The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Windfall Tax

  • PMQT – 12 November 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 12th November 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Mr. Janner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Mr. Janner: Why is the Prime Minister so determined that people who work in this country should have no statutory minimum holiday rights, while also having no statutory maximum working hours, meaning that they can be forced to work more than 48 hours a week contrary to their wishes? Is not that an unjust, unreasonable and typically Tory policy, going against even their own alleged policy of supporting family rights?

    The Prime Minister: I shall tell the hon. and learned Gentleman crisply; Britain wants good jobs, not worthless directives.

     

    Q2. Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Mr. Hawkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a huge contrast between yesterday’s excellent news of British Aerospace’s success in winning the large Hawk order from Australia, which will guarantee British jobs, and the dismay felt by many British businesses at today’s news of the adverse European ruling on the 48-hour week? Will he reassure British business that he will do all that he can to resist that Euro-measure, which will undermine the competitive edge of British business and is an adverse decision by a political court?

    The Prime Minister: Australia’s selection of British Aerospace to supply Hawks is the latest illustration of the keen competitiveness of British industry generally and the British aerospace industry in particular.

    I think that not only will today’s European Court of Justice ruling damage the prospects of job creation, should it not be reversed; it has disappointed British business men, as they have made clear repeatedly this morning at the Confederation of British Industry. The position is unacceptable. We cannot agree that our competitiveness should be undermined in this way. Were we to do so, it would clearly be the thin end of the wedge–to judge from what the European Commissioner has said this morning. I have made it clear to the President of the Commission that I shall insist on changes at the intergovernmental conference to ensure that the social protocol will never again be undermined by the presentation of social measures, falsely, under the guise of health and safety.

    Mr. Blair: Will the Prime Minister now answer the question asked by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner)? Quite apart from Europe, why is he so opposed to a law that says that people are perfectly free to work more than 48 hours a week, but cannot be compelled to, and gives them minimum holiday entitlements? Is he going to fight the next election on the basis of, “vote Tory for no right to a holiday”?

    The Prime Minister: Yet again, the right hon. Gentleman is in danger of missing the point. Unemployment is falling as we become more competitive. The directive could reverse that trend and similar directives could push unemployment up, instead of it continuing to fall. I am not prepared to accept that. I want jobs, not directives. I want Britain to continue to create jobs and unemployment to continue to fall. I do not want to place more burdens on business so that unemployment either remains stuck at a very high level or rises from that very high level as it has in other European countries. Competitiveness will create jobs. I want people to be in work. Presumably, the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to keep them out of work.

    Mr. Blair: Perhaps the Prime Minister can tell us of a successful company in Britain that does not give its work force a holiday.

    Hon. Members: Exactly.

    Madam Speaker: Order. Stop shouting and barracking, for goodness’ sake. I want to hear the questions and the answers.

    Mr. Blair: If the directive is so dreadful, why did the Minister not vote against it when he had the chance to do so? May we be clear about the Government’s position at the intergovernmental conference? Will the Prime Minister confirm that his position is this: all member states must agree at the outset of the conference that no progress will be made on any change proposed by any country in respect of any issue until the directive is reversed? Is that his position?

    The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman’s first point was correct, why do we need the directive? He made precisely the Government’s point. Such directives pile burdens on business and they are bound to undermine our economic success. Their damage to the fruits of our economic success will affect the extra resources that we are providing to the health service, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will set out in a White Paper tomorrow. They will damage the provision of opportunity for all four-year-olds to have nursery education, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment will set out tomorrow. I am not prepared to allow the product of years of good, sound economic management to be undermined by regulation from Brussels. I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman precisely what the position is at the intergovernmental conference: it is exactly the same as it was on the social chapter at Maastricht. I shall not accept what has been determined by the court today and, at the end of the intergovernmental conference, I shall demand that change or there will be no end to the intergovernmental conference.

    Mr. Blair: So it will be at the end of the intergovernmental conference–which will, conveniently, be after the election. We can hear escape routes being planned already. Is it not back to beef when, five months on, the Government have not even got the gelatine ban lifted? It is the same old pattern. They seize on an issue, they talk tough, they alienate everybody and then they cave in. May I suggest that the law that gives people the right to a minimum holiday is not the issue upon which to launch beef war mark 2?

    The Prime Minister: Saving British jobs is the issue upon which to draw the line. The right hon. Gentleman may be prepared to live in an area of high unemployment. Unemployment in Britain is falling–I want it to come down much further–but prescriptive directives from Brussels will stop that. We shall seek treaty change, without which there will be no conclusion to the intergovernmental conference. I shall not accept the nonsense that the right hon. Gentleman has been talking about the directive without understanding its impact on British companies. I have written today to the President of the Commission to make clear that we are tabling our proposals for a change in the treaty, and we shall expect that change to be agreed.

     

    Q3. Mr. Luff: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Mr. Luff: In the light of the demolition by the Confederation of British Industry of the case for a so-called windfall tax on the privatised utilities, will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to reassure the House that he will not make it his policy to impose such a tax? Does he agree that the effect of such a tax on the prices of shares held by trade unions and other pension funds would, in fact, be a tax on pensioners–to say nothing about the disastrous effects on consumers through higher prices?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is of course right. A windfall tax would hit consumers; it would hit shareholders; it would hit employees. It is a tax not on utilities but on jobs, pensions and people’s utility bills. The shadow Chancellor either cannot or still will not tell the House which privatised companies would pay, how much they would pay and how he would stop investment and customers being hit. If he wants professional advice as to what such a tax might mean, perhaps he might go home and seek it. He ought to tell the House exactly what he proposes. His silence means that the only thing that we know for sure is that Labour would put up taxes and is keeping quiet about just how much the increase would be.

