as well does not seem to me to be very attractive, and another tax raising tier of government and extra bureaucracy seems to me to be very unattractive indeed.

    If you asked the people of Wales, not do you want devolution, but asked them what it really means – do you want another tier of government, do you want someone else levying taxes – then I think you might get a very different answer from the one that you get when you just generally and casually ask the question. You would in fact get the answer that you got when you had a referendum some time ago, in 1979.

  • Mr Major’s Speech to the Welsh Conservative Party Conference – 11 June 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the 1993 Welsh Conservative Party Conference, held on 11th June 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I had hoped to be here a little earlier to join you for lunch and to have the opportunity of meeting a number of you, but I was a little delayed by the weather as well. I’m very sorry about that, but I’m much more concerned about the people who’ve suffered as a result of the weather. They’ve suffered a great deal more than inconvenience, the need for evacuation, many people whose homes have been damaged in the floods on the North coast. I’m delighted that Wyn has already been there and delighted that John and Wyn will be returning later on today. I’ve asked them to give me the fullest possible report of the damage that has been caused. But I would like to express my sympathy to everyone who has faced these particular difficulties over the last few hours and also my congratulations to the emergency services. They’ve acted swiftly, they’ve acted efficiently and I believe they deserve our thanks for everything that they’ve done.

    Before I turn to domestic matters, I just want to say a word or two about something happening in the last few hours in Bosnia. Many of you will know, all of you will know, for many months now British troops have been in Bosnia helping and protecting convoys in a most remarkable way. As a result of the work of those troops in Bosnia, many thousands of people are alive who otherwise would not have survived the last winter. It has been a superb performance by the British troops who’ve been there.

    Yesterday, as you know, they were involved in some incidents when a convoy they were supporting was attacked. The British troops, rightly in my view, responded in self-defence and, let me make it absolutely clear, our commander on the spot has complete authority to take any decisions he considers necessary to protect the safety of our troops. They’re there in Bosnia for humanitarian reasons and there are two criteria governing their presence there – can they carry out their mandate and can they carry out their mandate without unacceptable risk?

    The recent incidents we’ve seen may, may be relatively isolated, but I have to say to you that there is now increasing evidence of widespread deterioration on the ground. We have contingency measures in hand to protect our troops in Bosnia and to ensure their reinforcement if that should prove to be necessary. Yesterday, we announced further measures to supplement them. There have been long-standing measures, of course, the Ark Royal lying offshore and with cranes on that particular ship. There will be more reinforcements as necessary. And I wish just to give you this assurance today we will not take any unacceptable risks with the lives of our troops in Bosnia.

    Madam Chairman, it’s always fun to be back in Wales. I dare say that sounds to you like an all-purpose politician’s general issue compliment. I dare say it does, but it isn’t. I just think that Wales is wall-to-wall knock-down beautiful and every time I come here I find that opinion reconfirmed. From the southern approaches to the dark mountains, wherever you go there’s something very special and very beautiful to see and I’m delighted to be back here again today.

    And let me just say a quick word about Welsh secretaries of state. David Hunt succeeded by John Redwood. Superlative performance succeeded by superlative promise. Achievements for Wales to be followed by further achievement for Wales. John Redwood is here to fight the corner for the principality and I can tell you from my experience of him in Government he will fight it very hard, very often and very fiercely. You will have a very good champion.

    It’s possible, communications being what they are, that you may not have heard that the Cabinet changes involved the odd scratch. This move in Wales was oil-sweet and brilliant and, when people see how successful it is, I shall be happy to take all the credit for it. Change of Secretary of State. But Wales is used to change, not just changes of secretaries of state, but change on a much wider canvas than that. If you look down the last decade or so of the history of Wales, it is a story of change, the story of a modern country, a growing country, a winning Wales steadily building itself up and today leading the United Kingdom out of recession.

    There was a time when you could have pushed Wales to one side, as though it was just there on the side of England, but you certainly can’t do that any longer and no one would wish it. Since 1979, on average, every year there’s been 1,500 new businesses a year, 1,000 new inward investment projects – and not tiny ones, great companies like Toyota, Bosch, Sony, all coming here to establish themselves in Wales not just temporarily, but permanently. Over 800 new manufacturing plants and, the most latest example of course, Amcor’s 26 million pounds.

    They could have gone anywhere, they could have gone anywhere in the European Community and established themselves to do future business. But they came here. They choose of their volition to come here and establish themselves in Wales and they did so I believe for two overwhelming reasons. Firstly, because of the skills that are available in Wales and the attractive quality of life that they can find here. And, secondly, because of those Conservatives that made it attractive for overseas investment to come to the United Kingdom rather than other countries in the European Community. That combination – Welsh skills, Welsh quality of life and Conservative polices – has been a formidable combination for the prosperity of Wales in the last decade.

    And Wales has benefited, as well as the rest of the United Kingdom, from that. Of course it hasn’t always been apparent to everyone. Not everyone has always taken the long-term view of what needed to be done. I wonder, I wonder if you remember, just about 10 years ago, the great Tory crime of closing down the steelworks of Shotten. Mighty steelworks. Steelworks with a great history for which there was great affection, understandably. But a steelworks with no more work. A steelworks that it was said, what was the phrase that was used – “a steelworks and jobs cynically thrown on to the scrapheap” – that was the expression that was used. That’s what Labour said. They felt we should have burned money at its altars, as the world market for steel went down, that we should have carried it through the streets in procession like the embalmed corpse of a Mediterranean saint. They have a lot of primitive religion at the heart of the Labour Party.

    But, what has happened? What has happened to those people they said would never work again after the Shotten steelworks closed down? What actually happened has been dramatic and it shows the qualities and the opportunities that exist in Wales. What has happened is that a realistic Shotten has come through, it’s come alive, it competes and it lives on its own energies – a living competitor, not a tax-eating shrine. That is what has happened over the past decade. And it means the people who worked there had jobs with a future, not jobs that only had a past and were dependent day to day upon subsidy and the hope that something would turn up in the future.

    The fact is that Labour just took the short-term option. Here was an opportunity to kick the Government with a difficult decision and of course they were not prepared to take the long-term view. Then as now, short-term opportunism dominated their attitudes. But if we had listened to them then, what today would be the position of those working in the steelworks at Shotten? They would still be living in daily fear of their jobs. They would still be on yearly subsidies. They would have no security and no future. And if that attitude had been spread right the way across Wales, we would not have seen the quantum leap in opportunity and living standards that has stretched right across the principality over the last decade.

    Have they changed? Our opponents? Have they, hell. Cardiff Bay barrage. Now you’ve had the Labour resistance to the Cardiff Bay barrage. Here is a great development, a development that will do immense good for the future and so it must, by some Labour MPs, it must be stopped. A remarkable development opposed by unremarkable, bone-headed socialism. A small festival of negativity. What an attitude that is! What is it they actually say to the people of Cardiff? What is they’re saying, the opponents of this great project? They’re saying, we can’t have these jobs and these buildings mucking up Cardiff just when the council’s got everything right. That’s what they’re saying. If they’d been around on the day of creation they’d have demanded an adjournment.

    And it’s no good the leadership walking on the other side of the road and washing their hands of it. They have done nothing, nothing to restrain these Labour MPs holding back this moment and I think I can understand why. Up there in Scotland where the Labour leadership lives, they can’t see the importance of investment here in Wales; but we can. Here, here in the principality and may it always be a principality, people are proud of being Welsh and they’re right to be proud of it. Few political ideas have been worse served by politicians in this century than the idea of nationalism. I’m unapologetic about it. I am a nationalist, a British nationalist. Any leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party could be no other.

    Disraeli used to say that our party was a national party or it was nothing and, to understand what it means to be a Conservative, you must first understand what it means to be a nationalist. A true nationalist doesn’t need to prove himself by exaggerated histrionics, doesn’t need to promote himself by wrapping himself in a flag and offering a cheap imitation of what nationalism really means. Those people are offering symbols, they’re not substance. Put them aside and ignore them. Nations are made up of people; the true nationalist, the true nationalist wants those people to live at ease with themselves, confident, secure, able to reach out themselves, to reach and touch and achieve their own individual ambitions. His isn’t a sectional interest. He wants to build a society where every single citizen, wherever they may have started from, rejoices in their own common birthright, in their own country that they love.

    And to do that, we must understand what it is that people actually want, what their ambitions are, what their hopes are for themselves and their families. They have their place, no doubt, but go out into the housing estates of Cardiff or Peterborough, or Birmingham, or Leeds and Glasgow. Go into the living room of the three-bedroom semi-detached house and ask them, what do you want? What sort of country do you want to live in and see built up? It is the answer to those questions that determines where the heartbeat of Britain lies and what it is that people want.

    I will tell you what the answer is I believe you will consistently get, whether in Wales or Scotland or any of the regions of England. First and foremost, they want jobs that allow men and women to provide for themselves and their families. Jobs that give them independence and self-respect. Secondly, they want a decent home and the opportunity to own that decent home as 7% of people do in the principality. Thirdly, they want to be confident that their children have access to a good school, that the whole family will have access to good medical care if and when they need it and that a structure exists to provide them with financial security in old age, in hardship or in the advent of ill health. And it’s when those fundamental securities that are rooted deep in the marrow of the instincts of the British, it is when those fundamental securities seem uprooted that most people feel most threatened. And that, right the way across Europe, from one and to the other, has what has happened in recent years.

    And yet we Conservatives, we Conservatives care for those fundamental securities above all else, so we have a task on hand. We must convey that message that we understand and care about those fundamental matters right back to the British people in every part of the United Kingdom. Nothing’s more important, nothing is more pressing, so let me just pass this message to everyone who wishes the Conservative Party well. No diversions, no squabbles, let’s get on with that job of passing back that message and then we will have the self-confident expanding country that we all want to see.

    But our people are ambitious. They want a good deal more than what I’ve just set out in the last few minutes and they’re right to do that. They want with every justification, in my view, to feel safe at home and safe on the street. And they want to feel that the nation to which they belong can hold up its head in the world, play its part in the world and be a force in the world. I believe those are the instincts and the ambitions of the people who elected us and of millions of others who did not vote for us at the last occasion but share those same basic, patriotic instincts. We have no particular control over patriotism. It stretches across all parties, and I freely, I freely acknowledge that.

    But those are the ambitions of the people who did elect us. And they are also the ambitions that we have as a Party for the people of this country of all parties. And it is our task in Government to find ways of enabling those ambitions to be met. So how do we do it? If the 1980s taught us nothing else, and in fact it taught us a great deal, it was a very remarkable decade. But if it had taught us nothing else, it did teach us one vital lesson. You cannot spend what you haven’t earned. There’s not the slightest point in arguing about spending priorities until you have first addressed the question of how you pay for whatever it is that you want. And so all social policy must begin with economic policy. And all economic policy must begin with sound money. Our commitment as a Party instinctively, an instinctive commitment, our commitment to sound money, to keeping inflation down isn’t for us an abstraction, a by-way on the political high road. It is the absolutely essential bedrock upon which our economic policy and therefore everything else must depend.

    The last two years have been cruelly difficult, I know, for many people. We came from a boom in the late 1980s and into a recession. The boom spiralled above anything we had imagined and the recession lasted longer and was deeper than we anticipated. So it’s been a long period, a painful period, but as we emerge from that recession and as we lift our eyes and look beyond our own shore, we see that our problems are not just in this country. As we emerge from recession, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Japan, even the United States all have to one degree or another, and in some cases very seriously, economic difficulties. And I have to say, Madam Chairman, some of their leaders – shock, horror! – are even said to be unpopular.

    There’s a novelty for a politician. We here are out of recession. Inflation is now at under one and a half per cent. Interest rates are at 6%. The exchange rate is extremely competitive. Our exports are growing and our business opportunities are ahead. Now is the time to lift our prospects, lift our hearts and take the opportunities that lie immediately in front of us. And if we’re to take them, we have to do so in partnership with business, for it is private enterprise that we Conservatives look to generate the growth we want to see. It cannot be done in Whitehall by politicians and it cannot be done in Whitehall by bureaucrats. So let’s be quite clear about that. It’s not we politicians who create jobs. It is successful businesses providing what people are prepared to purchase that actually provide jobs in this country.

    Key decisions aren’t taken by a few politicians in Whitehall, They’re taken every single day by millions of individual people, deciding firstly that they’ll spend their money and secondly in deciding on which goods and which services they’re prepared to buy. Now, our relationship as a Government is changing with business. And it is right in my view that it should change. If we look back with that 20/20 vision that we can all have with hindsight and we’ve seen a bit of that from time to time, if we look back with 20/20 vision at the ‘60s and ‘70s, I think it is clear in retrospect that governments were too keen to tell business what to do, to make their decisions for them, to decide where they should invest and how. To pick the right winners in Whitehall rather than let them win in the marketplace. We learnt it didn’t work.

    And then in the 1980s, I think as we look back in the 1980s, it is clear in retrospect that perhaps we were just a touch too laissez-faire on some occasions. Too keen to tell businesses to go out entirely on their own, it was cold bath time with a vengeance. And sometimes that may have left some of our businesses at a competitive disadvantage. We have learned, too, from that, particularly building on the remarkable growth that business achieved n that bracing climate. And so in the 1990s we’re embarking on an evolution of our partnership with business. Business, as in the ‘80s, must make its own decisions and exercise its own skills. Only they can do that.

    But we in Government, perhaps should take every opportunity to smooth the way for our businesses to build the success and the prosperity we wish them to achieve. And there’s much we can do to achieve this, to set on course the right economic environment, a consistent low level of inflation and all the economic things that follow that. To make the supply-side changes and to push the jargon aside. To make sure we have the right education system producing the right youngsters with the right skills and I’ll turn back to that a little later. To make sure that our training systems are the right training systems to produce the right skills for the 1990s and the new century. To complete those elements of trade union reform still left undone but now almost wholly completed, finally – to put them in place.

    For the Government to use its political muscle for British contracts abroad. When our ministers go abroad, I want them, whenever they can, to take trade missions with them. Trade missions to fight to sell British goods abroad and to attract investment from abroad into this haven of European investment as M Delors so kindly put it for us. Not all his comments are always so helpful. Ministers in the Welsh Office have led the way in taking trade missions abroad and you have seen the results here. And I know the plans that John and Wyn and William have for the future. They will be in Wales most of the time, indeed most of the time and may occasionally visit the House of Commons in between.

    They will be taking the Welsh case abroad and bringing foreign investment to Wales. And then we must use our political muscle to lobby politically for our great British companies and we must make sure that the changing attitude in our foreign representation at embassies and elsewhere continues. I want our embassies to be as concerned about trade as they are about cocktail parties and diplomacy.

    And we must make sure that we don’t put our British firms at a competitive disadvantage. That is why there have been the very remarkable changes in export credit cover, both the breadth of it and also the cost of it, over recent months so British firms can compete fairly with their European and other competitors. The growth in export promotion services and other ideas that are coming through at present. And then of course there’s the Government’s role to provide the right infrastructure for business. This isn’t just a question of huge taxation and huge Government expenditure. That has its part but we are unlikely to deliver the infrastructure that business would truly like simply through taxation on companies and on individuals.

    And so we’re going back to our basic instincts. Who built the great canals and many of the railways in the first place? It was the private sector. There’s nothing novel about that, it’s just a post-war phenomenon that believes it can only be built by money compulsorily extracted from your pocket and recycled in Whitehall and then spent as the men in Whitehall think best. And what we’re doing is throwing away the old rules so that private finance and joint finance can go out and help the Government build the infrastructure that this country and British business needs. But where old rules, old Treasury rules – they were, you will I know be shocked to hear restrictive rules. I spoke to a very distinguished civil servant who had drawn up these rules that prevented so much private finance. And I said to him, probing delicately, “Do you think these rules are quite right?” “Well,” he said, “I think they’re barmy.” Well, he was right, they were barmy and they’re now defunct.

    And then in the interest of this growing business and jobs and prosperity, we need to oppose unnecessary social costs upon our great and small companies in this country. Whenever anyone mentions the Social Charter, you can see a socialist quiver. “Social Charter sounds good, we better have a slice of that.” But they don’t read what it is. Sounds very amiable The Social Charter is a job destruction programme for the European Community, European employers get extra costs, their goods become less competitive and the United States, the Pacific Basin and Japan get the orders and get the jobs. The only right that workers get out of it is the right to be out of work while Brussels politicians decide that they will provide extra socialist systems.

    That’s not a bargain – that’s a slow acting poison for prosperity in this country and right the way across Europe. And I have to say to you I’ve always been a strong supporter of our place in Europe because that is where 60% of our trade goes. No point in wrapping ourselves in [indistinct] and pretending it isn’t all there. But we need influence there and if ever there was an indication of why we needed influence, it is their wish to impose these extra costs right the way across the community. Because they look inward only; they do not realise that the whole of Europe must compete with the United States, with Japan and with the Pacific Basin. And until that time they recognise that, acknowledge that and act upon that, we will export our prosperity and we will give them the jobs that ought to be here in Europe. And for those of them who say, “Well, you’re not whole-hearted,” whenever you bump into a liberal, “Well, you’re not whole-hearted about Europe.” That’s what they say. “You don’t want to swallow everything the Commission propose.” Too true, I don’t. It’s a pity that they do. I would just suggest one thing you say to our liberal friends when they say that to you. “The good European fights for the right Europe” and that is what we’re doing.

    Of course I don’t expect the Labour Party to understand that. Mr Smith in auto reflex action regards it as demeaning for Britain to proclaim our lower costs. What a fatuous comment! Can you imagine selling your house – “I’m not going to project this nice low cost, it’s very expensive” you tell the purchaser. Of course we project our lower costs. We want people to come here. I want them to be in work. That’s why we project our lower costs. That’s why we have a low tax structure. That’s why we’ve been deregulating. That’s why we’ve had so much inward investment over the last decade that we wouldn’t have had if John Smith’s philosophy had been in charge.

    But if pronouncing that lower costs is what we’re after is a bad thing, it does raise an interesting question. What would he like? Higher costs? Higher costs – less jobs? Less opposition? What a brainless policy for this country, No wonder he thought that higher taxes would win them the last General Election. And in order to emphasise his non-point, he talks about a sweatshop economy and then he goes on, he goes on to demand a high-tech, high investment economy. What insight. Why did I never think of that? We all want that. The question is not whether we want a high-tech, high investment economy. Every sensible person wants that. The question is how we get that economy and keep it in the future, and we won’t get it if we pile on taxes and we pile on social costs and that is the message you must take to every doorstep in the land.

    Success for us these days – we don’t have a great empire, a market waiting there automatically willing to snap up anything we produce. It’s a different world now. Our businessmen have to go out there and they have to fight like hell in a difficult environment for their sales. It isn’t as once it was. Success doesn’t come at the imperial clicking of a British finger. We’re not beggars in the world but we’re not altogether choosers either. We have to go out there and fight for our prosperity and fight for our future. And if you look at what’s happening on your own back door, solid jobs, good jobs, permanent jobs, they’re coming to Wales and thank God for it. And the things that I’ve described as happening in Wales are happening elsewhere. The investment, the incoming companies, the new competitiveness: these are the steady-built walls of recovery and security for this decade and for the new millennium. That is the long term policy that is right for this country and from which this Party will never deviate.

    And let me say this to you, Madam Chairman. If in the decade of Conservative governments still to come, if we build everywhere as we have built in Wales, with jobs, with productivity and with exports in mind, we shall build to last. And all the questions that need addressing about this country are long term questions and so the answers need to be long term answers. And one of those answers, I believe, is that new arm-in-arm partnership, Government and business using their own skills together, working together for the prosperity of Britain.

    Madam Chairman, one thing business knows is that we have no choice but to control public spending and restrain taxes. And when I say that I know what will happen when I say that, know that the Labour Party will immediately jump around. Mr Gordon Brown will issue a press release. He’ll tell us that this proves that all his scare stories were right. He’ll undoubtedly demand a parliamentary statement. He will tell us things are terrible and they’re getting worse. You know, I can’t think why, but it reminds me of a toy that my son had when he was very small, many years ago; it was a small, a small Action Man toy that was on a little string. And when you pulled the string, this little Action Man uttered a few predictable sentences. I don’t actually recall whether he asked for a parliamentary statement or not but, thankfully, I do recall that when the string broke he went silent, so all is not lost.

    So, we must control public spending and restrain taxes. That’s not just a populist cry for lower taxes. We know we must restrain public expenditure, not because we’re opposed to public expenditure per se, but because we’re bound by the laws of arithmetic. You can’t spend what you’re not prepared to finance from either taxes or borrowing. And I hope there is no doubt in anyone’s mind we’re not prepared to see an ever-increasing tax burden. And nor are we prepared to mortgage our future by unrestrained borrowing. So, we have to ensure that expenditure is properly disciplined.

    At present, we have a very large deficit, much larger than we would wish it to be at around 50 billion. And people say, “how”? Tory deficit, the opponents of our party call it. How has it happened, we had a surplus three or four years ago? Yes, we did. We had a surplus on the back of an unsustainable boom with all the tax revenues that helped put our finances into surplus. But the flip side of boom is recession and the flip side of surplus is deficit and we must now rid ourselves of the deficit. Seventy per cent, or thereabouts, one can never be entirely precise about the figures, but as close as we can get, around 70% of the deficit is cyclical. By that I mean, stripping away the jargon, it is the effect of recession the fact that we have a tower tax revenue – fewer people in work, less taxes, fewer spending, less VAT, fewer house sales, less stamp duty. And of course higher public expenditure to protect people in difficulty. And therefore a gap opens up between income and expenditure that we have to borrow in the short term during the recession. That is the effect of recession – lower tax revenue, higher social expenditure and a gap between income and expenditure.

    That will, over time, reverse itself, but there are other more fundamental reasons for the deficit as well. There are demographic changes, more thankfully as a result of the work done by the Health Service, not least by Norman Fowler who was Secretary of State for many years in that crucially difficult job. Our Health Service is better than ever it has been before.

    And I may say, those people who said otherwise at the Monmouth by-election learned different at the General Election. But there are demographic changes. Because of the changing diet and the changing healthcare that’s available, more people live much longer. More of our elderly can expect to live longer and more fruitful lives in retirement and that is very expensive. It adds to costs, costs willingly met, but costs that must be met. There are more students. We want more of our young people to go on into further education and, at an astonishing rate, that is what they’re now doing. There are more demands we wish to meet – the healthcare that was never there a few years ago is perhaps the most obvious example of that. And all that’s expensive, but these are matters we wish to meet.

    [small section of speech missing]

    Madam Chairman, over the last few months, there has been something of a rumpus about education. We have been very heavily abused from many sides on the subject of testing, cardboard images have been set up. On one side there are the professionals, dedicated teachers serving the nation and, on the other side in this cardboard image, an intruding old Government interfering, bossy and setting irrelevant tests to interfere with the peaceful life our children have at schools. And our critics, including the Labour leader, are devoted to that cardboard image. I can’t think why he had such an affinity for cardboard images. But what he doesn’t have and what our critics don’t have, is a criticism of the performance of much of our education system. And let me be blunt, we should have a criticism of the performance of much of our education system because the reality is, I am sad to tell you, that one in four of our children leave secondary education and can’t read properly, can’t write properly and are not competent in grammar. And what are they going to do? They can’t all be Prime Minister. I’d better tell the press, that was a joke. But I bet it turns up in more columns than you’ve had hot dinners this year.

    But that education outcome, that fails our children. Many of our teachers are excellent and I have a great admiration for them, but they aren’t all excellent. There’s a choking [indistinct] of educationalists, a theory that despises grammar, looks down on vocabulary and derides the well-stocked mind. And it’s not new: perhaps we should have faced up to it years ago. But there is in modern teaching, and in my view there has been for nearly 30 years, a trade unionism of the mind, a willingness to accept low performance far too readily. And that thinking’s decreed learning – learning’s reactionary! What you go in the classroom for is to have some haphazard discovery. Well, I don’t mind my children having some haphazard discovery, but I really send them to school to learn so that when they leave school they’re equipped for a tough competitive world that will lie ahead of them. And far too much well-meaning, theorising nonsense is poked at our children in school. And I will not mince my words – I think that is a betrayal of our children’s prospects in schools and no government could or should stand aside from it.

    I’ll never forget, I’ll never forget a male teacher in a TV documentary and he was holding up a page of paper and it had blots and words and every fifth letter was spelt the wrong way round. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “That boy’s trying to tell us something.” Too true, he was. He was trying to tell us, poor lad, that he hadn’t been well taught, that he’d been let down by his school, that he was another victim of theorising educationalists in a mission for search and destroy, he was trying to tell us that his future would be less adequate than it would have been if he’d really been taught to read and write and add up and emerge from school with good qualities and with good manners.

    So whatever our problems in promoting John Patten’s brave policies – and they are the Government’s policies – whatever the problems in promoting John’s brave policies. When you’re criticised for it, remember that teacher, monstrously complacent, proud and happy with self evident failure. What I want for our children in our schools is self-evident success, for that is what is in their interest and in this nation’s interest. We may get the worst of the propaganda war in education, but the Government’s right about education. We are right to have tests to find out what our children learn and what they do not learn. And we are right to expect schools to let parents know how well their children are doing at school, for they have the primary responsibility for them.

    So, let us hope we soon get out of this impasse and back to a sensible approach, working as we wish to with the very best of the education profession. That is our aim and I think that is our responsibility and their responsibility in the interest of the children who are our joint charges as they go through school. And I hope the unions will give up their opposition, that they apparently at the moment want the Government to congratulate inadequacy and garland mediocrity. Well, we can’t do it and we won’t. All John Patten and I want to know – and it is not to ask a great deal – all we want to know, quite dispassionately, is what works and what doesn’t and, when we have that information, we can out it right in the interests of our children, in our schools. We may get things wrong and move on, but those children have only one chance of education at school. And between us, the Government, the trade unions and the teachers, must not let them down.

    I know we’ve been pushing against a great settled glacier of trade unionist conformist mind, an attitude that despises evidence about educational problems, the way it despises most evidence and most knowledge. Knowledge, they seem to think, is bourgeois. Well, Madam Chairman, I define the task and I tell you, big and menacing as it is, we will not give up on this issue. As they used to say on the Left, the struggle continues and for us it will in the interests of our children.

    Madam Chairman, our party’s policies address directly the problems that matter to everyday lives. Always have done. That’s why our party has won and won and won again, because our instincts flow from the innermost instincts of the majority of the British people. We are there in Government to help people meet their ambitions. It has been a difficult year. But that’s yesterday; it’s gone. We’ve learned from that and we’ve moved on. We’re working for what we believe in – free market and private enterprise. Low income tax and private choice. Control of inflation so that never again do we go in supermarkets to peel off the sticker and find the price that was there yesterday before a new price was put on top of it. Modern trades unions. Legislation almost completed, a revolution in trade unionism over the last decade. Good public services. Good public services are not the prerogative of the Left. We say that where services need to be provided by the public, they should be, that they should be efficient in precisely the same way that we would demand efficiency as if they were in the private sector. We want to ensure we maintain a modern, growing Health Service, available irrespective of need to people, irrespective of resources to people whenever they may need it. We want ever higher standards in schools. We want wider personal ownership. We want the private sector to expand, through privatisation where necessary, as far as it credibly can. We want security at home and we want security abroad. And we want to say “no” to something. No to tampering with our constitution. No to breaking up the United Kingdom. And no to proportional representation. PR, that sly deception that delivers governments into the hands of tiny and sometimes extreme political parties, is not a servant of democracy but its very enemy. Madam Chairman, those are the Tory truths, they’re truths that last, they’re truths we care about, they’re truths we’ll fight for and they’re truths that we’ll win with.

  • Mr Major’s Speech on Welsh Party Members – 4 September 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech made during a lunch in Wales to Conservative members on Friday 4th September 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you very much. I don’t know why you think I’m busy – it’s quite an easy job really! Not a lot’s going on at the moment! Could I just say firstly what a pleasure it is to be back and to see what the real world looks like outside London. Find out what’s going on. Can I also say right at the outset, how delighted I was firstly, with the quality of our candidates at the General Election, and secondly with the way in which the Conservative Party in Wales fought that General Election in each and every constituency in the Principality. You had some super results. You had the best candidates. We could have done with a few more victories – some were very close. But I don’t have any doubt that providing we continue with the right policies and have the right candidates – especially important, I believe, in Wales – have the right candidates, I’ve no doubt at all that Rod will have quite a few colleagues joining him when next we have a General Election – but I must tell you it is not imminent!

    But you did work hard. You did extremely well, despite the difficulties of the recession, we came out of it with the same number of seats. And had the Opposition vote crumbled in a slightly different way we might have picked up several more seats than we did. On other occasions we’ve had 14 seats with the same number of votes that we had at the last election and only appeared with six seats. We could well have some boundary changes between now and the next General Election! And we will just have to find a bigger bench in Westminster for our Welsh Conservative Members of Parliament in the future.

    And I am confident for another reason as well. Because I do think you have had, and retain at the moment, a remarkably good team at the Welsh Office. There’s been a long string of senior Ministers in the Welsh Office who’ve done, I think, a remarkable job for the United Kingdom as a whole, for the Principality, and of course for the Conservative Party. And David Hunt follows in that tradition. He’s a very old, longstanding friend of mine, and I think he does a superb job, both for the Conservative Party and Wales.

    And you have Wyn Roberts, who occasionally breaks out of Welsh and into English, who I believe was the resident Minister in charge of Wales when William the Conqueror first came here! And I promised my daughter that her children will be able to serve with a Conservative Government and Wyn Roberts one day!

    And Gwilym, who joined us only recently, but who I must tell you has made an absolutely outstanding start to his Ministerial career. I’m very pleased with the Ministers I have looking after Welsh interests, and I can tell you that they may sometimes put the fear of God into the Opposition, and they do exactly the same to the Treasury! And that is, of course, entirely as it should be. Somewhere, sitting outside the realms of the inner markets of politics, Peter Walker will be applauding the fact that they’re putting all the pressure they can on the Treasury, and some things never change, and they’re none the worse for that.

    We’ve had the opportunity this morning of looking round at some of the things that are actually happening in Wales. Stripping away the newspaper headlines, the late-night commentary by reporters straight from university, with no experience, little knowledge but much time to fill. We can see what is actually happening in the world outside the chattering classes of Westminster. Alas, it is not an extinct species.

    And what did I see looking around Wales this morning – and I will come to the difficulties later. But we started off looking at a remarkable firm right at the sharp edge of new technology, developing optical fibres which will revolutionise the way in which we live our lives by the end of this decade. Forget about televisions, telephones, computers that will both receive and send out, that will provide you instantly with all the knowledge of every encyclopedia the world has ever written. The most remarkable progress in technology that we’ve ever seen. Tiny fibres, almost too thin for the mind’s eye to see, that will carry into your homes within a few years – should you be unwise enough to wish it to do so – every conceivable news programme from every conceivable country.

    It is here, in Wales, that the leading edge of that technology is taking place, and you can be proud. On the site of the old Shotton Steelworks, where eleven years ago today we could have stood here with our heads hanging down and said “What is happening to Wales? The great steel industry is breaking down, 8,000 people have lost their jobs and what is their future?” And there they are today, many of those same men and their families, working in a whole series of high tech and medium tech industries, with secure, well-paid careers, no longer dependent on a single industry, and leading Europe and the world with that medium and high technology. That is the change, and it’s not just to be seen on the Shotton site, but dotted about all the way around Wales.

    It didn’t happen by magic. It happened of course because it’s an attractive place to build. Of course, because over the last decade our economy, despite current difficulties, has been revolutionised. But it happened also because Nick Edwards, because David, because Peter Walker, actually went out to America, Japan, and all the way round the world and sold Wales to the world as the place to invest and to build up their industries and commerce. [Applause].

    And then I went to look at something, I suppose, which typifies the hopes and dreams of most of us – a young couple moving into their house – the 10,000th house that Homes for Wales has produced. And I had the opportunity to meet a young couple, he’d just left the army, two young children, moving into their own home, starting a wholly new life in this lovely part of the world.

    And then, at my own request, to see one of the areas of difficulty – hill farming in Wales. And it’s been a novel morning – we’ve been rained on, shone on, wind has nearly blown us over, we’ve been up to our necks in mud and sheep. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it! And there was one marvellous moment. We were standing there on this hill being blown – if you’ll pardon the expression, I’ll use the expression my father would have used – blown from here to buggery and back again. A mass of cameras over there, and I was standing there with the Secretary of State with this great backdrop of sheep and the wonderful rolling environment and the reporter shouted out “Can we have a crook between you?”

    Discretion forbear! Discretion forbear! And every time I sit there in Westminster, and open the newspaper, listen to the news, listen to the in-talk of the in-crowd, and then you actually come out and see what the atmosphere is like in the country – they are as chalk and cheese. People today were extremely friendly – a whole primary school turning out to say hello – you actually see what the heartbeat of this United Kingdom is really like, when you actually get out and see it face to face. And that is what I want to do. And that is what I want every one of my Ministers to do – to a very substantial part of their time.

    So let us come back to Wales. Somebody once said in Portsmouth, I think it was Harold Wilson. “Why do I talk about the Royal Navy?” “Because you’re in Portsmouth, Prime Minister.” And I suppose that’s true.

    But Wales I talk about it for more reasons than just the fact that I’m in Wales. I talk about Wales for this reason perhaps above all. We are changing, in the Conservative Party – it is changing. It has been a Party that has rolled with the evolution of our instincts for 300 years in a way that no other political party anywhere in Europe has remotely been able to. We can trace our lineal descendancy right back to beginning of recorded politics – those inate instincts which make people Conservative are clear as crystal.

    But just as this country has no written constitution – it has evolved, changed, responded to the needs of the time and the instincts of the people who live there, so has our Party. We don’t have a written set of dogma, a clause 4 which becomes irrelevant as the page changes. We have a series of basic instinctive principles by which we believe people should live, and aspirations which we believe most people themselves have. And we develop them as time moves on. And there is one of those that, to me, is particularly important for the Conservative Party. And it is this. I don’t want the Conservative Party to just draw its strength from the South and the East. I want a Conservative Party that draws its strength in the South West as well, in the Midlands, in the North East, in the North West, in Scotland and in Wales. I want a strong Conservative Party in every single part of the United Kingdom, in time again, not excluding Northern Ireland. Every single part of the United Kingdom. [Applause].

    And that is why in the election we did something which I believe myself was one of the turning points of the last general election. You may recall some way into it we suddenly began to talk clearly and urgently and for days nobody would listen, about the importance of the Union within the United Kingdom. The importance that we were a United Kingdom. And I will tell you what I believe happened, I believe we stretched over the heads of people worried about their mortgage, their prospects and their jobs, and we stretched right into the deepest instincts of the people who live in these islands.

    And we of course are a Unionist Party. We call ourselves the Conservative Party, but in truth we are the Conservative and Unionist Party. And the union here in Wales between England and Wales is the oldest union of all. Older than the Act of Union in Scotland. And our futures are, have been and I hope and pray always will be, inextricably linked. We stand together, we thrive together, we suffer together, we fall together. And for me up here in North Wales that means some things political. It means winning back Delyn, for example. And winning Ynys Mon, which we had not all that long ago. We came within a whisker in April and with your help we’ll get it, Delyn and many other seats the next time.

    Why am I so confident? Not just for the reasons I’ve set out – the candidates, the Ministers – but I think it is not fanciful to say that in recent years Wales has been leading the way with the economic miracle of the 1980s. Who, I wonder, amongst the most venerable in terms of years in this room can last remember when the level of unemployment in Wales was below the national average in the United Kingdom. Not in my lifetime. Very possibly because of the imbalance of jobs in Wales right since the turn of the century, very probably not within the lifetime of anyone here. But it’s the changes in the economy, the inward investment, the £44 bn of inward investment and the 100,000 jobs that have been created that have actually made the difference. And I believe that that difference is doing something that I believe is critically important – it is breaking down that imbalance – what people crudely call the North/South divide. But what they meant by that was the prosperity of the South East compared to every other part of the United Kingdom, and we are breaking that down by lifting up the prosperity of those other parts of the United Kingdom. And that is not only right in itself, it is an instinctively Conservative thing to wish to achieve and to bring about as the very basis of policy.

    So we have more businesses in Wales than ever before. And although one can never be sure on the basis of a few months figures, the indications are that manufacturing output, indeed all output in Wales, is growing far above the levels of nearly every other part of the United Kingdom, and way above the average of the United Kingdom presently. But that is important for many reasons. And the hill farm this morning brought some of them back to my mind. What enables you to preserve cultural traditions, a quality of life, an instinct of preserving the best of what is past and building on it. You don’t do that out of grinding poverty. You don’t do that at a time of need. That’s when your culture and your traditions are thrown to one side. You do that at a time of greater prosperity.

    And yet here is a second strength of the basic, unchannelled instincts of the Conservative. He is a traditionalist. I hear you, I of course mean he or she. He is a traditionalist. He doesn’t want to change something instinctively until he knows there is something better. There is a conservatism with a small “c” embalmed in the instinct of everyone in these islands, however they may vote, whether they call themselves a Conservative or something else.

    And you certainly can’t come to Wales without being aware of your great cultural traditions. You can’t go to the opera, whether its the Welsh Opera, the English National Opera or Covent Garden without seeing the great musical traditions, without finding one or other great Welsh singer leading the way in our musical traditions. After the lunch today, Wyn is taking me – by virtue of some roads for which he will undoubtedly ask for more money! – to the sight of the new Arts and Leisure complex at Llandudno. I’ve no doubt that when there he will talk to me of other matters too. He will talk to me of the importance of the Welsh language. And it is highly likely that he will talk to me in Welsh about it! It might be appropriate if he does!

    And then if I know him – and I’ve known him since I was but a lad, but then haven’t we all! He will also talk to me of local government reform and here I return back to the instincts and the traditions of the British, and in this case the Welsh. Go out there and find me a Welshman, any age, any size any shape any political party who doesn’t want back Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire, Merionnethshire and Anglesey. [Applause]. Well I’ve got some news for you – you’re going to get them back. [Applause]. Because David Hunt has arranged it.

    Let us not hide our eyes from the difficulties that exist at present. But neither should we overstate them. Neither should we misrepresent them. And I believe both of those latter two things are happening, not least from people within our own Party as well as beyond it. I don’t pretend for a second that for many people across our country in different parts of it that things are easy now. I know it is a difficult time for many businesses. And I understand from personal experience many years ago, how people feel, what it’s actually like to see your security, your family business, perhaps even your home disappear. I certainly recall vividly what it’s like not to know whether you will actually have enough money to last through the week and pay the bills when they come in at the end of them. There is no-one in this country who wants this recession to end more speedily or more adequately than I do, or than Norman Lamont does.

    But I will tell you something else about this recession. I want this to be a lasting recovery. Not a transient recovery. Not a recovery that takes us over the hill and down into the valley and back into exactly the same problems again and again. When we were having lunch Chris said to me, “We got through the election in a recession.” Time after time we’ve been on the way to permanently low inflation, we’ve run up again an electoral timetable, we’ve taken short term action and the problems have recreated themselves. Now we can kill them off for good. We have within our hands for the first time, in my political lifetime, the prospect of licking inflation once and for all and having permanently low inflation.

    It’s only two years ago that people were saying to me there are two great problems – inflation, getting up to 11 per cent is out of control, and stable exchange rates. Just solve that and all will be well. We have inflation at 3.7 per cent and our exchange rates are stable. And of course there are now other requirements that are laid upon us.

    But everyone I think has something about which they care particularly passionately, and I do about inflation. For some it is a slogan. But it is not just a slogan. I will give you two reasons why we should care passionately about inflation.

    The first is to consider what inflation means. Inflation means, particularly for people on fixed incomes – and as people live longer in retirement a higher proportion of our population is on fixed incomes – for every per cent of inflation you erode the living standards of people who are no longer in work and who are living on the savings and the product of their lifetime at work. I say to you bluntly. I regard it as a moral imperative as well as an economic necessity to keep inflation at the lowest possible level to protect the living standards of those people.

    Throughout the 60s and the 70s inflation went through the roof and through the 80s and still in the 90s there are hundreds of thousands of elderly people humiliated and embarrassed because they have social benefits, because inflation tore away the security that they had built up in the whole of their working lives to ensure they didn’t have to go out and ask for help from other people in their retirement years. And I do not want to see that happen to this generation or any future generation. And so we will bear down on inflation.

    But there’s a second reason. We are living in an increasingly competitive world. We may be an island geographically, but we will never ever again be an island economically. What happens in America, or Japan or Germany or France or Denmark affects us directly. Our living standards. We cannot pretend, however much some would wish to, that it doesn’t matter to us and that it will all go away. We are an inter-related world. It is that investment that has created those new jobs in Wales, it is those markets which provide the markets from which those products made in Wales will predominately be sold. And so we have to be efficient. Suppose we had inflation in this country at 4 to 5 per cent and they had inflation in America, Japan, Germany and France at 2 to 3 per cent, what does it mean. It means that they will get relatively well-off, and we will get relatively poor. It means we will lose jobs, living standards and all the sweet things of life, because we will become an uncompetitive society and it will become more difficult year after year.

    Why more difficult year after year? Because all those Eastern nations that once we were able to sell things because they couldn’t manufacture them for themselves now can. Go to Indonesia, go to Korea, go to Hong Kong, go to China; and those captive markets to which we sold things when we weren’t competitive in Europe have gone. Because they manufacture them now for themselves. And either we are successful, or we will fall behind – not just in living standards, but we will fall behind in political influence in building the sort of society at home and abroad that we want to see.

    And I will tell you a third instinct of the Briton. I actually believe, and so do the British nations, that the British instinct is a force for good in international affairs. That force for good is pushed aside and derided if you have an economically weak nation it has no political clout either.

    So we have to deal with those problems. Not because we wish to, but because we have no choice but to do so for this generation and the next. And that is why I am not in the business of soft-options. All my life I have seen Governments driven off a virtuous path of economic revival because things got difficult in the short term. Well we’ve just had an election, and we’re not going to be driven off that virtuous path. And so we are not going to devalue Sterling. We are not going to leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism. We are going to make sure that we get that inflation level down to the level that will secure permanent growth and prosperity for this generation and the next, that I want us to see.

    And let me just say a few further words about it. It’s fashionable, it’s very easy suddenly to say it’s terribly difficult here and to blame somebody abroad and to say if only they’d do something it would all be better. I know what the instinct is in this country, they say of Europe: “Well, they’re foreigners; and of course we should be in the Common Market, it’s very important the Market and we understand all that, but I just wish we could only just sell things to them.”

    Well, that is unreasonable. That is no longer the world in which we live or will ever live again if your face the hard day to day realities that businessmen face. That jobs and businesses in Wales depend on Europe. They depend on the Community. 60 per cent of our trade is with the European Community. And it isn’t just prosperity, it is peace that has been bought. If I may say so without disrespect there are people in this room, as I look around, who will remember the Second War very clearly. They’ll also remember from their history books that it was the Balkans that brought about the First World War, as they look at the events of Yugoslavia.

    But let us say something about the Second World War. The greatest virtue of the Community for all its faults – and I’m no Europhiliac, believe you me, I see all the faults and dislikes of it, but I see its advantages too – when you look at the European Community, what is its greatest thing? Is it the growth that it has over 30, 40 years brought to Europe? No, it isn’t. What it is is that it has so intertwined the trading of those great Western nations that it is inconceivable that nations that twice fought the whole world at war would ever be in military conflict again. And that is why we want to extend that Community across Eastern Europe, so that we bring in those newly democratic nations – The Czechs, the Slovakia, Hungary, old friends of ours. Bring them over time into the Community so that we can extend that impossibility of conflict right the way across eventually our continent of Europe. A course to the North, to the Scandinavians, a course down to Austria and then to the Eastern part of Europe.

    Those are the policies that we must pursue in the long term. And if we pursued them successfully it will mean something that I think would be valuable to all of us here. It would mean that our children and our grandchildren would never live under the threat of war that many of the people in this room have lived under and in some cases experienced for much of their lives. It is a long policy, but it is the right policy and it is a Conservative policy, for it is instinctive for the Conservative Party to look beyond one generation. We are not a mono-dimension Party. We are the only Party in this country and the Party most fitted anywhere in Europe, to look down cascading through the generations and frame policies now that will bear their greatest fruit long after we have ceased to have any direct influence on them. And I think that is what is happening in Europe at the moment, despite the frustrations that many feel about it.

    I’ll tell you why we won on April 9th. It was become in some remarkable subliminal way those instincts communicated themselves to people. For all the difficulties that there were with the recession, that heaven alone knows is now stretching to every part of this world, there was the belief that people would be safer with us. Safer economically and safer in other ways. And I think that is because our Party understands the instincts of the British. They want to keep more of what they earn. They want its money to keep its value. They want low inflation and low taxation. They want the kind of choices and opportunities that their parents only dreamed about and they know that their children will want for their children opportunities that were denied to them.

    They want better education. They want an absolute determination to concentrate on the basics of education – Neighbours out, Shakespeare in – which is the basic instinct of the Conservatives in this country. And they want people to read, to write, to learn to do sums, then they want to put them in the Treasury! They want a Britain where people with talent and who work hard can go all the way to the top no matter what their background or where they may have started from. That is what they want in this country.

    And then they want something else – two things I think. They want a Britain where after a lifetime’s hard work they can pass on what they have built up to their children and grandchildren, and not pass on what they have built up to the taxpayer. [Applause].

    And they want a Britain safe at home and respected abroad.

    So we can take this opportunity – there’s only a transient opportunity in politics – to celebrate that victory on April 9th. But the best way to celebrate that victory on April 9th is to make use of it. To make use of it to build those things we care about. To stick with them firmly, rigidly, with conviction but with understanding even when times are difficult, for that is the way we believe we can build something better for ourselves and for future generations. For if I may come back almost to where I started, that is the instinct of the Conservative, and we are Conservatives and that, I promise you, is the instinct of your Government.

  • Conservative Party Manifesto – 9 April 1992

    Below is the text of the 1992 Conservative Party Manifesto issued in March 1992.

    Conservative Party 1992 – The Best Future for Britain

    FOREWORD

    At the end of this Parliament a new Millennium will be in view. We must raise our sights high. This Manifesto is about making our country respected and secure, and helping you achieve a better; safer and more prosperous future. For I believe – strongly – that you, and not the Government, should be in charge of your life. That’s what Conservatism stands for. That principle underlies all the policies in this Manifesto.

    I believe in a responsible society Government’s duties are clear: to protect Britain in a dangerous world; to look after those who cannot look after themselves; to protect law-abiding people from crime and disorder; and to protect the value of our currency – without which all spending pledges are worthless and all savings at risk.

    But I believe also in a society in which government doesn’t try to take responsibility away from people. Politicians must never make the mistake of thinking the state always knows best, or that it is entitled to the lion’s share of people’s money I believe in low taxes not just because they ignite enterprise – the spark of economic growth – but because they put power and choice where it belongs: in your hands.

    So when you compare what the politicians are saying in this election, ask yourself these questions. Whom do you trust to take responsibility for Britain’s defence; to keep us safe and strengthen our influence for good? And who, at the same time, wants to give you the opportunity to do your best for yourself and your family?

    Who will give you the power to choose – to say for yourself what you want? And who will give you the personal prosperity that comes from low taxes – from your own savings, your own pension, your own home? Who will let you build up your own stake in Britain’s success – and pass it on to your children?

    Only Conservatives can truly claim to be the party of opportunity; choice; ownership and responsibility. Socialists like to keep people under the government’s thumb. Conservatives want to give them independence. But we also want to put government at your service, giving you what you’ve paid for – good public services, responsible to you.

    I do not believe the answer to every problem is simply for government to dig deeper in your pocket. I believe it often lies in changing the way government works; in making it respond to you. Government should look outwards. It should listen. It should put you in the know not keep you in the dark.

    We have made quite a start, under the seal of the Citizen’s Charter People in schools, hospitals, public offices of all kinds are rising to the challenge. I knew they would. They just needed encouragement, incentive and a system that is outward-looking too.

    It is all part of a revolution in quality in Britain. British goods are once more winning in the toughest markets abroad. There is new vigour in the businesses liberated from state ownership; better management and better industrial relations. These are the firm foundations of economic recovery

    We are raising the quality of our education and training. We are raising the standard of our housing, as more people own and improve their own homes. We are concerned for the quality of our environment. And in government, we are leading a drive for quality throughout our public services.

    That, I believe, is the way we all want to live – a decent life in a civilised community. That is the way we can live: celebrating our achievements, not nurturing old grudges; enjoying our successes, not talking Britain down. We can be free of old prejudices and class bafflers. We can encourage diversity, not division; achievement, not antagonism. We can all make our own contribution to the success of the United Kingdom; and we must keep that kingdom united.

    You know I believe in choice. And in this election, as always, there is another choice. You can vote for our opponents, and watch them take Britain back to the 1970s. Back to socialism. Back to strikes. Back to strife. Back to the world’s pity, or worse still, contempt. I don’t believe Britain wants that. I know the world doesn’t want that for Britain.

    I hope you will choose a different path – to go forward, not back; to go for the best, knowing that Britain can be the best and do it best. My belief is clear. Only the best is good enough for Britain.

    John Major

     

    CONTENTS:

    TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRITAIN

    The need for leadership

    Our influence for good

    The risks we face now

    Our armed forces

    The European Community

    WEALTH AND OWNERSHIP

    Britain’s opportunity

    Inflation and Europe

    The route to lower taxes

    The right to own

    Setting the economy free

    Privatisation

    Energy

    Science and innovation

    Regional policies and small businesses

    Consumer affairs

    CHOICE AND THE CHARTER

    The Citizen’s Charter

    The Post Office

    Whitehall & Westminster

    OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

    Schools, pupils & parents

    Teaching

    After 16

    Higher education

    The training revolution

    Workers and unions

    Women and opportunity

    FREEDOM UNDER LAW

    Police and the community

    Protectors and victims

    Penalties and prevention

    Reforming our prisons

    Our legal system

    Pornography, privacy, libel

    Community relations

    Immigration and refugees

    The danger of drugs

    The threat of terrorism

    RESPONSIBILITY FOR OTHERS

    The NHS – present and future

    Care services

    Children

    Social security

    Disabled people

    The voluntary sector

    Animal welfare

    A BRIGHTER BRITAIN

    Homes and housing

    Transport

    Local government

    Cities

    London

    The countryside

    Farming, forestry and fishing

    The environment

    TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM

    Millennium Fund

    Arts

    Sport

    Our heritage

    Broadcasting

    A UNITED KINGDOM

    The Union

    Scotland

    Wales

    Northern Ireland

    YOUR CHOICE AT THIS ELECTION

    TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRITAIN

     

    The world has been transformed in recent years. Communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union has fallen apart. Everywhere Socialism is in retreat and democracy, human rights and market economics are advancing. The authority of the UN has been bolstered and Iraqi aggression seen off. Talks are under way in the Middle East and South Africa. It is a time of great opportunity, but also of new dangers.

    Britain needs firm leadership at this time. We must be represented by a team of quality and experience. A team which can help shape the world for the next century A Conservative team.

    Under the Conservatives, Britain has regained her rightful influence in the world. We have stood up for the values our country has always represented. We have defended Britain’s interests with vigour and with success.

    The respect with which Britain is regarded in the world has rarely been higher. We play a central part in world affairs as a member of the European Community, NATO, the Commonwealth and the Group of 7 leading industrial countries, and as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council. No other country holds all these positions.

    We are taking a leading role in recasting all the main international institutions to which we belong: the United Nations, the European Community, NATO, and the Commonwealth. The Prime Minister convened the first ever meeting of the UN Security Council at Heads of Government level. Between now and the end of 1992 there will be seven Summits where issues of critical importance to our future will be determined: two EC Councils, at Lisbon and Edinburgh, the G7 Summit, the CSCE Summit, EC Summits with the US and Japan, and the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro. Britain will be at the centre of these negotiations.

    THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP

    The end of the Cold War has enabled the UN to act with new unity and authority Under the authority of the UN, British forces played a leading and courageous part in the Gulf War and the liberation of Kuwait. At the Prime Minister’s instigation, the UN also backed the operation to protect the Kurds.

    Britain has led the world in helping the reforms in the former Soviet Union. The Prime Minister gave full and immediate support to President Yeltsin in the August coup attempt, and was the first Western leader to visit Moscow after the coup failed. Britain has led the way in building up relations with the republics of the new Commonwealth of Independent States. We have provided valuable economic and humanitarian aid to ease the transition to a market economy

    We will support an enhanced role for the UN in peace-keeping and combating state-sponsored terrorism.

    We are determined that Iraq should comply with the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement, and in particular that it should co-operate with the UN in dismantling its weapons of mass destruction.

    We support early Russian membership of the IMF and World Bank, as well as a stabilisation fund for the rouble.

    We are co-operating with our partners to provide urgent help to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to upgrade the safety of their nuclear power stations.

    We strongly support the peace process in the Middle East. The outcome of the talks must safeguard the security of Israel and achieve self-determination for the people of the occupied territories.

    We will safeguard the prosperity of Hong Kong, nurture democratic institutions and work with the Chinese Government within the terms of the Joint Declaration.

    We seek a solution to the dispute which has divided Cyprus since 1974. A settlement must recognise that Cyprus is indivisible and that the rights of both communities must be assured. We will support the UN’s efforts to secure a fair and lasting solution.

    The problems of Kashmir cannot be resolved by violence. We urge both India and Pakistan to address and resolve the issue, and we stand ready to help.

    OUR INFLUENCE FOR GOOD

    All over the world countries are turning to democracy and free markets. Last October in Harare, the Commonwealth took on a new role as a promoter of democracy the rule of law, and respect for individual freedoms. Already the Commonwealth is monitoring elections to ensure that they are free and fair. Britain is taking the lead in encouraging these trends.

    We give substantial aid to the relief of poverty and to help the struggling economies of the developing world. Our aid programme next year (excluding aid to Eastern Europe and the CIS) will reach £1,800 million. Britain also makes more direct private investment in the developing world than any other EC country – some £2,400 million in 1989. We are urging the international community to take decisive action on debt relief, the liberalisation of world trade and support for good government.

    We continue to accept the long term UN target for aid of 0.7 per cent of GNP, although we cannot set a timetable for its achievement. The quality of Britain’s overseas aid programme is second to none. It is well targeted and highly effective. Eighty per cent of our bilateral aid goes to the poorest countries. New aid to the poorest is given as grants, not loans.

    We are supporting projects designed to build efficient institutions and accountable government. We are helping to improve public administration and the legal system in a number of countries.

    The English language is one of our nation’s greatest assets – culturally politically and commercially The BBC World Service has unrivalled standing around the globe. The British Council acts as a cultural ambassador for Britain and for the English language.

    We will use overseas aid to promote good government, sensible economic policies, the rooting out of corruption, and – crucially – respect for human rights and the rule of law.

    We will press creditor countries to accept the Prime Minister’s proposal – the ‘Trinidad Terms’ – for a two-thirds reduction in the official debt of the poorest countries.

    We will promote the development of multi-party systems through the new Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

    We will promote the English language by strengthening both the British Council and the BBC World Service. We will encourage both to become more entrepreneurial in order to finance their activities in developing markets.

    THE RISKS WE FACE NOW

    The collapse of the old Soviet Union has dramatically vindicated Conservative defence policy. We have always put the security of our country first. We have kept the peace by staying strong.

    Today the threat of a massive surprise attack from Eastern Europe has gone. But we still face grave risks to our security. We cannot drop our guard. Under the Conservatives, Britain will never do so.

    Within the former Soviet Union there remains a huge military force. Democracy and the rule of law are yet to be firmly established. Control over these armed forces and the massive nuclear capability is uncertain. The events in Yugoslavia show what can happen when Communism collapses in disorder.

    Increasingly threats come from outside Europe – as we saw so clearly in the Gulf. Many more countries are acquiring large stocks of modern arms. Some are trying to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Britain must be able to respond to any unexpected danger.

    The Conservatives are the only party who recognise both the opportunities and the threats of the new world.

    For over forty years, our security has been based firmly on NATO, the most successful defensive alliance ever. We will work with our allies to ensure that NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence. Britain will command a new NATO Rapid Reaction Corps ready to deploy quickly to counter any sudden threat. As Europeans we must accept a greater role in safeguarding the peace in our continent.

    We will promote arms control and reduction initiatives. On Britain’s initiative, the UN is establishing a register of arms transfers in order to monitor any dangerous arsenals of weapons.

    Britain has always been strongly opposed to nuclear proliferation. We will back an enhanced role for the International Atomic Energy Agency in inspecting nuclear sites and for the UN Security Council in acting against those nations which break their non proliferation obligations.

    We will work to strengthen the Western European Union as the European pillar of NATO. We will press for a European reaction force.

    We will intensify the co-ordination of security policies within the Twelve.

    We will work through the CSCE to safeguard the security of Europe.

    We will support a comprehensive and verifiable ban on chemical weapons, and further controls on the export of items which could be used in making biological weapons.

    We will help Russia in her efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons.

    OUR ARMED FORCES

    Only the Conservatives can be trusted to maintain the quality and capability of our Armed Forces. We are proud of the skill, courage and professionalism which they displayed in the Gulf and which they show daily in Northern Ireland.

    We are the only party unambiguously committed to the preservation and modernisation of our independent nuclear deterrent.

    Our defence would be unsafe in the hands of the opposition parties. Labour have opposed our defence policies at every turn. They have twisted and turned in their attitude to our nuclear deterrent. They would devastate our conventional forces by cuts of at least 27 per cent, which would lead to huge job losses in the defence industries.

    The Liberal Democrats would cause even more damage to Britain’s defences. Their aim is to cut our defence spending by half by the end of the decade.

    We insist that our forces have the modern, effective equipment that they need. The Gulf War showed that the Services must have the latest technology to give them maximum flexibility and mobility. That is why we have ordered the new Challenger II tank for the Army, the Merlin helicopter for the Navy, the ASRAAM air defence missile for the RAF and a wide range of other new equipment for our Forces.

    Our reappraisal of Britain’s defence needs will result in a major restructuring of our Armed Forces to take account of the changing world situation. In future our Forces will be smaller, but better equipped. Our Services deserve the excellent pay and conditions which we have secured for them and will maintain.

    We will complete the deployment of the next generation of Britain’s minimum nuclear deterrent. We will order and complete the fourth Trident submarine.

    We will ensure the Forces have the best and most modern equipment.

    We will improve the quality and management of service housing and help those in the Forces save towards buying a home of their own.

    The Reserves will play an even more important role and we will introduce legislation to allow their more flexible use.

    THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

    The Conservatives have been the party of Britain in Europe for 30 years. We have argued when argument was necessary; but we have not wavered nor changed our views. We have ensured that Britain is at the heart of Europe; a strong and respected partner.

    We have played a decisive part in the development of the Community over the past decade. It was a British initiative which launched the Single Market programme and our insistence which reformed the Community’s finances. Britain has promoted co-operation on foreign policy and in combating terrorism. Britain has also persuaded our partners to welcome new countries who apply for Community membership.

    The Maastricht Treaty was a success both for Britain and for the rest of Europe. British proposals helped to shape the key provisions of the Treaty including those strengthening the enforcement of Community law defence, subsidiarity and law and order. But Britain refused to accept the damaging Social Chapter proposed by other Europeans, and it was excluded from the Maastricht treaty

    All Member States must live up to their obligations under Community law. At Maastricht, we secured agreement that the European Court will be able to fine any Member State which fails to do so.

    We will work closely with our partners in foreign policy and in the war on international crime.

    We will continue to resist changes to the Treaty of Rome that would damage British business.

    We will resist Commission initiatives which run counter to the principle that issues should be dealt with on a national basis wherever possible.

    Britain is a great trading nation. We prosper through the maintenance of an open trading system. We will work for a successful outcome to the GATT negotiations.

    We will redouble our efforts to reform the Common Agricultural Policy and will stoutly defend the interests of British farmers and consumers.

    We will insist on more effective control over Community spending and will resist pressure to extend Community competence to new areas.

    We will work to strengthen the external frontiers of the Community whilst maintaining the checks needed at our own borders against illegal immigration, drugs, terrorism and disease.

    THE BRITISH PRESIDENCY

    In the second half of 1992 Britain will take the Chair of the Council of Ministers. The British Presidency comes at a turning point in the Community’s history. It gives us the opportunity to shape the direction of the Community and to establish its priorities. We shall use it to promote our vision of an outward looking Community based on free enterprise.

    Our Presidency will reach its climax at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council, which we will hold in the historic palace of Holyrood House. While the attention of Europe is focused on Edinburgh, the strength of our Union will be visible to all.

    Our priorities will be:

    To start negotiations with those EFTA countries who want to join the Community so that they can join by 1995.

    To build on the EC’s Association Agreements with Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland so that we can welcome them to full membership by the year 2000.

    To conclude EC trade and co-operation agreements with the main republics of the former Soviet Union.

    To complete the single market and extend it to the seven countries of EFTA. Over half our trade is with the rest of the Community. The single market will create an open market of 350 million customers for British goods and services. To complete the single market we shall aim to:

    open up the market for life insurance to free competition;

    liberalise air travel to bring down air fares in Europe closer to those in America;

    free up the shipping and road transport markets so that British operators can carry freely within the EC;

    increase competition in the European energy sector.

    We will provide guidance and help to any British company encountering a trade barrier illegal under European law.

    We will press for progress on the environment, including the Fifth Environment Action Programme.

    We will chair the negotiations on the future spending priorities of the Community to ensure value for money. We will safeguard the abatement negotiated by Mrs Thatcher which has so far brought some £12,000 million in budget rebates to Britain.

    WEALTH AND OWNERSHIP

    The 1990s present a great economic opportunity for Britain. We have got the scourge of inflation under control. We have cut direct tax rates. And a stable currency gives industry a chance to realise the potential released by the reforms of the 1980s.

    We have extended ownership more widely – of homes, savings and shares – with millions more sharing directly in Britain’s success. We will promote enterprise through low taxes, sound money and a stable currency.

    When the Exchange Rate Mechanism was being created, during the final days of the last Labour Government, the then Prime Minister decided Britain could not take part.

    It was easy to see why the economy was too weak. Inflation was too high. In 1974-79, the inflation rate averaged over 15 per cent. It peaked at 27 per cent. Public borrowing rose to nearly 10 per cent of national income – equivalent to £55,000 million today. Penal taxes blunted enterprise. Britain was a byword for strikes.

    The Conservatives have changed all that. Since 1979, our inflation rate has averaged 7½ per cent. Now it is only just over 4 per cent – below the average for the European Community In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain had the slowest growth rate in the European Community. But in the 1980s, we grew faster than either France or Germany Industrial disputes became rare events. And in 1990, a Conservative Government joined the ERM.

    Penal taxes have been abolished. A man on average earnings, with a wife and two children, has an income today which after tax and inflation is 39 per cent higher than it was in Labour’s last year. That great advance in the standard of living is at risk in this election.

    Since the war, living standards have always risen faster under Conservative Governments than under Labour. Now we are pledged to cut tax rates again – and have made a start on the road to 20p Income Tax.

    Corporate tax rates have been cut, too. Our business investment has increased more rapidly than in any other major economy except Japan. Britain attracts by far the biggest share of Japanese and American investment in Europe. That, too, is at risk in this election.

    BRITAIN’S OPPORTUNITY

    We are now members of:

    The biggest free market in the world. British industry is again respected in Europe.

    A zone of low inflation, in which we can compete with the best.

    Britain must not throw this opportunity away by electing a Labour government. The world recession has been tough for all of us, at home and abroad. Unemployment has risen. But in Britain we have laid the foundations for recovery What is needed to trigger confidence and growth is a Conservative victory with a decisive majority. What would postpone recovery, and turn this promise of growth into the certainty of hard times, is the election of our opponents whose policies would mean higher taxes, higher inflation, higher interest rates, more bureaucratic regulation and more strikes.

    In the 1990s, the Government’s task will be to provide an economic environment which encourages enterprise – the mainspring of prosperity. Our aims must be:

    To achieve price stability.

    To keep firm control over public spending.

    To continue to reduce taxes as fast as we prudently can.

    To make sure that market mechanisms and incentives are allowed to do their job.

    Price stability does not mean a frozen economy in which no price ever moves. But we must drive inflation down so low that it no longer affects the decisions made by ordinary people, businesses and government.

    When inflation rises, so do bankruptcies. When inflation falls, industry can plan again for a profitable future. Inflation creates strife, as different groups in society struggle to restore their living standards. It destroys jobs. It erodes savings and social benefits and threatens our currency.

    INFLATION AND EUROPE

    Membership of the ERM is now central to our counter-inflation discipline. But the ERM is not a magic wand. It would not protect Labour; it would merely expose the folly of Labour policies. Some Labour politicians know that all too well – others simply don’t. They – and some of the unions – would put irresistible spending pressure on a Labour government.

    Some members of the European Community are anxious to hurry on from the ERM to Economic and Monetary Union. Others have doubts. Quite apart from the constitutional issues, they do not want to take risks with what is being achieved in the ERM.

    The Treaty negotiated at Maastricht laid down the process under which the Community can, if its members meet certain economic conditions, create a monetary union with a single currency for some or all of them. Together with Germany we fought for tough criteria. We believe a monetary union would collapse, with damaging consequences, if it were imposed on economies that were too diverse.

    A union will only come about by 1997 if a substantial majority of Community members agree it should. It would only include those members who were judged to have met specified conditions. And it would only come about if a majority of members were judged to have done so.

    But the Treaty goes on to say that monetary union will come about automatically in 1999, for all who meet the conditions. We did not want to exclude ourselves from membership; but we could not accept such an automatic commitment. By the end of this decade the EC’s membership will have changed; the economic performance of man of its members may have changed. We cannot tell who the members of such a union might be.

    We therefore secured the freedom to make a proper judgement on events. We are as free to join if we wish as any other member. We would have to meet the same conditions – no more, no less. We will play our full part in the discussions of the monetary institutions Europe may create in the 1990s. But we are not obliged to join in a single currency if we do not want to.

    In due course, we will move to the narrow bands of the ERM.

    We will play our full part in the design and discussion of monetary institutions for Europe.

    When or if other members of the EC move to a monetary union with a single currency, we will take our own unfettered decision on whether to join. That decision will be taken by the United Kingdom Parliament.

    THE ROUTE TO LOWER TAXES

    Economic growth is created by people’s hard work, ingenuity thrift and willingness to take risks. An enterprise economy rewards the industrious and thrifty We believe that government should not gobble up all the proceeds of growth, and that those who create prosperity should enjoy it, through lower taxes and more opportunity to build up personal wealth.

    Our policy is therefore to reduce the share of national income taken by the public sector. In the mid-1970s, public spending peaked at over 49 per cent of our gross national product. In the early 1980s, it peaked at over 47 per cent. In this recession, it is peaking at only 43 per cent. We aim to reduce this steadily as the recovery gets under way

    Keeping control of public spending will enable us to cut taxes while bringing the Government’s Budget back towards balance in the years ahead. Excessive government borrowing can lead to inflation. Government should always be on guard against that danger. However, when demand in the economy is weak, public borrowing will tend to rise.

    Because companies pay taxes according to how well they did the previous year, the deficit tends to be deepest just as we come out of recession. We must make sure that as the economy grows, borrowing slows.

    By bringing tax and spending decisions together in a unified Budget from next year, we will make the choices clearer. But lower taxes and a prudent approach to borrowing do not mean public spending must fall; quite the reverse. A lightly-taxed economy generates more economic growth, and more revenue. High taxes kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In the course of its last five years in office, Labour was forced to cut public spending, in real terms. By contrast, the Conservatives have been able to raise public spending by nearly a quarter in real terms.

    Higher tax rates do not always bring in more money In practice, they can bring in less. The Conservative Government has more than halved the top rate of tax. Yet top rate taxpayers today provide a bigger share of our tax revenues than they did before. Lower taxes have encouraged more people to work harder – not to spend their time working out how to avoid penal taxes.

    During the past 13 years we have cut, simplified or abolished a whole range of direct taxes.

    We have cut the basic rate of Income Tax from 33p to 25p, and the top rate from 83p to 40p.

    We have now announced a new starting Income Tax rate of 20p.

    We have raised the basic single person’s tax allowance by 27 per cent more than would be needed to keep pace with inflation.

    We have simplified and reduced the burden of taxation on capital.

    We have cut Corporation Tax from 52 per cent to 33 per cent (and from 42 per cent to 25 per cent for small companies).

    We have reduced the burden of National Insurance on low earners.

    We have introduced independent taxation of husbands and wives, giving married women full eligibility for tax allowances.

    We have introduced new tax incentives for savings.

    We have abolished several taxes completely including the surcharge on income from savings, the National Insurance Surcharge, Development Land Tax, and Capital Transfer Tax.

    We are the only party that understands the need for low taxation. Labour and the Liberals openly advocate increased taxation. Yet lower taxes clearly create a more productive economy They also achieve another prime objective of Conservative Governments, which is to transfer power from the state to the people.

    Labour would:

    Reverse our cut in the starting rate of Income Tax to 20p.

    Raise the top rate.

    Abolish the National Insurance ceiling.

    Introduce a new savings surcharge.

    We announced in the Budget an important first step towards a basic Income Tax rate of 20p. By applying a 20p rate to the first £2,000 of taxable income, we have cut taxes for all 25 million taxpayers, and taken the four million on lowest incomes out of 25p tax altogether.

    We will make further progress towards a basic Income Tax rate of 20p.

    We will reduce the share of national income taken by the public sector. We will see the budget return towards balance as the economy recovers.

    THE RIGHT TO OWN

    Since 1979, wealth has been spread more widely through the community Home ownership, share ownership and the build-up of personal pensions have all contributed. Over two-thirds of people live in homes that they own, 10 million people own shares, 6 million of them in newly-privatised industries. About 2.5 million have benefited from tax incentives to encourage employee share schemes. And over 4½ million people are now building up their own personal pensions.

    But these freedoms are at risk.

    Labour would:

    Halt the privatisation programme and threaten the value of shares in privatised industries with renationalisation and new Government controls.

    Bring back credit rationing, leading to mortgage queues.

    Turn the pensions market on its head, making pension provision costly and difficult.

    These changes would drive savings overseas and make wealth again the prerogative of the few.

    By contrast, we want to do more to encourage the wider distribution of wealth throughout society. Sustaining not just a home-owning but a capital owning democracy is crucial to our vision for the 1990s. We intend to spread the ownership of shares, homes, pensions and savings. We will do so through future privatisations, help for would-be home owners in council tenancies and further encouragement for the spread of personal pensions. We intend to lighten the burden of capital taxes and reform the taxation of savings.

    We believe Inheritance Tax is particularly inequitable. It falls only on those who do not dispose of their assets seven years or more before their death. It is inevitably the case that these tend to be people who are not rich enough to engage in high-powered tax planning, or who, for lack of knowledge or advice, fail to take the necessary precautionary action. In the Budget, we announced that we would take most family businesses out of Inheritance Tax altogether. During the new Parliament, we will aim to lessen the burden on families to whom home ownership has brought the threat of this erratic tax.

    As detailed later in this Manifesto, we will aim to bring home ownership, share ownership and personal pensions within the reach of more families.

    We will continue to reform the taxation of savings, building on the success of PEPs and TESSAs.

    We will raise the tax threshold for Inheritance Tax so that the homes and savings of an increasing number of our citizens can pass unencumbered from one generation to another.

    Whenever possible, we will ensure that future privatisations offer opportunities to employees to secure a stake in the ownership of their business.

    We will encourage companies to make dealing in their own shares easier, especially for small shareholders, and encourage wider share ownership, through, for example, the establishment of ‘Share Shops’.

    We will abolish Stamp Duty on share transactions.

    SETTING THE ECONOMY FREE

    Starting with the abolition of exchange controls in 1979, the Government has created new incentives for every part of our economy.

    Manufacturing industry suffered particularly badly from the harm inflicted on the British economy by Labour Governments in the 1960s and 1970s. To a far greater extent than service industries, it was the victim of militant trades unionism, restrictive practices, nationalisation, state intervention, tax distortion, planning controls and over-regulation.

    We believe strongly that a vigorous manufacturing sector is essential to a healthy British economy Over the past 13 years, we have steadily dismantled barriers to its growth.

    The competitiveness and performance of British manufacturing have been transformed. Its impressive recovery was recognised by the Confederation of British Industry, in its report aptly titled Competing with the World’s Best’. Manufacturing productivity has risen by more than half since 1979 – faster than in any other major industrial country. Over the past 10 years, British manufactured exports have grown faster than those of France, Germany the United States or even Japan.

    The British motor industry has achieved an astonishing revival. By 1996, Britain should again be exporting more cars than we import – for the first time since 1974. We have given the industry yet more encouragement in the Budget, by halving the special tax paid on new cars.

    The British Standard for Quality management has effectively become the international standard. But that is only the beginning. We have set up a team of senior business people to pursue the idea of a new British Quality Award.

    The City is Europe’s greatest financial centre. It contributes £11,000 million net to our balance of payments. Financial services employ 12 per cent of our workforce. London’s capital markets and financial services have grown vigorously because they are innovative and highly competitive. We will continue our efforts to break down the barriers that prevent them from competing freely throughout Europe and in the wider world.

    The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is now based in London. It puts us in the forefront of encouraging investment in the developing markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

    Service industries make a vital contribution to our economy and to our balance of payments. Tourism, for example, today employs 1.5 million people, 20% more than in 1980. It is an industry which boasts many famous companies – but it is also driven by the dynamism of many small firms. We will continue to help them by simplifying rules and regulations on business and through the DTI Enterprise Initiative and a range of other schemes.

    We will continue to reduce tax burdens on business, as we have done this year for the motor industry, whenever it is possible to do so.

    We will abolish unnecessary licences and reduce the need for specific approvals for product design.

    We will back British companies encountering any discrimination, trade barriers or state subsidies that should no longer exist within the Single Market.

    We will back the regulators of the financial services industry in their efforts to achieve high standards while keeping the rule books down to manageable size.

    PRIVATISATION

    Competition and private ownership are the most powerful engines of economic efficiency, innovation and choice. They lead to the creation of world-class companies.

    We have returned to private enterprise two-thirds of the companies once owned by the state: 46 businesses employing about 900,000 people. This programme has been the model for governments across the whole world.

    The work of liberalising markets which were once monopolised goes on. In 1984 we privatised British Telecom but only Mercury was given a licence to carry services over fixed links. In 1991 we decided to end this duopoly. The UK now has one of the most open and dynamic telecommunications markets in the world.

    But much greater economic efficiency is not the only gain. Employees have been able to take a direct stake in the newly privatised companies. Millions of people have been given the same chance to own a real share in the nation’s assets. Companies which looked inwards to Whitehall are now listening to their customers and shareholders.

    Some activities of government must always be provided in the public sector. But in central government, Next Steps Agencies and local government, management is increasingly buying-in services from the private sector. Our proposals for developing this policy have been set out in the White Papers on ‘Competing for Quality’ in central and local government.

    We will continue our privatisation programme. British Coal will be returned to the private sector. So will local authority bus companies. We will encourage local authorities to sell their airports. We will end British Rail’s monopoly. We will sell certain rail services and franchise others. These proposals are set out later in this Manifesto.

    The Ports Act 1991 has paved the way for the privatisation of the Trust Ports by competitive tender. Tees and Hartlepool, Tilbury, Medway, Forth and Clyde have already been privatised.

    We are privatising Northern Ireland Electricity and will privatise the Northern Ireland water and sewage services. We will look for ways of bringing private sector skills into the management of Northern Ireland Railways.

    We will bring private sector enterprise into the public services by encouraging contracting out and competitive tendering throughout government.

    We will require all government departments to report annually on their plans for market-testing, and progress in achieving it, in their own services and in those of their associated agencies.

    We will maintain our programme of compulsory competitive tendering of local authority services. We will ensure that unfair terms are excluded and will discourage investment to protect in-house services when better, more cost effective services are available through the private sector.

    We will ensure that competitive tendering is extended to white collar local authority services, such as those offered by lawyers, accountants, architects and surveyors.

    We will tackle all anti-competitive and restrictive practices with vigour. We will introduce new legislation giving stronger powers to deal with cartels.

    DEREGULATION

    We are concerned that at every level of government – in Europe, in Whitehall and in local authorities – some regulations may have been adopted in answer to legitimate concerns, but without proper regard to their overall impact on businesses and individuals. A proper balance needs to be struck between essential protection for the public, and over-zealous and intrusive controls aimed at the elimination of all conceivable risk. It is wrong that new regulations, designed to deal with isolated problems, should interfere with the private arrangements of citizens or with reasonable commercial practices that have earned broad public acceptance.

    The compliance costs of new UK and EC regulations must be assessed properly. Existing regulations which are outmoded and burdensome must be simplified or removed. We will give priority to the work of the DTI Deregulation Unit in these areas.

    We will examine ways in which the uniform scope of regulation could be eased to safeguard traditional local products or practices.

    We will examine whether certain regulations affecting individual citizens within their own homes could be made advisory, rather than mandatory.

    ENERGY

    Our energy policies have brought the consumer both lower prices and better service. We have privatised British Gas and the electricity industry in a way that has opened these markets to competition. These policies are now being seized upon in Europe as essential extensions of the Single Market.

    Domestic customers are now protected by a price formula, and high standards of service are enforced by the independent regulators. For instance, electricity disconnections for debt have fallen by 43 per cent since the launch of privatisation.

    We have ensured that the safety of employees comes first, and have given thousands the opportunity of acquiring a stake in their industry.

    The future of the coal industry depends crucially on the competitiveness of coal as a fuel for electricity generation. British Coal has made enormous progress in increasing productivity since the end of the 1985 strike – but there is still further to go. We will support the efforts of British Coal and its workforce to improve the industry’s performance. The long term future of the industry lies in the private sector.

    We have invested in clean coal technology to safeguard the environment. Renewable energy projects have received unprecedented support. North Sea oil and gas are enjoying a record expansion thanks to our policies of deregulation and low taxation.

    Safety will remain our highest priority throughout the energy sector.

    We will continue to encourage competition in energy markets. We will progressively reduce British Gas’ monopoly of the retail gas market, to give small users the same rights as big firms.

    We will privatise British Coal in a way that enables employees to enjoy a stake in the industry.

    We will increase our support for British Coal Enterprise which promotes economic regeneration in areas affected by the closure of mines, and has successfully assisted 76,000 people in finding new jobs.

    We will review the future of the nuclear industry in 1994. We are committed to safe and economical nuclear power. The existing strict arrangements for nuclear waste will be maintained.

    We will maintain a guaranteed market for renewable energy projects and fluid research in this area.

    We will consult on new building regulations to improve energy use. Together with British Gas and some of the Regional Electricity Companies, we will establish an independent Energy Savings Trust to promote energy efficiency. Our grants scheme for low income households will receive record funding next year.

    SCIENCE AND INNOVATION

    British science has an unrivalled reputation for ground-breaking research. We believe in investing in scientific research because it enriches the quality of our lives and provides the feedstock of industrial innovation. The science budget has grown by 24 per cent in real terms since 1978-9. Increasingly funding will reflect the quality of the research output so that the best centres can truly be world leaders.

    The Government spends nearly £3,000 million a year on civil research and development – at least as high a proportion of national income as the Japanese or Americans. And since 1978, British industry’s spending on R&D has increased by 37 per cent in real terms.

    We will continue to support our science base to maintain the excellence of our science and to ensure that we produce the skilled technical people we need.

    We will encourage the transfer of people and technology from universities to businesses and upgrade the LINK scheme, which funds joint research.

    We will encourage the establishment of centres of technological excellence linking industrial research organisations with universities and polytechnics.

    We will continue to develop new innovation schemes for small and medium-sized businesses, including the highly-regarded SPUR programme to provide help with the development of new products and processes.

    REGIONAL POLICIES

    In recent years, the United Kingdom has attracted five times as much Japanese investment as Germany or France, which powerfully demonstrates that we have created the most attractive environment in Europe for investors. Our positive policy towards inward investment will be maintained, in contrast to that of the TUC and the Labour Party.

    The Government will continue to invest in a strong infrastructure, and boost technology expertise in the regions.

    We will ensure that regional policy is well targeted.

    We will continue to support all parts of the United Kingdom in their campaigns to attract inward investment.

    We will give additional emphasis to upgrading skills and technology when allocating funds.

    SMALL BUSINESSES

    Small businesses are the seedcorn of the economy. Their numbers have grown by more than a third since 1979, while the number of self-employed people has grown to over 12 per cent of the workforce. We will continue to recognise the special needs of small and medium-sized companies, and to ensure that Government delivers useful services to them.

    Our tax regime for small businesses is one of the most favourable in Europe. We have raised the VAT threshold every year since 1979 and reduced the small companies rate of Corporation Tax from 42 per cent to 25 per cent.

    Training and Enterprise Councils (and Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland) have developed a wide range of services for business and enterprise which assist over 150,000 small companies each year. We have developed the popular Enterprise Initiative, under which 40,000 companies have been helped to buy in outside expertise offering key management skills. We now propose to develop this initiative further.

    We also propose to help businesses by easing the transfer of commercial tenancies.

    We announced in the Budget new measures to help small businesses, including full relief against Inheritance Tax on most business assets, reductions in business rates and proposals to speed up the payment of outstanding bills.

    During the new Parliament, we will develop a new Enterprise Service to give small and medium-sized companies help in diagnosing their most important strategic needs. A new Consultancy Brokerage Service will supply information to small companies. We will also develop a Technology Audit which will provide small firms with a plan for change. And we will continue to support Total Quality Management consultancies.

    TECs and LECs will be closely involved in developing and implementing this new initiative.

    The independent Law Commission has recommended that a commercial tenant should in general be freed from any future liability under a lease when he assigns away his interest under it. We will consider how this principle could be put into effect for new commercial leases.

    CONSUMER AFFAIRS

    Consumers want choice, quality and value for money Competition only works effectively if consumers have the information they need to make sensible decisions.

    Our food safety policy promotes consumer choice and consumer safety We introduced the 1990 Food Safety Act to ensure the highest standards of food hygiene.

    We will introduce legislation designed to give consumers confidence that what they purchase is properly described – and that adequate compensation is offered where these requirements are not met.

    We will enable the courts to override unfair terms in contracts and improve our powers to deal with rogue traders.

    We will ensure that guarantees mean what they say, and that manufacturers or importers share responsibility with the people who sell their goods.

    We will tighten up the rules on holiday brochures and contracts, and introduce a ‘cooling-off’ period into timeshare contracts.

    We will introduce legislation to simplify trade mark registration and extend the rights they confer.

    We will enforce science-based controls on the use of chemicals in food production, and will maintain our policy of open access to information on pesticide safety.

    We will improve standards of food labelling in close consultation with consumer representatives.

    CHOICE AND THE CHARTER

    The Citizen’s Charter is the most far-reaching programme ever devised to improve quality in public services. It addresses the needs of those who use public services, extends people’s rights, requires services to set clear standards – and to tell the public how far those standards are met.

    The Citizen’s Charter:

    widens popular choice;

    helps people to exercise that choice in a properly informed way;

    expects all public services to put the customer first;

    promotes the challenge of competition within the public sector;

    requires clear performance standards to be set and for services to be measured against them;

    insists on a proper response to complaints and on action to set right the problems behind them.

    The Charter will be at the centre of government’s decision-making throughout the 1990s. No one doubts the professionalism of the vast majority of public servants. But too often the system’s outdated working methods and attitudes prevent them from giving their best. The Charter’s commitment to modern, open services will help them to win the respect that good service deserves.

    In less than a year since the White Paper, 18 detailed Charters have been published. Each sets out tough new standards and gives new information and rights to the public. Each will be revised regularly to check on progress, and raise standards higher. But, already results are clear.

    In hospitals, from April, every out-patient will have a fixed appointment time and our guarantee of maximum waiting times for operations will be steadily improved.

    On council estates every tenant will have the right to call in a private contractor if the council fails to do a minor repair.

    In schools, all parents will have the right to a report on their child’s performance and details on that of the school.

    Rights such as these should not have been denied to the public. The Citizen’s Charter, steadily but surely, is changing all that.

    KNOWLEDGE, STANDARDS, CHOICE

    The next Conservative Government will carry the Charter still further. There will be more information about standards and performance; clear standards set within public services which are still shrouded in mystery; more choice built into public services and proper complaints procedures introduced. Many of these are outlined later in the Manifesto under Education, Health, Local Government and Transport. Here are a few examples from the programme for the next two years:

    The Audit Commission will be able to publish league tables of performance including each local council and health authority so that people can compare the quality of service.

    We will ensure that inspection reports are published and widely available. All councils will have to respond in public to criticism from auditors.

    We will introduce a new ‘Charterline’ that people with questions or problems with a public service will be able to ring.

    We will require British Rail to tighten its targets for reliability and punctuality on all lines, and report monthly to passengers on how it is doing. London Underground will publish its own Charter.

    We will expect Post Offices and Job Centres to set out standards of service and levels of achievement.

    A new Charter Mark award will give recognition to those parts of the public service that best meet Charter standards.

    British Rail and London Underground are introducing compensation systems for travellers.

    We will review the powers of the Local Government Ombudsman to ensure that findings of maladministration are properly dealt with by all local authorities. We will consult on a new Lay Adjudicators scheme to help the public resolve difficulties and disputes.

    We will extend competition and accountability in public services. Those who provide public services will have to prove they can give the right quality at the right cost.

    We will extend compulsory competitive tendering to local authority housing management, and examine how to apply it to white-collar services. We will act to ensure that private firms bidding to improve local authority public services are not obstructed by unscrupulous practices in councils or by unfair contracts. We will pursue more competitive tendering for central government services.

    We will encourage the wider use of performance pay inside the Civil Service and in other parts of the public service. A link between a person’s effort and his or her pay is a powerful means of improving performance.

    Civil servants dealing with the public will normally identify themselves by name.

    We will toughen inspection of key public services where choice and competition must inevitably be limited. We will introduce, for the first time, regular independent inspection of all schools.

    We will act to ensure that the inspectorates of police, fire, probation, and social services, together with any new inspectorates that are established, will be truly independent of the service which they inspect.

    We will ensure that the reports from these systematic regular inspections are published. More lay inspectors, drawn from other professions and from the general public, will bring fresh insights into service improvement.

    We will publish later this year new proposals for the inspection of social work in England, setting up arrangements for systematic independent inspection of all care services and every local authority social services department.

    Inspections of local authority homes will be carried out by teams that contain lay inspectors and are independent of the influence of the management of the homes.

    All of the privatised utilities have a specialist regulator who is responsible for promoting competition, reviewing prices and protecting the public interest. We have introduced legislation to increase the powers of these regulators to the level of the strongest.

    We are ensuring that the regulators have the powers they need to promote competition and safeguard the interests of the customer by controlling price increases. We will increase competition in the gas and water markets.

    We are giving the regulators powers to set standards of service, covering such matters as fixed appointment times for service calls.

    THE POST OFFICE

    The Post Office is among the best in Europe for speed and reliability of its letter services. Traffic has grown by 50 per cent in a decade in which it has operated without a subsidy Last year the first-class letter service achieved record improvements in reliability The local post office is a vital and valued feature of the rural community.

    In 1981 we introduced private competition for deliveries costing over £1. This led to the rapid growth of the private courier industry with substantial benefits to business users. We believe that further benefits to consumers would flow from additional competition.

    We are committed to maintaining a nation wide letter service with delivery to every address in the United Kingdom, within a uniform structure of prices, and with a nation-wide network of post offices.

    We will legislate to set up a new independent regulator to advise on issues affecting Post Office customers, and on the progressive introduction of competition.

    We will set performance targets for the Post Office and ensure they are published in all offices, together with results achieved.

    We will ensure there is effective redress for customers where services fail.

    We will lower the limit on the Post Office monopoly much closer to the level of the first class stamp.

    We will provide improved scope for contractors to carry mail to final delivery offices.

    We will consider requests to license limited specialist services to compete within the Post Office monopoly.

    WHITEHALL & WESTMINSTER

    Whitehall must move with the times. It is over a decade since the last major restructuring of the departments of government. Since then:

    Two-thirds of the state industrial sector has been privatised, transferring about 900,000 jobs to the private sector.

    Government has reduced the burden of regulation and the need for central bureaucracy

    Civil Service manpower has been reduced by almost a quarter.

    Many of the functions of government have been devolved from Whitehall.

    The Citizen’s Charter programme is bringing new quality to public services.

    We will continue to reorganise central government in tune with its modern role, while devolving and contracting-out executive functions. We want to ensure that the drive to save money to reduce bureaucracy and raise quality is powerfully led from the centre of government.

    We will give a Cabinet Minister responsibility for the Citizen’s Charter programme and reforming the Civil Service, taking charge of the Citizen’s Charter Unit, Efficiency Unit, the programme for creating Agencies and the Public Competition and Purchasing Unit. This will make it easier to raise quality and efficiency in government and see that contracting-out and market-testing are energetically pursued.

    We intend to create a new department, under a Cabinet Minister, with responsibility for broadcasting, arts, sport, tourism, the national heritage and the film industry. This department will aim to encourage private sector enterprise in all these fields. The National Lottery and the Millennium Fund (detailed later in this Manifesto) will also bring new responsibilities to government in these areas.

    We will transfer the core responsibilities of the Department of Energy to the Department of Trade and Industry and responsibilities for energy efficiency to the Department of the Environment, ending the need for a separate department

    Small businesses are the seedcorn of our future prosperity We believe the Department of Trade and Industry should take over responsibility for them. We also want to strengthen the links between the DTI and the highly successful Training and Enterprise Councils.

    Responsibility for overseeing all financial services will be brought together in the Treasury, in line with the practice adopted in most other advanced countries.

    New programmes for regenerating our inner cities are outlined in this Manifesto. Responsibilities will be brought together in the Department of the Environment.

    We are determined to ensure that women in the work-force realise their full potential. We will transfer from the Home Office to the Department of Employment the lead responsibility for co-ordinating government policy on issues of particular concern to women.

    OPEN GOVERNMENT

    Government has traditionally been far too reluctant to provide information. This secrecy extends from the processes of Cabinet Government to schools which refuse to release exam results. Under the Citizen’s Charter, a great deal more information is now being made available on the services provided by government.

    We have also:

    replaced the catch-all provisions of the 1911 Official Secrets Act with narrower offences depending on specific tests of the harm likely to be caused by disclosure, while giving special protection to vital information relating to our national security;

    introduced rights to check certain personal records held on computer, and supported new rights of access to a range of government records;

    committed ourselves to a public right of access to information about the environment, including water supply, air quality dumping at sea and radioactive substances;

    made available more reports on matters of public concern such as food safety and industrial risks.

    We intend to carry forward this move towards greater openness.

    We will review the 80 or so statutory restrictions which exist on the disclosure of information – retaining only those needed to protect privacy and essential confidentiality.

    We will seek to provide greater access to personal records held by government.

    We will be less secretive about the workings of government. For example, when the Committees of the Cabinet are reconstituted after the election we will, for the first time, set out their names and membership. We will update and – for the first time – publish the guidance for Ministers on procedure.

    THE WORKINGS OF PARLIAMENT

    It is not just Whitehall that must change. Parliament, too, has to keep its working methods under review to make sure it attracts the best people to the service of their country and uses their talents to best effect.

    We will propose appropriate Parliamentary reforms to ensure that the House of Commons conducts its business more efficiently and effectively, taking into account the benefits of modern technology, the increasing constituency demands upon Members of Parliament and the need to attract more women to stand for election.

    OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

    Conservatives believe that high standards in education and training are the key to personal opportunity and national success. We believe in partnership with parents, choice in schools and a good grounding in the basic skills all children need to make a success of their lives. We are committed to widening opportunities without compromising academic standards. We will continue to expand higher education and training. We will reinforce the rights of the individual in the world of work, and break down artificial barriers to advancement. By extending opportunity and arming people with the power to choose, we will give valuable freedoms and a powerful spur to achievement.

    SCHOOLS, PUPILS & PARENTS

    We are now seeing real improvements in our education system. One in four young people goes on to higher education; at the beginning of the 1980s, it was only one in eight. Sixty per cent of 16 year-olds stay on in full-time education, up from only 40 per cent in 1979. And we have embarked on the most important and wide-ranging reforms since the 1940s.

    For the first time in our history, we will soon have a National Curriculum which will require all the main school subjects to be covered thoroughly The testing of 7 year-olds is well under way and tests for older children are now being developed. Starting this September, GCSE courses will be steadily integrated with the National Curriculum.

    Under the Parent’s Charter, all schools will have to provide at least one written report on the progress of each child each year. Information on the performance of all local schools will be given to parents, enabling them to exercise choice more effectively

    We believe all parents have the right to choice in education – not only those who can afford school fees. Young people differ in their interests and aptitudes, and we need a range of schools to offer them the best opportunities. We have always fought to maintain diversity in education, protecting the right of local people to preserve their grammar schools, and defending independent schools against mindless Labour attacks. And we have always valued the important contribution made by the churches to our children’s education.

    We have further increased diversity by:

    Giving schools control over their own budgets and encouraging new types of school.

    Allowing schools to become independent of local councils, by applying for Grant-Maintained status if the parents involved so wish. By mid-1992, over 200 GM schools will be up and running.

    Creating a number of highly popular City Technology Colleges.

    Launching the highly successful initiative under which schools are able to bid directly for the resources to become Technology Schools.

    We intend to take all these initiatives further and offer parents more choice in the new Parliament. Popular schools will be allowed to expand, and more schools will be able to apply for technology funding. We will make it easier for small schools to enjoy the benefits of GM status by grouping together.

    We will complete the introduction of the National Curriculum offering 10 subjects at a nationally-defined standard – English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Technology, Art, Music, PE and, in secondary schools, a foreign language.

    Regular and straightforward tests will be in place for all 7, 11 and 14 year-olds by 1994.

    GCSE at age 16 will be integrated into the National Curriculum, with a new A+ grade to test the most able. The majority of marks will come from a written exam.

    We will continue to encourage the creation of nursery places. For the first time, over 50 per cent of three and four year olds have places either in nursery or primary schools.

    Full information will be published annually about the performance of all local schools in each area.

    Independent inspection of schools will provide parents with straightforward reports on their child’s school, together with an action plan from governors to remedy any weaknesses.

    Popular schools which are over subscribed will be given the resources to expand.

    GM schools will be able to change their character if that is what parents clearly want and the change fits in with the wider needs of the local area.

    The Technology Schools Initiative will be expanded across the country.

    Existing schools which opt for GM status will be able to emulate City Technology Colleges and attract private technology sponsorship.

    We will maintain the Assisted Places scheme, which gives access to independent education to many families who could not otherwise afford it.

    We will ensure that the partnership between the state and the churches in education is maintained and strengthened.

    We will enable small schools to apply for GM status in groups.

    We will pay particular attention to raising educational standards in areas of deprivation in our cities.

    TEACHING

    We are determined to reinforce the professionalism of teachers and the esteem in which they are held. We have created an independent Teachers’ Pay Review Body. We accepted in full its first recommendations; nearly half of all teachers are now earning over £20,000 a year. We will press ahead with regular appraisal of teachers to encourage high standards and develop professional skills.

    As a first step in the reform of teacher training, postgraduate students will spend much more time in school classrooms, learning their skills under the practised eye of senior teachers.

    It is vital that the education system should attract back women who have taken a career break to raise a family. Through grants to local authorities, we are financing schemes to introduce more flexible working practices – such as job-sharing.

    We will undertake reform of the teacher training system to make it more effective in developing classroom skills.

    We will develop measures to encourage women with family responsibilities to enter or return to teaching.

    AFTER 16

    We believe that young people should be free to choose between college, work-based training and sixth form studies. We are giving further education colleges and sixth form colleges in England and Wales autonomy, free from council control. We also value our school sixth forms, and will ensure they retain their place in the new system. And we will allow them to attract older students as well. FE colleges will continue to receive support for adult education, while local authorities will retain the resources to respond to local demand for leisure courses.

    We will defend the well-respected A-level examinations, which Labour would destroy We will continue to encourage participation in AS examinations. We will also continue to develop new high-quality National Vocational Qualifications, and introduce a new post-16 diploma which recognises achievement in both vocational and academic courses.

    We will develop an Advanced Diploma which can be earned by students pursuing either academic or vocational courses, and a new General National Vocational Qualification.

    We intend to allow school sixth forms to open their doors if they wish to older students, and to accept training credits or fees from them.

    From April next year, further education and sixth form colleges will be independent of local government control.

    Mature students will enjoy a wider choice of courses.

    HIGHER EDUCATION

    Britain maintains the best university system in Europe. We have also developed a thriving network of polytechnics, whose student numbers have increased nearly sixfold since the end of the 1960s.

    By the year 2000, one in three young people will follow full-time higher education courses. Meanwhile, the number of mature entrants to higher education has risen by 65 per cent since 1979. And our universities are attracting increasing numbers of foreign students.

    Despite this huge expansion, our students enjoy one of the most generous support systems in the world. The introduction of student loans has given students 30 per cent more money for their living costs than the former system of grants alone. The new system will steadily reduce the proportion of students’ living costs that their parents are expected to meet.

    We will continue to expand the number of students in higher education. We are abolishing the artificial ‘binary line’ between universities and polytechnics.

    We are putting in place new mechanisms to ensure that academic standards are maintained in higher education.

    We will continue to provide generous support for students and to expand our student loans commitment.

    THE TRAINING REVOLUTION

    A training revolution is under way in Britain. The Government’s job is to create a framework within which men and women of all ages can develop skills, gain qualifications and shape their own futures.

    We have already brought the world of work and the world of school into closer harmony Government and industry are working together. Employers already spend over £20,000 million a year on training. Government spending on training has increased 2½ times in real terms since 1979, to £2,800 million. The Government’s effort is being channelled through the 82 new Training and Enterprise Councils (and the Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland) – the most significant peace time partnership between government and industry this century.

    ‘Compacts’ have resulted in many young people working to goals for attainment and attendance in school. In return, they are guaranteed a job with training – or training leading to a job.

    This year, two million students will participate in the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative.

    Investors in People is the new national standard for companies making a commitment to training. TECs play an important role in helping companies attain it.

    Employer-led TECs and LECs are delivering Government-funded training programmes which reflect industry’s understanding of local needs.

    Industry is working closely with the National Council for Vocational Qualifications.

    The CBI’s training targets for Britain’s workforce demonstrate a new partnership between business and education.

    75 per cent of 16 year-olds stay on in full-time education or Youth Training schemes, up from 46 per cent in 1979. Since 1983, over 3 million young people have taken up Youth Training places. And 82 per cent go into jobs or further education when they complete YT.

    Now we are offering young people aged 16 and 17 vouchers they can use to buy approved courses of education or training, and which will put the power of choice in their hands.

    In 1988, we launched Employment Training, the largest programme of its kind in Europe, which has since helped 1.2 million people. While local programmes are the responsibility of the TECs, the Government guarantees the offer of help to particular groups of unemployed.

    Last year, we launched the new Employment Action programme, which will help more than 61,000 people in a full year. This is a new addition to a range of measures which include Jobclubs, the Job Interview Guarantee Scheme and other tested methods of helping unemployed people back to work.

    We are also supporting individual training effort. Since 1988, when we launched Career Development Loans (interest-free for up to 15 months), over 25,000 people have benefited. Last year’s Budget gave tax relief on training fees – a boost to the 250,000 people a year who finance their own training. Now, with the TECs, we intend to introduce new financial help for career and training guidance.

    By the end of the new Parliament, the new system of National Vocational Qualifications should cover virtually every occupation in the economy. The CBI’s training targets envisage 80 per cent of young people reaching NVQ level 2 by the end of the Parliament.

    We intend to make training credits available to all 16 year-olds and 17 year-olds within the lifetime of the new Parliament. The TECs will continue to be responsible for the YT programme for this age group.

    We will continue to finance training programmes for the long-term un-employed and those who face particular difficulties. We will launch with the TECs a new initiative, giving people a voucher with which they can buy a ‘skill check’, providing assessment and guidance on how to make the most of their working lives.

    WORKERS AND UNIONS

    Over the past 13 years, we have legislated to lift regulatory burdens from the shoulders of those who create jobs in Britain. To industry’s relief, we shunned the job-destroying European Social Charter. And we reject Labour’s job-destroying notion of a national minimum wage.

    We have also legislated five times to transform industrial relations, returning power from militants to ordinary union members. As a result, the number of days lost each year through strikes has fallen from an average 12.9 million in the 1970s to less than a million last year – the lowest figure since records began a century ago.

    Labour would disrupt industrial peace by weakening the power of management and the courts. They propose to take away the courts’ most important sanction – the power to take over a union’s assets.

    Sympathy strikes would be legalised by Labour, and employers would be prevented from dismissing strikers who broke their contracts.

    The workers’ rights we believe in are those which enhance individuals’ status and opportunities. We believe people should be informed and consulted by employers about issues which affect their work. No one should be allowed to deduct trade union fees automatically from an employee’s pay without written authorisation. Individuals must be given greater rights to belong to the union of their choice.

    We also believe strongly that employers, employees and customers should not have their lives and businesses disrupted by wildcat strikes. In the new Parliament, we will legislate to enforce and enhance these rights.

    We will require employers to give everyone who works for them for more than eight hours a week a clear ‘written statement of their terms and conditions of employment.

    We will make automatic deduction of union membership dues without ‘written authorisation unlawful.

    We will take measures to give individuals greater freedom in choosing a union.

    We will legislate to require that all pre- strike ballots are postal and subject to independent scrutiny, and that at least seven days’ notice of a strike is given after a ballot.

    People who use public services will have the right to restrain the disruption of those services by unlawful industrial action.

    A SHARE IN THE FUTURE

    We also believe that people at work should be helped to build security for themselves and their families. Employees should be given every opportunity to acquire a stake in the business for which they work. We have ruled that executive share option schemes may grant options at a discount only if the employer also runs an all-employee scheme.

    Saving for a pension reduces reliance on the state. We welcome the provision of occupational schemes covering over 11 million workers. There are already important safeguards, which we have improved, for the rights of members in such schemes. But we believe that a full review of the arrangements is now needed. We also believe that new freedoms for scheme members will strengthen accountability and benefit investors.

    We will establish a review of the framework of law and regulation within which occupational schemes operate.

    We will give every member of an occupational scheme the right to an annual statement of the value of their savings.

    In addition we will examine ways of giving those who retire with lump sum payments more choice as to how their savings are invested.

    WOMEN AND OPPORTUNITY

    A higher proportion of women go out to work in Britain than in any other EC country except Denmark. Many women choose to work part-time, and our policies have encouraged the development of part-time work within a framework which safeguards employees from exploitation.

    Throughout Europe, the UK is recognised to have the most comprehensive legislation to combat sex discrimination. We are also committed to breaking down artificial barriers to women’s advancement based on prejudice or lack of imagination. As an employer, government must continue to set an example.

    The tax relief we have introduced on training fees is constructed to ensure that non-tax payers – who include many married women – will be able to benefit, too. Many Training and Enterprise Councils already have specific plans to help women trainees. We will involve them further in helping employers to help with childcare.

    We believe mothers should be treated equally by government, whether they work outside the home or not. We are fully committed to maintaining the real value of child benefit. And we will act where a push by government is needed to stimulate the provision of childcare.

    All employers who meet childcare costs can set these off against their liability for corporation tax. In addition, we have relieved employees from paying income tax on the benefit of workplace nurseries.

    After-school childcare is an area of particular importance to many working mothers. We will introduce a new initiative to encourage the provision of after-school facilities by schools, employers and voluntary groups across the country.

    The Government will amend the law relating to the employment rights of pregnant women to give effect to the EC Directive on Pregnant Workers. This addition to our already extensive legal provision will give a right to at least 14 weeks’ maternity leave and protection against dismissal on grounds of pregnancy.

    We will take forward our public appointments initiative. Departments will publish plans for between a quarter and a half of public appointments to be held by women by 1996.

    We will ensure that all parts of government adopt a strategic approach to the employment and development of women staff. We will encourage them to participate in the Opportunity 2000 initiative.

    We will continue to oppose EC measures which would discourage part-time employment, valued by so many women.

    We will encourage all TECs to adopt plans to help women trainees have equal access to training opportunities.

    We will introduce a new grant, paid through TECs, to help employers, voluntary groups or schools to set up after-school care and holiday arrangements. We will ensure that schools are free to participate.

    FREEDOM UNDER THE LAW

    The Conservative Party has always stood for the protection of the citizen and the defence of the rule of law. Society is entitled to a sense of security; individuals to peace of mind; the guardians of that peace to our whole-hearted support. Our policies on law and order, and the rights of individuals, are designed to protect the people of this country and their way of life.

    Britain experiences less violent crime than many comparable countries. But crime has continued to rise in Britain. And the challenge for the 1990s is to step up the fight against lawlessness and violence, so that our citizens can live free from fear.

    We must continue to ensure that the sentence fits the crime – with long sentences for dangerous criminals, and fines and a tougher regime for punishment outside prison available as an alternative for less serious crime. And we must maintain confidence in our legal system.

    We must tackle crime at its roots. Two-thirds of the offences dealt with by our courts are committed by only seven per cent of those convicted. Most of these constant offenders started down the path of crime while still of school age.

    We have launched a reform of our prisons, improving the prospect that those who serve custodial sentences will not return to crime.

    But above all we must remember that it is our policemen and women who are in the front line of the battle. To combat crime effectively the police need the full support of the Government and the public.

    POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY

    We Conservatives can be proud of our record in supporting the police. Since 1979 we have increased spending on the police by 74 per cent in real terms. Uniformed manpower has increased by 16,000 and civilian manpower by 12,000. We have launched a campaign to recruit 10,000 Special Constables.

    Over the next few years we want to see a major reform which will help provide what the public wants and needs: a visible, local police presence.

    We will be encouraging police forces to develop local Community Policing, to link the police more closely with the communities they protect. The Metropolitan Police will be reorganised on this basis by the spring of 1993. Two-thirds of English and Welsh forces are already preparing similar plans. Pilot schemes suggest they can add greatly to the citizen’s sense of security and build support for the police.

    Community Policing will involve local residents, listen to their views and engage their help in the fight against crime. It will mean:

    smaller police units with officers serving the same area for longer. That way, people can really get to know their local police officers;

    each police force devolving its management and operational control to local units, and streamlining its chain of command;

    getting police back on the beat, and in close contact with the neighbourhoods under their care.

    It will be supported by an extension of Neighbourhood Watch schemes, which are vital in deterring theft and burglaries.

    Public confidence in the police is enhanced when people know what they can expect from their local police force, and when outsiders are let into the process of inspecting how they work. At least five police forces are already leading the way with charters setting out their targets.

    We are continuing to increase police numbers. There will be 1,000 extra police officers this year.

    We will continue to give the police the support and resources they need to carry out their duties effectively and efficiently.

    We will be seeking the nation-wide introduction of Community Policing.

    We will encourage civilianisation as a means of freeing police officers for operational duties.

    We will encourage the extension of Neighbourhood Watch to more residential areas.

    We will continue to increase the Special Constabulary, which has seen a rise in recruitment this year of 10 per cent.

    We want each police force to produce a charter telling local people, for example, how quickly the police will aim to respond to emergency calls.

    We will introduce lay inspectors with management experience into the police inspectorate.

    PROTECTORS AND VICTIMS

    We look to the police to protect us. They risk their lives to do so. Police officers are entitled to the protection of the community they serve. Those who indulge in the shameful practice of ‘ambushing’, or seeking to frustrate the work of the emergency services, deserve to face severe penalties. We welcome the findings of a study by the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service which shows that assaults on policemen attract consistently heavier penalties. But we will examine ways of introducing further protection for the police.

    We must also pay special attention to the needs of the victims of crime, in the courts and in rebuilding their lives. We have increased funding for Victim Support.

    The number of people directly affected by violent and sexual crime remains relatively small. But fear of crime can have a devastating effect on people’s lives, and particularly on women’s lives. We are determined to reduce this fear.

    We will set up a working party to examine what more can be done to protect the police and members of other emergency services from assault.

    We will encourage victims to report sexual offences by giving them statutory anonymity

    Under our Safer Cities programme, there are 124 schemes to improve street lighting, which has been shown to reduce the fear of crime significantly.

    Women-only taxi services are being encouraged under the same Safer Cities programme.

    PENALTIES AND PREVENTION

    Our armoury of criminal law and penalties requires constant review. We have just introduced a new law specifically aimed at the so-called ‘joy-rider’. This places the responsibility for dangerous driving, damage, injury or death following from the taking of a vehicle squarely on the shoulders of those in it.

    Even where ‘joy-riding’ is not involved, causing death through dangerous or drink driving is a very serious offence. We believe that the maximum sentence for such a crime should reflect its gravity.

    Squatting is nothing less than the seizure of another’s property without consent. Having consulted widely on the subject, we have decided to extend the criminal law dealing with squatting.

    Illegal camping by gypsies or other travellers can affect the lives of whole communities. We believe that this problem must be tackled.

    We are concerned about the small but persistent minority, particularly of young people, who re-offend while already on bail. We have announced new measures to deter them from repeated crime.

    Young people who find themselves on probation for shop-lifting, vandalism or petty thuggery should be shown where the path of crime may lead. They should be given a brief personal experience of the nature of prison life.

    ‘Joy-riders’ will now face prison sentences of up to 5 years, unlimited fines and unlimited driving bans.

    We will extend the maximum sentence for causing death through dangerous or drink driving.

    We will create a new criminal offence of squatting, to give greater protection to the owners and occupants of shops, commercial premises, houses and flats.

    The 1968 Caravan Sites Act will be reviewed with the aim of reducing the nuisance of illegal encampments.

    As part of a community sentence, young offenders will be taken to see what life is really like inside one of our prisons – a sobering experience for them.

    We will introduce a new police power to make an arrest for breach of police bail.

    We will give the courts the statutory power to increase sentences for those who offend while on bail.

    We will increase the number of bail hostel places, to enable closer supervision of those on bail.

    We will mount a drive against school truancy, and set up a Task Force to find the best ways of co-ordinating the work of local agencies helping young people at risk of becoming offenders.

    REFORMING OUR PRISONS

    Prisons should be places which are austere but decent, providing a busy and positive regime which prepares prisoners for their ultimate release.

    We have been reversing the Labour Party’s neglect of the prison service in the 1970s. Since 1985, 14 new prisons have been opened 7 more will open over the next two years. The end of overcrowding is now in sight.

    We have already taken steps to implement the key recommendations of the Woolf report on the future of our prisons. We will bring private sector skills in to enhance efficiency and increase value for money

    We have put out to tender the contract for prison escort services, an approach which has worked well in other countries. The first contract for a privately managed remand centre has been awarded.

    We will sustain our massive prison reform and building programme.

    A reconstruction programme will end the degrading need for ‘slopping out’ by the end of 1994.

    We will reorganise prisoners’ education, training and work opportunities.

    We will establish the Prison Service as a separate agency, whose director will have the clear responsibility for day-to day operations. The Home Secretary will remain ministerially accountable to Parliament for prison policy.

    We will increase the use of private sector management skills.

    OUR LEGAL SYSTEM

    As a free society we must have a justice system that is fair, accessible and responsive to the citizen.

    We have introduced new powers for the Court of Appeal to increase sentences for crime. And in response to public concern about a small but significant number of miscarriages of justice, we have appointed a Royal Commission to review aspects of the criminal justice system, including the conduct of investigations, the handling of forensic evidence, and the powers of the Court of Appeal.

    We have already reduced the opportunity for abuse by our introduction of tape-recorded interviews of suspects by the police. At the same time, we are concerned that police investigations should not be made more difficult by the misuse of certain rights.

    We have already introduced a wide range of reforms following our Civil Justice Review. Extending the jurisdiction of the County Courts has helped speed up justice. The success of the small claims system in these courts has shown that simplified procedures can enable people to conduct their own cases or rely on a lay adviser. We have also introduced a reform which will give people more choice as to who represents them legally in court.

    We are committed to enabling people with limited means to have access to legal services. We are determined to ensure that these services are delivered efficiently, in a way which provides the best value for money.

    The principles of the Citizen’s Charter are being applied to our legal system. We will shortly be publishing a Courts Charter.

    We are overhauling the way in which family matters are handled in our courts. The new family code will be applied by magistrates and judges especially trained in family law.

    Our Sunday Trading laws have come into question as a result of a possible conflict with Article 30 of the Treaty of Rome. This matter is now before the European Court of Justice, and we are awaiting a judgement. The Government brought forward proposals in 1986 to reform the shopping laws, but Parliament was not able to agree a conclusion. Parliament will be given the opportunity to consider this issue again.

    We will introduce a major Criminal Justice Bill in the lifetime of the new Parliament.

    We will extend the types of cases which can be handled by the County Courts in a simplified way.

    We will consult on a Lay Adjudicators scheme to make it easier for citizens to settle disputes with service providers.

    We will provide a code of family law that will continue to underpin the institution of marriage, give priority to the welfare of the child, and emphasise the primary responsibility of parents for the welfare of children and the family.

    We will bring forward proposals for reform of the Sunday Trading laws once the legal position has been made clear by the European Court of Justice.

    PORNOGRAPHY, PRIVACY, LIBEL

    We have the toughest anti-pornography laws in Western Europe, and we will keep them that way.

    Every year, about 300,000 people – mostly women – request advice and assistance in dealing with obscene or malicious phone calls. We intend to do more to deter this harassment, in conjunction with the telecommunications industry.

    The Press Complaints Commission is now in operation, and we will monitor its work carefully to see if self-regulation succeeds.

    The public’s dislike of unprincipled press behaviour has sometimes been expressed in the award of erratically large libel damages. While this is understandable, it has led to an inordinate number of successful appeals. We therefore propose to simplify the law relating to libel in the light of the recommendations of the Neill Committee.

    British domestic controls on pornography will remain in place even after the completion of the Single European Market.

    We will increase the maximum penalties for making obscene or malicious phone calls.

    We propose to allow judges to settle the level of damages in libel cases where the defendant offers to pay to make amends.

    COMMUNITY RELATIONS

    Racial harmony demands restraint on all sides, and a tolerant understanding of the legitimate views of others.

    Everybody, regardless of ethnic background, religious or personal belief, has the right to go about his or her life free from the threat of intimidation and assault. We are determined that everyone lawfully settled in this country should enjoy the full range of opportunities in our society That requires openness on the part of the majority and, on the part of the ethnic minorities themselves, a determination to participate fully in the life of the wider community.

    The Home Office invests £129 million in grants designed to encourage those running public services to ensure that people from ethnic minorities can enjoy the full range of public services – such as health, housing and social services. We believe that these grants would be more effective if responsibility was transferred to those Departments which can make best use of the money.

    Racial and sexual discrimination have no place in our society. We have given the police stronger powers to deal with racial hatred. We will continue to ensure that the full force of the law is used to deal with racial attacks.

    We will transfer the education share of the Home Office’s ‘Section 11’ money to the Department of Education, to focus help on those from ethnic minority backgrounds who need additional English language teaching.

    IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEES

    Good community relations in this country depend upon a clear structure of immigration controls which are fair, understandable and properly enforced. We are determined to maintain our present system of immigration controls unless we have evidence that other arrangements would be equally satisfactory and cost-effective.

    But an increasing number of would-be immigrants from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world seek to abuse our openness to genuine refugees. The number of people seeking refugee status has risen from 5,000 a year to 45,000 over the past four years.

    We will continue to honour our commitment to the 1951 UN Convention, and give refuge to those who reach our shores with a well-founded fear of persecution.

    In the new Parliament we must therefore reintroduce the Asylum Bill, opposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, to create a faster and more effective system of determining who are genuine political refugees, and who are not.

    We will provide a fair and expeditious system for examining claims for refugee status. This will include a workable appeal system for applicants under which those with manifestly unfounded claims will be returned quickly to their own country or to the country they came from.

    Finger-printing will be introduced for asylum applicants, to prevent multiple applications and fraudulent benefit claims.

    THE DANGER OF DRUGS

    Illegal drug abuse poses a major threat to the fabric of our society. It can destroy the health and lives of young people in particular. We will tackle this problem with vigour.

    We have already taken action on a wide front:

    we have set up co-ordinators in every local education authority to train teachers about the harm drugs can do, and to bring the fight against drug abuse into the classroom;

    we have set up 16 local drug prevention teams in inner cities to tackle particular problem areas;

    we have created the National Drugs Intelligence Unit at New Scotland Yard;

    we have taken the lead in Europe in pressing for the establishment of a Europe-wide Drugs Unit, as a first step towards a creation of a

    we have set up a network of 31 drug liaison officers, in 19 different countries, tracking the international drugs traffickers who threaten Britain with their trade.

    We now have the toughest sanctions in Western Europe against drug traffickers.

    A number of public services and voluntary bodies are engaged in fighting drug misuse at local level. Such efforts need co-ordination to ensure that local effort and dedication is directed to best effect.

    We will not legalise any banned drugs.

    We will bring forward proposals to ensure that the control of drug misuse is co-ordinated effectively.

    We intend to strengthen our confiscatory powers still further. And we will ensure that our controls against drug-trafficking are not weakened by any changes in Europe.

    We will make it an offence to supply anabolic steroids to minors.

    THE THREAT OF TERRORISM

    Tragic and dangerous events remind us only too frequently of the need for the special measures provided by the Prevention of Terrorism Act. While Labour proposes to weaken or dismantle them, we know that for the safety of our citizens they must be continued, and the police effort against terrorism must be reinforced.

    We have set up in New Scotland Yard arrangements to co-ordinate the activities of all our police forces in the fight against terrorism.

    We will provide the necessary measures and resources to combat terrorism, whether it comes from the IRA or other evil groups who seek to undermine our democracy.

    RESPONSIBILITY FOR OTHERS

    Conservatives believe we have responsibility one for another. We will continue to care for those in need and work to establish a society that is generous, as well as prosperous. Our health, care and social security systems are fundamental to government responsibilities; and we believe strongly in fostering voluntary services too.

    THE NHS – PRESENT AND FUTURE

    The Conservative Party is totally committed to the National Health Service. The Government has set out in the Patient’s Charter the principles on which the NHS is based. The most fundamental of these is that need, and not ability to pay, is and will remain the basis on which care is offered to all by the NHS. Since 1979, there have been great improvements in the health of the nation.

    Life expectancy has increased by two years.

    Deaths amongst babies and very young children have gone down by 40 per cent.

    Hospitals are treating well over a million more people a year as in-patients.

    Hospitals are treating over two million more people a year as out-patients.

    Kidney transplants have more than doubled.

    Hip replacements have increased by over 50 per cent.

    Coronary artery by-passes have nearly tripled.

    Since 1979 the Government has vastly increased the resources available to the NHS.

    We have increased overall funding for the NHS by 55 per cent after allowing for inflation. The cash increases in each of the three years up to 1992-93 have been the biggest ever.

    The number of doctors and dentists has been increased by 17,000, and the real resources committed to GP services have doubled since 1979.

    The number of nurses and midwives has gone up by 69,000.

    We have established the independent Pay Review Body which nurses had sought for so long, and increased their pay by 43 per cent. It is hard now to remember that Labour actually cut nurses’ pay.

    We have restored the hospital building programme so savagely cut by Labour at the end of their last term of office.

    But the Conservative Government has not simply spent more money on the NHS.

    We have reformed the organisation of the NHS to encourage those working in the service to respond to what patients want and need, and to get the most out of the increased money which the taxpayer provides.

    At local level, health authorities now have the task of buying health care with their local share of the National Health budget. Hospitals can now be run by their own local team of doctors, nurses and managers. By April there will be 156 NHS Trusts whose local boards will have extra freedoms to develop local NHS services. Another 156 hospitals have applied to become trusts from April 1993.

    We have acted to reduce the long hours worked by junior doctors in hospitals. For the first time limits are being set on the number of hours which may be worked continuously.

    Good nursing is the essential complement to good medicine. We have introduced Project 2000 – a new approach to the professional training of nurses.

    The GP has a crucial role to play in the development of health services. Under the Government’s fund- holding initiative, doctors have control over their own spending on behalf of patients for the first time. Over 3,000 GPs will be fundholders by April, caring for 14 per cent of NHS patients. A further 2,500 are preparing to become fundholders in April 1993. As a result, new services are being offered at local surgeries and health centres. Many general practitioners have said that they would like to become involved in fund-holding. We have already extended the scope of the fund-holding scheme to allow general practitioners to provide services such as community nursing.

    We will, year by year, increase the level of real resources committed to the NHS. Savings made through greater efficiency will be ploughed back into the Service.

    We will develop a comprehensive research and development strategy for the NHS.

    We will continue to develop the NHS Trust movement which places responsibility for managing hospitals and other services with local teams who are closest to patients.

    We will continue to encourage the involvement of doctors and other medical staff in the management of services.

    We will introduce powers for nurses to prescribe where appropriate.

    We will complete the implementation of Project 2000 training for nurses.

    We will set goals for the employment of women in professional and managerial posts in the NHS.

    We will ensure that, following maternity leave or a career break, all women working in the NHS, including those returning to nursing on a part-time or job-sharing basis, are able to return to work of a similar status or level to that which they left.

    We will ensure that the benefits of fund- holding arrangements are available to any GP who wishes to apply, and we will be ready to extend the scope of the scheme further as it develops.

    THE PATIENT’S CHARTER

    No one questions the dedication of those who work in the NHS But before the Government’s reforms, the system did not always allow that dedication to produce the service which people should be able to expect.

    The Patient’s Charter sets out clearly what is now expected from the NHS. We have already pledged that in future no one will wait more than two years for treatment on the NHS. In many parts of the country for most treatments, the waiting time is much shorter than this; and we will seek further progress in reducing waiting times.

    Binding guarantees will be set locally for in-patient waiting times, starting with the operations where waiting causes most distress. To ensure that progress on waiting times continues, we intend that from 31 March 1993, no one should have to wait more than 18 months for a hip or knee replacement, or a cataract operation. We are sure that, as now, many hospitals will be able to do better than this.

    We will move to a system under which a named nurse or midwife will be responsible for your care while you are in hospital.

    We will set specific targets for out patient waiting times.

    We will make it easier for patients to find out what services are available from the NHS via a new national NHS information service.

    We will ensure that comparative information about the health standards achieved by health authorities is available to the public.

    Simple systems will be set up to allow complaints to be registered and responses given if things go wrong.

    STRATEGY FOR HEALTH

    This Government has embarked on the first ever strategy for health. Good health requires more than good NHS care when people are sick. A variety of factors – including preventive medicine, diet, exercise, sensible drinking and not smoking – can contribute substantially to improving health across the whole population.

    We will set health objectives to be achieved by the end of the century, including reductions in illness and death from heart disease and cancers.

    We will add new health objectives as the strategy develops.

    CARE SERVICES

    Care services for children, the elderly and the handicapped are provided by local government, health authorities, the private sector and voluntary groups, not directly by central government. But government is indirectly involved as the provider of taxpayers money and through its duty to set standards for publicly and privately provided care.

    As the number of elderly people in the population grows, there will be more frail and vulnerable citizens who need support. Many of them will want to be cared for at home. Others will need residential or nursing home care. It is vital that people should have choice in the type of care available. In all cases people must be able to rely on the quality of care. As we move towards implementation of ‘Caring for People’ in April 1993:

    We will take steps to ensure that individuals who need residential or nursing care continue to have a choice of homes, including independent homes. Money transferred from the Social Security budget to local social services departments will be used for this purpose.

    We will ensure that all local authorities publish information about the social services that are available, including information on standards and complaints procedures.

    We will provide choice in domiciliary and day care.

    We will provide further funding for voluntary organisations to play their vital part in the development of community care services.

    We will support the organisations which help those who care for friends and relatives at home.

    CHILDREN

    This Government introduced the Children Act, a landmark in legislation to protect children. The Act requires childcare facilities to be registered to ensure that standards are maintained throughout the country

    We believe that the diversity of childcare provision in the UK is one of its strengths. It offers parents real choice. Over 90 per cent of 3-4 year-olds are engaged in some form of group activity. We shall continue to encourage the development of childcare arrangements in the voluntary and independent sectors.

    Each local authority will be asked to produce a Local Childcare Plan setting out the provision available in their area.

    We will ensure that the standards implemented through the Children Act are applied sensibly, and do not discourage private or voluntary arrangements which are often best suited to the needs of children and parents.

    We will carry forward a family support initiative, encouraging the voluntary sector to work in partnership with families and local authorities.

    SOCIAL SECURITY

    Our aim is to improve further and modernise Britain’s social security system. We are providing more support than ever before £14 for every £10 spent in 1979, after allowing for inflation. More importantly, this extra help is more clearly focused on those groups with the greatest needs – less well-off pensioners, disabled people and low income families.

    We have also sought to provide those on social security with better incentives to earn, and gain independence. All too often the old system created barriers to work and penalised the thrifty.

    The benefit structure is now more flexible and easier to understand. The new Benefits Agency is simplifying forms and widening choice in methods of payment. We will complete the massive investment in new technology – Europe’s biggest computerisation project – that has made it possible to raise the quality of service to the public. And we will extend ‘Helplines’ and other means of assistance with individual difficulties.

    We will continue to simplify social security forms wherever possible.

    We will set up a new Family Credit telephone advice service to support working families.

    We will establish a new agency to carry out all social security war pensions work with the aim of providing a better, more efficient service to war pensioners and war widows.

    SECURITY IN RETIREMENT

    Britain’s pensioners recognise the security that Conservative government brings – low inflation, savings that grow, firmness in the face of crime, public services that put the customer first. Those who have dedicated their lives to the service of the community deserve that stability

    We will continue to give the fight against inflation our first priority. The basic state retirement pension will remain the foundation for retirement. We will continue to protect its value against price rises, as we have for the last 13 years.

    We also recognise that some pensioners, who have no savings or pensions from their jobs, need extra help. So we will increase the additional support, already up by over £300 million a year since 1989, available to less well-off pensioners.

    The number of those over pensionable age will be far higher in the next century than it is today If we do not make provision now; the burden we will place on our children will be too great. That is why we must encourage people to build up savings, investments, and occupational and personal pensions.

    But Labour policy is hostile to such personal effort; Labour wants pensioners to depend on the State. Failure to control inflation meant that pensioners’ incomes from savings were cut under the last Labour Government.

    About eight in ten pensioners have some sort of second income to top up their state pension. By abolishing the hated earnings rule we have enabled pensioners to keep their retirement pension, even if they take a job in retirement. And we have increased the level of savings that is disregarded in working out entitlement to benefits for pensioners. Personal pensions have brought real choice into retirement provision. Over 4½ million people have set up their own pensions since 1988. We want to see both occupational and personal provision expand much further in the course of the 1990s. (See ‘Opportunity for all – A share in the future’ for our proposals on occupational pensions.)

    As evidence of our continuing commitment to poorer pensioners, we have announced in the Budget an increase of £2 a week for single people, £3 a week for couples, in income support for pensioners. Combined with the increases this April, this measure will provide less well-off pensioners with between £5.73 and £10.70 a week extra.

    We will continue to pay, from April 1993, a rebate at the level recommended by the Government Actuary for all those who contract out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme.

    We will legislate to provide a new 1 per cent incentive for holders of personal pensions aged 30 and over from April 1993, when the existing incentive ends.

    We will consider proposals for a new system of rebates to come into effect from April 1996 with the aim of ensuring that personal pensions remain attractive across the age range.

    We are firmly committed to equal treatment for men and women in pensions. Following assessment of the responses to our discussion paper, we will bring forward legislation to achieve this.

    SUPPORTING FAMILIES

    Our reforms have cut away the barriers that meant many breadwinners lost money if they went to work. Family Credit has transformed the prospects of 350,000 low-income families. As a result of improvements since 1988, we have made available an extra £600 million a year in real terms to low- income families with children.

    But we also recognise that all families face extra costs in bringing up children. So we have raised Child Benefit. For a two-child family the increases we are making will, by April 1992, have raised the total value of Child Benefit by almost £3 in a single year, to £17.45 a week.

    Our new Child Support Agency will make sure that absent parents make a proper contribution – and that far more lone parents and their children get the maintenance that is theirs by right. And benefit changes make it easier for more families – including single parents – to combine work and family responsibilities.

    Child Benefit will remain the cornerstone of our policy for all families with children. Its value will increase each year in line with prices.

    Child Benefit will continue to be paid to all families, normally to the mother, and in respect of all children.

    HELP FOR DISABLED PEOPLE

    Under the Conservatives, more disabled people than ever before are getting the help they need and deserve. Since 1979, the number receiving Attendance Allowance has more than trebled; the number receiving Mobility Allowance has risen six fold; the number receiving Invalid Care Allowance has risen 25-fold. Today we spend some £12,000 million a year on benefits for long-term sick and disabled people. Even after allowing for inflation, that is 2½ times as much as Labour spent in the 1970s.

    Disability Living Allowance will bring together the existing Attendance and Mobility Allowance, providing new help to many disabled people who at present get no such help. Disability Working Allowance will make it easier for disabled people to take up a job.

    We are introducing new disability benefits which will, in the next Parliament, bring extra help to at least 300,000 people. By 1993-94 these and other improvements will mean that we will be directing an extra £300 million a year to long-term sick and disabled people.

    The Independent Living Fund has proved a great success in giving severely disabled people an opportunity to live in the community. We are committed to maintaining a fluid which supports the most severely disabled people.

    THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

    Charities and voluntary groups play a vital role in our national life. Britain is rich in its citizens’ willingness to give time, effort and money to helping others. We have a great tradition of voluntary work at home and overseas. There are now about 350,000 voluntary groups in Britain – and personal donations to charities now amount to some £5,000 million a year.

    We have done much to boost charitable giving.

    Under the Payroll Giving Scheme, employees can now contribute up to £50 a month tax-free.

    Gifts and bequests have been exempted from Inheritance Tax.

    The Gift Aid scheme allows charities to claim tax relief on one-off gifts of more than £400 – a change just announced in the Budget.

    The maximum limit on single charitable gifts qualifying for Income and Corporation Tax relief has been abolished.

    The new Charities legislation will ensure that charities are better managed and properly regulated. We believe this will enhance public confidence in charities and further boost charitable giving.

    The Government gives some £2,500 million a year to support the activities of the voluntary sector (including housing associations). Industry has been generous with its sponsorship and with technical support. But money is not the only contribution that government and business can make. Businesses have become much more practically involved in work in the community And government could do more to encourage new forms of volunteering, to encourage the most effective use of the money it gives, and to bring together voluntary effort at the local and national level.

    We will continue to support the work of the voluntary sector and promote volunteering.

    We will work with voluntary agencies to develop, over the life of the next Parliament, a national bank of information on opportunities for volunteering.

    We will encourage efforts to improve the co-ordination and promote the growth of local volunteer support, building on the success of Neighbourhood Watch to develop a network of voluntary help in local communities.

    ANIMAL WELFARE

    We are leading the European Community in our achievements in improving animal welfare. We have also taken action at home and abroad to improve conservation, and will continue to do so.

    English Nature, which advises the Government on wildlife issues, has embarked on an ambitious programme to restore endangered species. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides special protection for 304 species of birds and animals, as well as protecting our heritage of wild plants.

    We are firmly opposed to international trade in rare and protected species such as rhinoceroses, cheetahs, leopards, and bears. We have pushed successfully for an EC ban on large-scale drift nets that threatened dolphins, and we support the UN resolution calling for a moratorium on their use. We support the extension of the moratorium on commercial whaling and have co-sponsored resolutions against ‘scientific’ hunting of whales. We have successfully pressed for an EC ban on the importation of baby seal products and of furs from those countries which permit leghold traps.

    We have set up the Farm Animal Welfare Council and have brought in welfare codes covering livestock on farms and in transit. We are establishing an ethical committee to look at the effects of advanced techniques in animal breeding. We have banned the use of veal crates, and taken action to ensure humane slaughter. We insisted that we should retain our power to stop the export of live horses. At Maastricht we secured a landmark in animal welfare: our partners’ agreement to a declaration that the welfare of animals should be taken into account in the framing of EC legislation.

    We now have the toughest set of controls on animal experimentation in Europe, and the number of animals used in experiments has fallen steadily We have supported stronger laws to protect badgers and stop cruel tethering, and have increased the penalties for organising animal fights and for cruelty.

    We will introduce a Wildlife Enhancement Scheme and expand the Species Recovery Scheme, both to be run by English Nature.

    We have tightened controls on the import of wild birds and will press the EC to do the same.

    We oppose resumption of the trade in ivory or elephant products, and will provide additional support for elephant conservation projects in Africa.

    We will urge our EC partners to bring animal welfare standards up to UK levels, for example by banning veal crates and stalls and tethers for pigs. We will press them to put into practice the principles of the Maastricht declaration.

    We will use our EC Presidency to toughen up EC regulations and improve EC compliance with rules governing animal experiments.

    We will press for higher EC standards for the keeping of battery hens and for the care of animals in transit.

    We will not accept any weakening of our rabies prevention safeguards.

    A BRIGHTER BRITAIN

    Making Britain a brighter and better place in which to live requires a high quality physical environment – including housing, transport and reinvigorated urban areas. The Conservative commitment is both to the re-creation of our civic pride and also to the preservation and integrity of our rural heritage, founded on the core industry of agriculture. Our aim is to enhance the quality of life for the British people.

    HOME OWNERSHIP

    The opportunity to own a home and pass it on is one of the most important rights an individual has in a free society Conservatives have extended that right. It lies at the heart of our philosophy We want to see wealth and security being passed down from generation to generation. Some 4 million more householders own their own homes compared with 1979. The number of former council tenants who have bought their homes has risen to 1.4 million.

    We now need to make it easier for those council tenants living in high-cost areas or on low incomes to move gradually into home ownership, without taking on too heavy a financial burden at any one time. This will bring the benefits of home ownership within the reach of more people and introduce more diversity in local authority estates. We also want to help more leaseholders to own and control the management of their property.

    But we recognise that not everyone can, or will want to, buy his or her home. So we are determined to encourage a strong private rented sector while continuing to safeguard the rights of existing regulated tenants. Bringing empty private sector dwellings back into use will extend choice, make it easier for people to move jobs, and help tackle homelessness.

    We will maintain mortgage tax relief.

    We will continue ‘Right to Buy’ discounts, and ensure that local authorities respond reasonably and rapidly to applications.

    We will introduce a new nation-wide ‘Rents to Mortgages’ scheme, enabling council tenants to take a part-share in their home, gradually stepping up to full ownership.

    We will put more of the Housing Corporation’s £2,000 million budget into Do-It-Yourself shared ownership. This will enable first time buyers to choose a home and buy a share of it – usually 50 per cent – with a housing association paying rent on the rest until they wish to increase their stake in the property.

    We will introduce ‘Commonhold’ legislation, giving residential leaseholders living in blocks of flats the right to acquire the freehold of their block at the market rate. Leaseholders of higher rated houses will also be given the right to buy the freehold of their property. Leaseholders who live in a block which does not qualify will have a new right to buy an extended lease.

    We will introduce statutory time limits for answers by local authorities to standard inquiries by house-buyers, and explore the idea of a new computerised Property Data Bank bringing together information held by the Land Registry and other public bodies.

    We will extend nation-wide the scheme we have piloted to increase private renting, whereby housing associations manage properties, building trust between tenant and private sector landlord.

    As soon as possible in the new Parliament, we will introduce a new ‘Rent a Room’ scheme wider which home-owners will be able to let rooms to lodgers without haying to pay tax on the rent they receive.

    MEETING HOUSING NEED

    We are also committed to securing a better deal for council tenants and increasing the supply of affordable housing for those in housing need. We will introduce more choice, improve management of estates and create new rights as part of the Tenant’s Charter. Our aim will be to give tenants a choice of landlord wherever possible, and make management of both council and housing association stock more responsive to the needs of tenants.

    We will improve the way in which council housing is managed by bringing in new private sector providers operating on contract to the local authority We will introduce more competition and choice, thereby improving services to the tenant and increasing accountability. And we intend to give council tenants new opportunities themselves to improve the flat or house in which they live.

    We have already begun a process of Large-Scale Voluntary Transfer which allows local authority tenants to opt to transfer to a housing association. We wish to see this result in diversity, not local monopoly, and will therefore act to limit the size of blocks that can be transferred.

    Nearly all new social housing is now being built by housing associations. Over the next three years, we are committed to spend nearly £6,000 million through the Housing Corporation to provide 153,000 homes.

    We will do more to bring into use properties owned by central and local government which are standing empty for no good reason. This will enable us to house more people on the waiting list and, in some cases, to provide more opportunities for homesteading.

    Through Estate Action and Housing Action Trusts we have invested £1,000 million in recent years in a concentrated attack on the country’s worst housing estates. Some 360,000 dwellings have been improved as a result. As part of those programmes, on which we are committed to spend a further £1,400 million over the next three years, we are demolishing or redesigning tower blocks and deck access estates, rebuilding on a more human scale. Wherever we can, whenever tenants want it, and where resources allow; we will pull down the eyesores which have blotted our cityscapes and too often provided breeding grounds for crime and delinquency.

    The Government is spending about £100 million tackling the problem of rough sleeping in our cities. As a result we have seen a sharp fall in the numbers who sleep rough on our streets. Working closely with the voluntary sector we will continue to provide help for those sleeping rough, particularly in the capital.

    We will revolutionise the management of council houses and flats. Compulsory competitive tendering will oblige local authorities to bring in managers who demonstrate their ability to deliver the best services to tenants.

    We will continue our programme of Large Scale Voluntary Transfer of council properties to housing associations. But in order to bring management closer to tenants, we intend to reduce the limit on the number of properties transferred in a single batch.

    We will give tenants a new Right to Improve, so they can receive compensation for certain home improvements which they undertake. And we will improve the existing Right to Repair. We will continue our Estate Action and Housing Action Trust programmes which concentrate resources on the worst council estates.

    We will enable tenants to apply for Housing Action Trusts to take over and improve the worst estates.

    We will work with the Housing Corporation to establish a new Ombudsman for housing association tenants. We will also encourage the Corporation to extend opportunities for tenant involvement in the management of housing association properties.

    We will set up a Task Force – headed by an independent chairman – to help bring empty government residential properties back into use. These will either be sold or let on short term leases to those in housing need.

    As part of Estate Action we will introduce a new pilot scheme to promote homesteading. Local authorities will be encouraged to offer those in housing need the opportunity to restore and improve council properties. In exchange, homesteaders will pay a lower rent or be able to buy at a reduced price.

    TRANSPORT

    Under the Conservatives, transport in Britain is being transformed. More competition on the roads and in the air has led to better services and more choice. Our successful policies of deregulation and privatisation have gone hand in hand with a sustained and growing programme of investment. Over 1,000 miles of new trunk roads and motorway have been built, more than 100 bypasses constructed, and some 750 miles of railway electrified. Airlines now operate 50 per cent more flights. More people travel further and more easily than ever before.

    Over the next three years we are committed to the biggest investment in Britain’s transport infrastructure in our history

    We will also seek further opportunities for the private sector to contribute, as it has for example with the Channel Tunnel, the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford, the second Severn Bridge and the Birmingham Northern Ring Road. We intend the proposed new rail link from the Channel Tunnel to King’s Cross to be taken forward by the private sector.

    THE RAILWAYS

    We believe that the railways can play a bigger part in responding to Britain’s growing transport needs, and are investing accordingly Next year alone, British Rail’s external finance will top £2,000 million. The new Passenger’s Charter will help to raise the quality of service. For the first time ever performance targets will be set, widely published and rigorously monitored; fare levels will reflect the standards set; and discounts will be paid to regular travellers where performance targets are not met.

    We believe that the best way to produce profound and lasting improvements on the railways is to end BR’s state monopoly. We want to restore the pride and local commitment that died with nationalisation. We want to give the private sector the opportunity to operate existing rail services and introduce new ones, for both passengers and freight.

    A significant number of companies have already said that they want to introduce new railway services as soon as the monopoly is ended. We will give them that chance.

    Our plans for the railways are designed to bring better services for all passengers as rapidly as possible. We believe that franchising provides the best way of achieving that. Long term, as performance improves and services become more commercially attractive as a result of bringing in private sector disciplines, it will make sense to consider whether some services can be sold outright.

    In the next Parliament:

    By franchising, we will give the private sector the fullest opportunity to operate existing passenger railway services.

    Required standards of punctuality, reliability and quality of service will be specified by franchises; subsidy will continue to be provided where necessary; arrangements to sustain the current national network of services will be maintained; and through-ticketing will be required.

    A new Rail Regulator – who will ensure that all companies have fair access to the track – will award the franchises and make sure that the franchisees honour the terms of the contract.

    BR’s accounting systems and internal structures will be reorganised. One part of BR will continue to be responsible for all track and infrastructure. The operating side of BR will continue to provide passenger services until they are franchised out to the private sector.

    The franchise areas will be decided only after technical discussions with BR. But our aim will be to franchise out services in such a way as to reflect regional and local identity and make operating sense. We want to recover a sense of pride in our railways and to recapture the spirit of the old regional companies.

    We will sell BR’s freight operations outright. We will also sell its parcels business.

    We will be prepared to sell stations – which we want to be centres of activity – either to franchisees or independent companies.

    The Railway Inspectorate will be given full powers to ensure the highest standards of safety.

    ROADS

    Nine out of every ten journeys, whether passenger or freight, are made by road. We must therefore continue to provide an efficient road network. In the years ahead we will concentrate particularly on the bypass programme.

    As part of the Citizen’s Charter, we will bring forward reforms which will enable the private sector to start filling the gaps in the motorway service area network and to introduce more variety Rather than large, intrusive stations at long intervals we should see smaller, more frequent service areas providing a much wider range of facilities.

    We will investigate ways of speeding up, within the Department of Transport, the procedures for building new roads. We will continue our campaign to keep ‘coning off’ on motorways to a minimum by extending lane rental schemes, under which contractors who fall behind schedule incur financial penalties. Next year two-thirds of all motorway maintenance work will be carried out in this way.

    Britain has the best road safety record in the European Community In spite of the vastly increased volume of traffic, fewer people are now killed on our roads than at any time since 1948. Our aim is to improve on that record still further.

    In spite of the benefits they bring, cars carry an environmental cost. In Britain catalytic converters will be compulsory on all new cars from the end of 1992. This will eliminate virtually all harmful exhaust gases, except for the emission of CO2. The only certain way of cutting CO2 emissions is to encourage fuel efficiency. Action is needed at international level and we will play our full part.

    Buses have an increasingly important part to play The deregulation of long-distance coach services has led to a major expansion in reliable and cheap services. Bus deregulation outside London has increased mileage by 16 per cent. We now propose to take deregulation and privatisation further.

    We will improve road transport by:

    Investing £6,300 million in our trunk road and motorway network over the next three years, concentrating particularly on bypasses. Some 40 new ones will be opened by 1993 on trunk roads alone.

    Increasing penalties for those convicted of drink driving.

    Installing cameras at dangerous road junctions to film those who drive through red traffic lights.

    Encouraging local councils, assisted by a special budget we have set aside, to introduce pedestrian priority areas and cycle lanes.

    Privatising the remaining 39 local authority bus companies.

    Deregulating buses in London and privatising the London Buses subsidiaries. A new London Bus Executive will be responsible for bus- stops, stands and stations and for contracting out socially necessary services. The concessionary fares scheme in London will continue.

    Changing the system under which motorway service areas are provided.

    Encouraging action internationally, and within our own motor industry, to promote more fuel-efficient vehicles.

    AVIATION AND SHIPPING

    More competition in aviation means more choice, better services and lower fares. That is why we have been pressing within the EC for full liberalisation of services. We also want to see more transatlantic flights, particularly to regional airports. People in the regions should not have to travel to London in order to fly to the United States. Direct flights would boost local economies and apply downward pressure on fares. The key regional airports are still in local authority ownership. They should be well placed to benefit from an increase in the number of direct point-to-point flights. But if they are really to grow and prosper, they need access to private capital, freed from the constraints of public ownership.

    Air safety cannot be compromised. Over the next five years the Civil Aviation Authority will. invest £750 million in modernising its systems.

    More can be done to cut some of the regulatory burdens our shipping industry faces. We will ensure that the recommendations of the Government Industry Joint Working Party are put into effect as rapidly as possible.

    We will further liberalise transatlantic air services and encourage more international flights to and from regional airports.

    We will encourage local authorities to sell their airports.

    We will reduce airport congestion by increasing the capacity of our air traffic control

    We will continue to campaign within the EC for further liberalisation, particularly of cabotage, so that there are more commercial opportunities for British companies.

    LONDON’S TRANSPORT

    A major programme of renewal and modernisation is transforming public transport in London – including the biggest expansion of London’s rail network since the 1930s.

    The £750 million upgrading of the Central Line is already under way, to be followed by a similar programme on the Northern Line; the Jubilee Line extension and Crossrail will follow.

    London Underground is planning to invest £3,500 million over the next three years. It has introduced an ambitious Company Plan which will lead to better service, cleaner trains and more staff at stations and on platforms. Their new Charter will be published shortly

    Responsibility for the Docklands Light Railway has been transferred to the London Docklands Development Corporation. As its performance continues to improve, we expect to see growing private sector interest in purchasing it outright.

    We will seek to privatise the Docklands Light Railway during the lifetime of the next Parliament.

    The new Jubilee Line is being extended to Docklands and South East London and will be followed by the East-West Crossrail, linking Paddington to Liverpool Street. The Docklands Light Railway is being extended at an eventual cost of £800 million.

    London Underground’s Charter will set out tougher new standards and what it will do to compensate passengers should it fail to meet those standards.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Local councillors – some 25,000 men and women throughout Britain – are responsible for some of our most important public services. Since 1979 we have sought to create an accountable local government system capable of delivering high quality local services at a price that local people are prepared to pay.

    Conservatives councils in shires, districts and cities have been at the forefront of these reforms. In a responsive and efficient manner, they have demonstrated how to deliver good services at an affordable price.

    Over the past 13 years, we have:

    held down unjustified rises in the cost of local government;

    abolished the power of local councils to shift the burden of taxation on to local business, for the first time limiting the overall rise in business rates to no more than the rate of inflation;

    abolished an expensive and bureaucratic layer of government in London and other big cities;

    developed the local authority role from direct provider to effective enabler, encouraging many tenants to buy their own homes, allowing schools the freedom to manage their own affairs and improving the quality of local services by allowing private business to compete for contracts.

    Labour threaten all these reforms. They would ‘uncap’ local spending, leading to higher local and national taxes. They would ‘uncap’ business rates, threatening a return to the 1980s when the English rate poundage rose 37 per cent more than inflation. They would abolish the requirement on local authorities to seek value for money through competitive tendering. They would remove the freedom of local communities to preserve their grammar schools. They would introduce a new; expensive layer of government bureaucracy at regional level. They would return local government finance to the bad old days of domestic rates, with unrestrained power for local councils to charge householders as much as they like. And they would abolish the Audit Commission, which not only maintains the probity of local government accounting, but also pioneered the drive for better quality of service and value for money in local government.

    We now propose further reforms in the structure, finance and accountability of local government. In the meantime, we have transferred a further share of the burden of financing local services to central government. Today, local community chargepayers bear only a small proportion of the cost of local councils.

    We will set up a commission to examine, area by area, the appropriate local government arrangements in England. Local communities will be fully consulted and their loyalties and interests will be central to the commission s task in deciding whether in any area a single tier of local government could provide better accountability and greater efficiency.

    We are looking at ways in which the internal management of local authorities might become more effective.

    We are applying the principles of the Citizen’s Charter to local government, requiring the publication of more information which will enable local people to judge the efficiency of their councils in providing services.

    We will continue to ‘cap’ local spending where necessary.

    As we announced in the Budget, no one’s Uniform Business Rate will go up this year by more than the rate of inflation 4.1 per cent. And we have speeded up the benefits of revaluation for those businesses who gain from it.

    In future years, we will maintain our pledge to prevent UBR poundage rising by more than inflation.

    We will replace the Community Charge with a new Council Tax in April 1993. The Council Tax will be simple and straightforward to administer. It will be fair and will rightly reflect both the value of the property and the number of adults who live in it.

    Single householders, who suffered under the rates, will receive a 25 per cent discount. By grouping properties into a limited number of bands, the Council Tax also avoids the punitive bills which would be imposed by an unfettered rating system of the kind proposed by Labour. Students and people on low incomes will not have to pay.

    CITIES

    We take pride in our cities. Right across Britain they have been given a new lease of life. From London to Glasgow; from Cardiff to Newcastle, historic buildings have been restored and areas which had been run down have been transformed. The £4,000 million Action for Cities programme underlines the Conservative commitment to our inner cities and the people who live there. It highlights our determination to spread opportunity as widely as possible. We want all our people to share in growing prosperity and to have a stake in the country’s future. Much has been achieved in recent years. The Urban Development Corporations and the wide range of central government grants have helped to regenerate many of our inner city areas. But more remains to be done.

    The best way to restore the spirit of enterprise which first made our cities great is for local people, the private sector, the voluntary sector and local and central government, to work together in partnership. That is the principle which lies behind City Challenge. Its new approach of competitive bidding has already galvanized towns and cities into bringing forward imaginative proposals for regeneration. It has improved co-ordination, secured better value for money and encouraged programmes which tackle problems on a number of fronts.

    We will continue to extend City Challenge and allocate a greater proportion of resources by competitive bidding.

    We will support Urban Development Corporations in their critical task of urban regeneration.

    We will bring together resources targeted inner city programmes into a single budget. This will mean that funding will go where it is most needed locally rather than according to a set of priorities determined in Whitehall.

    We will strengthen the machinery for co-ordination in the regions. New, integrated regional offices of the appropriate Whitehall departments will be established so that business and local government will have only one port of call.

    We will establish a new Urban Regeneration Agency to pull together our efforts to clear up and develop derelict land, helping to bring it back into commercial use and provide new opportunities for local people.

    Working in the urban areas, the URA will administer much of the Urban programme of the Department of the Environment. It will have a dual function. First, outside the existing UDC areas, it will reclaim derelict land, assembling suitable sites for redevelopment using vesting or compulsory purchase powers where necessary Second, it will itself be able to develop land in partnership with the private sector. This represents a major step forward in unlocking the commercial potential of our inner cities and of breathing new life into areas which may have been derelict for many years.

    But our focus is not just on physical regeneration. We want to see more opportunities for training, more encouragement to enterprise, better education and more measures to tackle drugs and crime.

    Encouraging enterprise, improving the environment and providing new opportunities for the unemployed are central to our inner city policies. Remotivating individuals and providing the right conditions for business are the only ways to make lasting change.

    We will offer the Loan Guarantee Scheme for small firms on more generous terms in inner city areas. The scheme will be extended from Task Force areas to include successful City Challenge bidders.

    We will make more people eligible for our successful Job Interview Guarantee Scheme, which links unemployed people with local lobs.

    We will carry out pilot projects for the ‘foyer’ concept, whereby young people are given a place in a hostel if in exchange they give a commitment to train and look for work.

    We will pilot a number of ‘back to work’ bonus schemes in inner city areas for the long-term unemployed.

    We will extend customised training under the Job Link programme to include City Challenge areas.

    We will make inner city Task Force and City Challenge areas eligible for regional innovation grants.

    We are also determined to raise standards in our inner city schools, to crack down on truancy, and to help prepare young people for the world of work.

    The City Technology Colleges show what can be done. They are overwhelmingly popular with parents and pupils and are doing much to raise standards for children of all abilities in the inner cities.

    Under the Citizen’s Charter, we shall soon be able to identify much more precisely than ever before those schools which are delivering unacceptably low standards. So will parents. We will publish test results, exam results and truancy rates and ensure that there is regular independent inspection. This will enable us to put the spotlight on those inner city LEAs and schools which are failing their pupils.

    We will continue to seek opportunities to open new CTCs in deprived inner city areas.

    We will ensure that more schools, especially in the inner cities, have the opportunity to develop their technological expertise.

    Tackling crime and the fear of crime forms a vital part of the strategy to make our inner cities better places to live and work. The Safer Cities initiative, launched in 1988, has successfully brought together local groups and agencies to tackle crime in some of our worst affected urban areas. Twenty schemes are already in operation.

    We will double the number of Safer Cities Schemes to cover 40 urban areas.

    LONDON

    London is a magnet to visitors and business from across the world. Since 1979 we have invested heavily to secure that status. Billions of pounds have gone into improving air, rail and underground links. We will continue that programme of modernisation. We are determined to sustain into the next century London’s special position as one of the world’s leading capital cities. We reject Labour’s plan to recreate a bureaucratic and wasteful GLC. Instead, as part of our Millennium programme, we will launch a London 2000 initiative. The Secretary of State for the Environment will convene a new private sector forum to promote London internationally as a business, tourist and cultural centre. The Secretary of State will also chair a new Cabinet sub-committee to bring together Ministers from all key departments and co-ordinate policy for the further improvement of London. A single Minister will be given responsibility for co-ordinating London’s transport services. London’s place as a world centre for financial and insurance services is pre-eminent; we intend to keep it that way And we will support the vigorous cultural life of the capital, which has seen new galleries, theatres and museums opening over the last decade.

    We will launch a London 2000 initiative.

    We will convene a new private sector forum to promote London’s position internationally.

    We will establish a new Cabinet sub committee to co-ordinate policy on London.

    We will give a single Transport Minister responsibility for services in London. He will chair a new Transport Working Group which will bring together public transport operators from both public and private sectors – to discuss transport issues in London.

    THE COUNTRYSIDE

    We have always cared for the countryside. We support its major industries and way of life, while recognising the place it holds in the hearts of those who live in towns.

    We want to protect our most beautiful landscapes, conserve the abundance and variety of our wildlife and habitats, promote access and public enjoyment of the countryside, and encourage public participation in caring for the countryside.

    But the countryside is more than just a pretty picture. It is a place where people live and work, as they have done in the past and will do in the future. In providing our public services, we will continue to recognise the particular needs of people who live in the countryside.

    We will continue to promote a diverse rural economy, balancing the need for jobs, housing and services in rural areas with protection of the rural environment.

    AGRICULTURE

    Centuries of farming have shaped our countryside. Now farming is at a crossroads, both here and in the rest of the European Community World-wide pressure to reduce protectionist measures, and the need to contain the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy, mean that farmers will face reduced support and increased competition.

    We believe that farming in the UK can meet these challenges. But many farmers will need help to adapt to the new conditions, and we will continue to provide assistance.

    It will become increasingly important for farmers to obtain a greater proportion of their income from the market. We will encourage farmers, retailers and manufacturers to work together to increase our share of the European food market.

    We are committed to reducing the burden of regulation on business in general, and farming in particular. We will not accept UK farmers being put at a disadvantage by EC laws being applied differently in other countries.

    Responsible farmers have always combined efficient farming with care for the countryside. We will continue to encourage this approach through schemes to protect landscape and habitats of special importance. We will also maintain direct support for farming in the Less Favoured Areas in ways which encourage good environmental practice

    We will seek a reform of the CAP which brings agriculture closer to the market; reduces the costs to taxpayers and consumers; is implemented at a pace which the industry can bear; affects all Community farmers equitably, regardless of size or location; and recognises the importance of environmental protection.

    We will build on the producer marketing initiatives which we have already launched, including the Group Marketing Grant.

    We will assist the Milk Marketing Board’s move to a new structure which will be better able to protect the interests of producers and consumers in the Single Market.

    We will publish target response times for grant and licence applications made to the Ministry of Agriculture.

    We will take forward proposals for radical liberalisation of the agricultural tenancy laws in order to make more land available for rent, especially for new entrants.

    We will enforce effective pollution control regulations while helping farmers to meet the high standards required.

    We will press for an agreement in the EC’s Agricultural Council which will allow us to provide financial encouragement for organic agriculture.

    FORESTRY

    Forestry is a traditional rural industry, which also affects the landscape, and gives pleasure to millions of people. The needs of a successful industry, landscape conservation, and public access must all be accommodated; and we will reorganise the Forestry Commission to reflect these objectives more effectively.

    We will plant a new national forest in the Midlands and community forests elsewhere.

    We will review the effectiveness of the current incentives for forestry investment.

    We will produce guidance on the preparation of local Indicative Forestry Strategies designed to encourage new woodlands, while steering planting away from sensitive areas.

    FISHING

    Fishing is a vital industry in many parts of our islands. Many fishermen have done well in recent years but they now face great pressure on the fish stocks. This means that fishing quotas are likely to fall in coming years in order to preserve the long-term future of the fisheries. We will continue to work for the profitable and sustainable future of our fishing fleet.

    We are determined to see that the renegotiation of the Common Fisheries Policy protects the interests of UK fishermen and retains our share of the Community’s fishing opportunities.

    We will introduce a balanced package of measures, including decommissioning and controls on fishing activity, to conserve fish and safeguard the future of the industry.

    RURAL JOBS AND SERVICES

    Changes in agriculture and other traditional industries will affect employment opportunities in the countryside. We will continue to target help through the Rural Development Commission, and ask the RDC to review the Rural Development Areas to ensure that its efforts are targeted on the areas of most need. We are committed to developing tourism in ways which provide all-year-round jobs and bring benefit to less well-known parts of our countryside, without damaging the environment. We have recently published new planning policy guidance which makes it clear how the countryside can benefit from new businesses and jobs, if the location and design of development are handled with sensitivity

    In local government, many of our shire counties and districts have led the way in raising the quality of public service. Local post offices, local transport and local schools all have an important role to play in sustaining rural life.

    We will consult on our recently published draft planning policy guidance designed to provide a clear framework for decisions on developments to aid tourism.

    We will widen the availability of the Rural Development Commission’s successful Redundant Buildings Grant Scheme, and strengthen other RDC programmes.

    We will maintain our special programmes to promote affordable homes in rural areas.

    We are fully committed to maintaining a national network of post offices.

    We will continue to assist local authorities who want to subsidise rural transport.

    We will enable village schools that wish to apply for Grant-Maintained status to do so in small groups, thus enabling them to share management tasks while still enjoying the benefits of independence.

    The expansion of GP fund-holding will bring particular benefits to rural areas because of the convenience of different services – such as physiotherapy and consultant appointments – being offered in the GP’s surgery.

    CARING FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE

    Some of our finest landscapes are designated as National Parks. All National Park authorities will become independent Boards, which will make it easier for them to carry out their tasks effectively The New Forest will be given a statutory status which will give it as great a level of protection as any National Park.

    Last summer the Government launched an experiment in Countryside Stewardship’. This aims to conserve, enhance and re-create fine landscapes so that they may be enjoyed and appreciated by the public. The response from farmers, landowners and environmental bodies has been very positive. We therefore propose to expand the scheme and to introduce a new scheme to preserve hedgerows – a much valued feature of the English landscape, and a haven for wildlife.

    The Government endorsed and supported the Countryside Commission’s target designed to bring 120,000 miles of rights of way into good order by the end of the century.

    At parish level, individuals can work together either to safeguard the character of their local village, or to improve its appearance. Local action can also preserve local wildlife and habitats. Under the Rural Environmental Action Scheme, grants of up to £2,000 per project will be available to support local environmental action.

    The Government is keen to promote the fullest possible use of inland waterways for leisure, recreation and amenity, in the regeneration of inner cities and for freight transport where appropriate. But we recognise that the various uses of canals and rivers must be properly managed to protect the character and environment of the waterways.

    We will expand the Countryside Stewardship Scheme to cover the conservation of historic landscapes, meadows, pasture and hedgerows. Public access to qualifying schemes will be encouraged.

    We will introduce a Hedgerow Incentive Scheme to help preserve hedgerows of particular historic, landscape or wildlife importance.

    We will contribute to the Countryside Commission’s new Parish Path Partnership designed to stimulate local maintenance and improvement schemes.

    We will continue to support the development and redevelopment of our canals, as well as enhancing the environmental standards of our waterways.

    THE ENVIRONMENT

    The Conservative Party’s commitment to the environment is beyond doubt. Other parties promise the earth. We have taken action – both nationally and internationally – to preserve it.

    Environmental protection can impose financial costs on producers, consumers and taxpayers, so we must make sure the threat of damage is a real one. But we also accept the precautionary principle – the need to act, where there is significant risk of damage, before the scientific evidence is conclusive. And we recognise that higher environmental standards can offer new opportunities for business.

    We published the first comprehensive White Paper on the Environment in 1990. It covered everything from the stratosphere to the street corner. We will continue to publish annual progress reports.

    This Conservative Government has taken a lead in working to protect the ozone layer. We will strive to accelerate the eradication of ozone depleting substances.

    One of the most important issues facing all countries is the threat of global warming. Effective action to combat global warming must be international action. Again we have taken a lead. The Prime Minister was the first world leader to announce his intention to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro this June. We have said that we will consider stabilising our CO2 emissions earlier than our existing conditional target of 2005. We have promised to provide new and additional resources to help the developing countries to tackle their environmental problems.

    Within Britain, and ahead of other European countries, we have introduced the concept of integrated pollution control.

    We have set up, for the first time, powerful co-ordinating machinery within Whitehall to ensure that environmental considerations are given due weight in all decision-making.

    We are committed to openness on environmental matters. We support the establishment of a European Environment Agency to provide a Europe-wide environmental database. We believe that the public should have access to information held by the pollution control authorities. Public registers are now provided by bodies such as the National Rivers Authority and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution.

    We will establish a new Environment Agency which will bring together the functions of the National Rivers Authority, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution and the waste regulation functions of local authorities.

    The new EA will have a statutory duty to publish an annual State of the Environment report.

    Within the European Community we will press for the introduction of integrated pollution control on the UK model.

    TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM

    A more prosperous Britain can afford to be ambitious. We can aspire to excellence in the arts, broadcasting and sport. We can use our increased leisure time, energy and money, to improve life for ourselves and our families. The National Lottery we propose to introduce can be used to restore our heritage and promote projects which will become a source of national pride.

    National Lotteries have been found useful at several times in our history. The British Museum was founded out of the proceeds of such a lottery. Fourteen years ago, a Royal Commission recommended the creation of a National Lottery in Britain to provide extra money for deserving causes. The case has become even stronger as British people gain more opportunities to participate in foreign lotteries – thus increasing the risk that funds which we could put to good use in Britain will be diverted abroad.

    We believe a well-run, carefully controlled form of national lottery would be popular, while raising money for many good causes.

    We will canvass views on how such a lottery should be run and controlled, and how it would fit within the pattern of charitable fund-raising in Britain.

    We believe that the funds generated by a National Lottery should be used to enhance the life of our nation. People who enjoy the arts, sport, Britain’s heritage and fine countryside could all benefit from the proceeds from a National Lottery. Charities, right across the country and covering such areas as medical research, will also be potential beneficiaries.

    THE MILLENNIUM FUND

    We will be consulting widely on the best way to distribute the proceeds of a lottery. But we have decided that part of the proceeds should be put aside, year by year, into a Millennium Fund specifically dedicated to projects which will commemorate the start of the twenty-first century and will be enjoyed by future generations.

    We therefore propose to introduce a National Lottery from 1994, which would help provide funds for a number of good causes in the artistic, sporting, heritage and charitable fields – and from which some funds would be put aside for a Millennium Fund.

    The Millennium Fund could be used, for example:

    To restore the fabric of our nation: our great inheritance of buildings which symbolise and enrich our national life.

    To help endow our cities and regions with facilities to enhance the celebration of United Kingdom 2000, such as the sporting facilities Manchester would need to host the 2000 Olympics.

    To help another major city – chosen by competition – to hold an international trade fair designed to be a showcase of British innovation for the twenty-first century.

    To enable voluntary groups and local communities to bid for funding for their own Millennium projects for local restoration schemes, or for improving the amenities of canals and rivers, as a source of enjoyment for local people and a habitat for wildlife.

    To provide Millennium bursaries for young people (and newly retired people) offering their time, energy and commitment to schemes designed to change the face of the United Kingdom by the year 2000.

    THE ARTS

    Britain has a great artistic heritage and a lively contemporary arts scene. The arts have flourished in recent years, with growing attendance at theatre, opera, dance and arts festivals.

    We have supported this by increasing the public funding of the arts, by 60 per cent in real terms since 1979, and introducing new incentives to personal giving. The arts have also forged new partnerships with local authorities, businesses and private patrons. Business sponsorship in particular has expanded hugely.

    We have set up new Regional Arts Boards and supported the Scottish and Welsh Arts Councils in order to diversify and enrich cultural life throughout the country.

    We have financed the European Arts Festival to be held throughout Britain during our Presidency of the Community in the second half of this year, as well as the first National Music Day in June.

    In this year’s Budget, we announced further tax relief on film-making in this country. Our aim is to make the performing arts, museums and our heritage accessible to all. We will encourage the young to become involved and will facilitate access for the disabled.

    The National Lottery will provide a new source of finance for the arts.

    We will maintain support for the arts and continue to develop schemes for greater sponsorship in co-operation with business and private individuals.

    We will re-examine the role of the Arts Council, as many of its functions are now carried out regionally.

    We will continue our support of libraries as educational, cultural and community centres, and urge local authorities to keep up standards. We will complete the new British Library building for which we have provided £450 million.

    SPORT

    Success in sport is a source of national pride. Enjoyment of sport can enrich every life. We have given strong support to the Sports Council and its efforts to raise participation in sport. We actively support Manchester’s bid to bring the Olympic Games to Britain.

    We want to restore the good image of football. Tough action has cut down football hooliganism. We have helped to establish the Football Trust, which now devotes £20 million a year to improving the safety of grounds.

    Under the National Curriculum all primary and secondary age pupils will follow a course of PE. All pupils will be taught to swim by the age of 11.

    We will continue to encourage private sector sponsorship of sport. We will encourage more effective use of local sport and leisure facilities through compulsory competitive tendering. We want to see more dual use of school playing fields and halls and will give schools more freedom in their management.

    We are asking Local Education Authorities not to make sales of school playing fields in future unless there is no evidence of long-term need.

    Sport, too, will benefit from the resources generated by the National Lottery

    We will actively support Britain’s bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games in Manchester. We will provide £55 million towards the preparation of the site and key facilities in the first stage of the bid, and we will ensure that the project, whether successful or not, contributes to the effective regeneration of East Manchester.

    We will set up a new Business Sponsorship for Sport scheme. This is expected to raise £6 million in its first year to support local and youth sport.

    OUR HERITAGE

    Public interest and involvement in Britain’s heritage has never been greater. We have created in the past decade English Heritage and the National Heritage Memorial Fund to give greater focus and drive to the Government’s policies. The National Trust and private owners take a leading part in preserving our almost unrivalled heritage. Government will work in partnership to secure our heritage for the benefit of future generations.

    Our cathedrals are among our national glories. We therefore launched the Cathedral Repair Grant Scheme in April 1991, providing £11.5 million over three years.

    We have increased, to £12 million, the grant to the NHMF for the purchase of historic properties, objects and collections. The Government also provides help to private owners through English Heritage repair grants, and tax relief in return for commitments on upkeep and public access.

    We want to preserve the special character of our old town and city centres. We will encourage councils to ensure that new developments are in character with the past; to maintain buildings of importance to the character of towns and cities; to limit unnecessary street furniture and signs; and to plant trees and preserve historic patterns and open spaces.

    The National Lottery will also provide funds for the preservation of our heritage.

    We will continue to provide substantial financial assistance for the protection and preservation of the heritage.

    Together with the heritage agencies, we will work to make heritage sites accessible to the public.

    BROADCASTING

    We are proud of our record of extending choice, encouraging new producers and maintaining high standards in broadcasting. We opened the way to the setting-up of Channel 4, independent radio, satellite television and multi-channel cable TV networks. The 1990 Broadcasting Act means that three new independent radio services and a fifth television channel will be set up during the next Parliament.

    Over two million homes already receive satellite TV We have now licensed well over a hundred cable TV networks and this new industry expects to invest £3,000 million over the next five years. In coming years, British viewers will have an increasing choice of channels and programmes. The new and sophisticated cable networks will open the way not only to new telecommunication services, but also to the spread of emerging technologies such as high definition television.

    We attach great importance to the work of the Broadcasting Standards Council, which we set up under the 1990 Act. All television and radio companies accept the need to maintain standards of taste and decency in their treatment of sex and violence and their use of bad language.

    The European Community regulates standards in satellite broadcasts originating from each Member State. We were one of the first countries to ratify a new Council of Europe convention applying similar rules to all its Member States. We also, in the Broadcasting Act, brought in sanctions against the transmission of offensive satellite broadcasts from abroad, and made it an offence for advertisers and equipment suppliers to support such programmes.

    Independent television producers are benefiting from the requirement put on the BBC and ITV to commission a quarter of all their programmes, excluding the news, from outsiders. There are now great opportunities for independent producers to sell their programmes to new television channels and international markets, and there is much greater choice for viewers as a result.

    In 1996, the BBC’s Charter comes up for renewal. This will be considered against the background of the much more varied and competitive broadcasting environment which our policies have created. It is important that there should be a wide public debate about the future direction the BBC should take.

    We will back the work of the Broadcasting Standards Council and remain vigilant about ensuring high standards in satellite broadcasts from abroad.

    We will publish a discussion paper on the future of the BBC recognising its special responsibilities for providing public service broadcasting.

    A UNITED KINGDOM

    The United Kingdom is far greater than the sum of its parts. Over many centuries its nations have worked, and frequently fought, side by side. Together, we have made a unique mark on history. Together, we hold a special place in international affairs. To break up the Union now would diminish our influence for good in the world, just at the time when it is most needed.

    Nationalist plans for independence are a recipe for weakness and isolation. Higher taxes and political uncertainty would deter investment and destroy jobs. The costly Labour and Liberal devolution proposals for Scotland and Wales have the same drawbacks. They do not intend to bring about separation, but run that risk. They could feed, but not resolve, grievances that arise in different parts of Britain. They would deprive Scotland and Wales of their rightful seats in the United Kingdom Cabinet, seats the Conservatives are determined to preserve. We believe strongly that we should go on working together in full partnership in a Union that has served every part of the United Kingdom well.

    The plans for devolution put forward by the other parties would have a grave impact not just on Scotland and Wales, but also on England. They propose new and costly regional assemblies in England, for which there is no demand. We will oppose all such unnecessary layers of government.

    The Union has brought us strength both economically and politically Yet it has preserved the historic and cultural diversity of our islands. Our constitution is flexible, fair and tolerant. It has made this country one of the best places in which to live, work and bring up our children. These benefits cannot be tossed away lightly. We will fight to preserve the Union, a promise which only the Conservatives can give at this election.

    SCOTLAND

    Scotland has achieved an economic and cultural regeneration over the past 13 years. The Scottish economy has responded vigorously to the policies we have introduced to liberate enterprise, and many more people are now saving, investing and owning their homes. The public services are better funded and more efficient. There has been a flowering of Scottish culture.

    Scotland enjoys a rich and distinct tradition and her own institutions, which we have preserved and strengthened. Scotland has its own framework for the encouragement of enterprise, investment and training; its own education system which continues to excel, with more pupils leaving school better qualified and more going on to further and higher education; its own health budgets which deliver high standards of care; and its own glorious inheritance of buildings and countryside.

    A separate Manifesto for Scotland sets out our record in detail and our proposals for building on these achievements. In this document, therefore, we list only a selection.

    Business in Scotland has received a boost from our creation of Scottish Enterprise and the Local Enterprise Companies. We have formed Scottish Trade International to help our exporters, as Locate in Scotland does for inward investors. To assist business further, we will complete the harmonisation of business rates in Scotland with those in the rest of the country.

    The massive bureaucracies and layers of local government have few supporters in Scotland. We will continue to press local authorities to provide the value for money and the quality of services that people expect. We will press ahead with the reform of the current burdensome system of local government by introducing single tier councils throughout Scotland.

    We will continue to strengthen Scotland’s education system for the benefit of parents, pupils and teachers. We will respond to the proposals of the Howie Committee to ensure that upper secondary education matches the best in Europe. We will continue to increase the number of places in higher and further education and will complete our reforms of the system.

    We will extend our reforms to improve NHS patient care in Scotland. Scotland has led the way in setting limits to waiting-times for operations and will now be reducing these further.

    We are creating a new body, Scottish Natural Heritage, with overall responsibility for conserving the natural environment. We will go further, and will create a Scottish Environmental Protection Agency to bring together powers to ensure the quality of our air, rivers and bathing waters.

    WALES

    Since 1979, the economy of Wales has changed spectacularly With only 5 per cent of the United Kingdom’s population, Wales has consistently enjoyed 20 per cent of its inward investment. New industries have sprung up. Self-employment has risen by two-thirds. Welsh manufacturing now has the highest productivity of any part in the United Kingdom.

    Land made derelict by old industries has been reclaimed on a massive scale. The Cardiff Bay development and the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival are outstanding examples, together with the Programme for the Valleys.

    Since 1979, we have spent more than £3,000 million on roads in Wales. Spending on health has increased by 60 per cent in real terms since 1979. We have spent more than £5 million on our radical Waiting Times Initiative, leading to the treatment of 35,000 extra patients. In school we are spending nearly half as much again, in real terms per pupil, as in 1979. And there has been an enormous expansion in the training budget.

    More Welsh homes – 72 per cent – are owned by those who live in them than in the United Kingdom as a whole. Since the ‘Right to Buy’ was introduced in 1980, we have enabled almost 90,000 council and housing association tenants to buy their own homes.

    A separate Manifesto, in both English and Welsh, sets out our full programme for building on these achievements for Wales.

    We will set up a Welsh Economic Council to bring together the various bodies with interests in inward investment, tourism and small business to advise the Secretary of State.

    We aim to remove all significant dereliction from Wales by the end of the new Parliament.

    We will promote the work of the Countryside Council for Wales, in order to protect the countryside and those who earn their livelihood there.

    We will give further resources to our Rural Initiative. And we will continue to support hill farmers through the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances.

    We will continue to invest heavily in road improvements, including the second Severn Bridge, completing the M4 in South Wales and the M5 in North Wales.

    We will continue with our record hospital building programme.

    We will continue to offer generous funding for Housing for Wales and concentrate our efforts on the special needs of rural Wales. All major publicly funded housing developments will make adequate provision for the less well off.

    We will introduce a new Welsh Language Act.

    We will publish a White Paper on local government reform this autumn with a view to establishing unitary authorities, based on the historic counties and county boroughs. We will ensure a full role for Community Councils under these arrangements.

    NORTHERN IRELAND

    We have upheld our pledge that Northern Ireland will remain an integral part of the United Kingdom in accordance with the democratically expressed wishes of the majority of the people who live there. It is a pledge that only the Conservative and Unionist Party can give. Conservative candidates are standing in our name and in that cause.

    Our overriding objective in Northern Ireland is to eliminate the evil of terrorism. This requires progress in four areas: security, economic, social and political. The security forces in Northern Ireland perform their duties with courage and professionalism. They are entitled to expect all the necessary encouragement, and legal and material support from the Government. Under the Conservatives, the strength of the RUC has been increased, while the Emergency Provisions Act 1991 contains new powers to combat terrorist funding.

    Northern Ireland is sharing in the economic transformation of the United Kingdom as a result of Conservative policies. Belfast is attracting significant new private investment. Harland and Wolff and Shorts have been successfully privatised. Major work is also under way to regenerate Londonderry and many of Ulster’s smaller towns. We will continue to pursue policies to encourage enterprise and bring new jobs – by contrast with Labour, whose plan for a national minimum wage would hit the Province particularly hard.

    In the new Parliament we will continue to seek to re-establish stable institutions of Government in Northern Ireland, so that powers currently exercised by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office can be returned to locally-elected politicians.

    We will always give the security forces our full backing within the rule of the law, and – against Labour opposition – ensure that they have the special powers they need to protect the whole community from violence.

    We will complete the privatisation of Northern Ireland Electricity, transfer the water and sewage services to the private sector, and examine ways of bringing private sector skills into the management of Northern Ireland Railways.

    We will continue to pursue policies designed to alleviate social needs, to promote equity of treatment and to widen the sense of common purpose which is growing in the Province.

    We will build on the close security co-operation that has been established with the Republic of Ireland under the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

    We will continue to work strenuously for a political agreement which is acceptable to all the parties involved in the talks which the Secretary of State has had during the past year with the main constitutional parties in Northern Ireland and the Government of the Republic of Ireland. They have provided a firm basis for political progress in Ulster, and for building new relationships both between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and in these islands as a whole.

    YOUR CHOICE AT THIS ELECTION

    This Election is about the future. Your future. Britain’s future. Our future role in the world. This is a time to go forward with conviction and confidence, not to go back to the failure and bitter controversies of the past.

    It is difficult to remember the Britain we were elected to transform in 1979. The country we did transform.

    It was a depressed and divided country, accustomed to failure and suspicious of change.

    During the succeeding Parliaments, we have curbed inflation, reformed trade union law; encouraged enterprise, cut taxes, modernised our education and training, improved the management of our health service, given more help to the needy, extended ownership, helped through our vigilance to end the Cold War, widened our influence in Europe, and earned the respect of the world.

    A decade of success ended with the problems of recession – a world recession. We know how tough it has been for many but we are poised to move forward again, lacking only the spark of confidence with which a Conservative victory would ignite recovery.

    THE CHALLENGE AHEAD

    The challenges of the 1990s demand a responsible and sure-footed government which understands the nature of the achievements of the 1980s and is ready to build successfully on them. A government committed to the principles of choice, ownership, responsibility and opportunity; committed to low inflation and low taxes; committed to better quality and value in our public services; committed to strong defences. Labour cannot provide that leadership. They lack experience, principle and vision.

    With Socialism everywhere in rout or retreat, it is unclear what the Labour Party stands for. For public consumption, Labour leaders purport to have jettisoned the principles of a life-time. But how much can they be trusted? How genuine is the conversion and what do they actually believe?

    It is clear only that Labour would threaten our achievements, undo our reforms and hamstring Britain. They would turn the clock back to policies that impoverished and divided our country. Socialism here and abroad is the regret of yesterday not the hope of tomorrow.

    ONLY THE BEST FOR BRITAIN

    We believe that only the best is good enough for Britain, and that the best will only be accomplished if we give the British people the freedom and the opportunity they need to succeed.

    We have a new leader, proven in office, and a new agenda – yet a tried set of principles. Those principles reflect our conviction that Britain has done best when the people of Britain have been given the personal incentive to succeed. National success has not been primarily the result of accidents of geography, landscape and natural resources. Nor has it been the result of government action and state control. Success has been won when we have given our people their head: when their natural skills, talents, energy; thrift and inventiveness have been released, not suppressed. That was true when this century began; it is still true as this century draws to its close.

    Britain should approach the Millennium with head and spirits high, with a strong economy, with a high standard of living, with generously endowed and well managed public services, and with secure defences. We want Britain to be an example to the world of how a free people can make the very best of their destiny. That prospect is within the grasp of us all. We must now make it happen.

    The prize is great, the hope invigorating, the dream attainable. We want, with you, to make the dream a reality. A Conservative Government will help you to achieve the very best. The very best future for Britain.