     

    Q4. Sir David Steel: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Sir David Steel: May I refer the right hon. Gentleman back to the negotiations that took place over the European directive? If he looks at Hansard, he will find that, on 7 July 1992, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment boasted to the House that

    “the United Kingdom secured all its key objectives, in particular the right for employees to work for more than 48 hours a week if they choose to do so.”–[Official Report, 7 July 1992; Vol. 211, c. 175.]

    In a word, she said, “We have won.” Was she not right? If they won, why are they going to war over something that they did not even vote against?

    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend did get significant exclusions–that is true–but the directive is damaging. We made it clear from the outset that we would seek a change in the European Court and that we would then seek to have the directive’s impact reversed. The right hon. Gentleman should realise two things. First, this is a damaging directive. Secondly, if we were to accept this directive under that treaty head, it would be but the first of many others, as was implicitly made clear by the European Commissioner this morning. I am concerned to ensure that we protect our jobs and our competitiveness. All over Europe–[Interruption.] Hon. Members do not like it. There are 18 million unemployed people across Europe. Elsewhere in Europe, they are staying unemployed; here, they are getting back into work. That is why we will not accept such legislation.

    Mr. Lamont: Surely the real issue is not whether what the Leader of the Opposition says is right or wrong or whether the working time directive is right or wrong, but whether the matter ought to be decided in Brussels or by the elected Government of this country. What is the point in holding elections if the elected Government cannot carry out the policies on which they were elected?

    The Prime Minister: I have no objection at all to businesses and their employees reaching whatever agreement they wish on working hours. That is entirely right in a properly functioning competitive economy. Like my right hon. Friend, what I object to in principle is working conditions being dictated from Brussels when they should be determined here, in this House. Other European countries can accept that if they wish, but they cannot then complain if businesses relocate from the rest of Europe to here as a result–like the 1,200 that Le Figaro reported last week have relocated from France to here. As Le Figaro said:

    “Why stay in France if conditions for entrepreneurs are better in Britain?”

    I do not want that said of Britain. That is why we are determined to keep the right measures to create jobs for our citizens in the future.

     

    Q5. Mr. Rooney: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Mr. Rooney: Will the Prime Minister tell the House why he favours a free vote on caning but not on gun control?

    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman thinks the question of gun control is appropriate for a free vote, I do not agree with him. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] The Government considered the Cullen report, we made a judgment on the right way to implement it and we propose to stand by that judgment, lay it before the House of Commons and invite it to support us.

     

    Q6. Mr. Alexander: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 November.

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

    Mr. Alexander: May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the by-election result on Thursday to Newark and Sherwood district council? The Conservative candidate, Mr. Bryan Richardson, took the seat from Labour with a swing of 5.8 per cent. May I put it to my right hon. Friend that results such as that are far more typical of support in the country than the public opinion polls, and that if we continue with sensible policies my right hon. Friend is on course for a record fifth Conservative victory?

    The Prime Minister: I congratulate Mr. Richardson on his win, although I am assured by the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, my hon. Friend, the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), that we have taken seats with even larger swings elsewhere in Nottinghamshire in the past two or three weeks. What we are seeing, if I may put it this way, is Conservatives coming home.

  • PMQT – 31 October 1996

    Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 31st October 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Engagements

    Q1. Dr. Goodson-Wickes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 31 October.

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

    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the Government’s intention first to cut and then to abolish both inheritance tax and capital gains tax–moves that would be extremely popular with all who work hard to provide for themselves and their children? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is strange that the electorate hears a great deal about taxes that the Opposition would cut and precisely nothing about taxes that they would raise?

    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is entirely right. We hear very little about the windfall tax. Instead, we hear about promised reductions in value added tax–reductions that were called “cynical” by a shadow Treasury spokesman last year. But we hear little about what the rate of the windfall tax would be, on whom it would be levied, or what it would mean for the people who use gas, electricity and the other utilities.

    As for our tax plans, I can confirm that our first priority, when it is affordable, is to move towards a 20p basic rate of tax; and then to deal with the other taxes that my hon. Friend mentions.

    Mr. Blair: I think that what most people remember about cynicism and tax is that the Government promised not to raise VAT before the election and raised it straight afterwards.

    On Tuesday, the Prime Minister said that he could not be precise about lifting the beef ban now because there were continuing discussions in Luxembourg. That meeting ended last night. Is it correct that, although a compensation package for all European farmers was agreed, there was no agreed progress on lifting the ban? If so, given that the Prime Minister’s timetable for lifting that ban expires tomorrow, what is his new timetable?

    The Prime Minister: No, the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood something–but I shall happily explain it in greater detail to him. The discussions yesterday in the Agriculture Committee were not the discussions to which I specifically referred. The discussions are going on with officials and with the Commission in order to deal with the science–that was not a matter for general discussion in the agriculture debate yesterday.

    What was agreed was more resources for farmers. The determination of precisely where the extra £50 million will go is to be discussed in this country and decided later.

    Mr. Blair: Actually, the right hon. Gentleman said on Tuesday that the discussions on lifting the ban were continuing now. My understanding is that lifting the beef ban was not even put on the agenda by the British Government at Luxembourg–an extraordinary state of affairs.

    The Prime Minister gave us the November timetable; it has now expired. Is it his position that the Florence agreement is still valid, or is his position that that agreement should be changed? In the latter case, what change is he seeking; and in either case, given that he gave us a timetable before, precisely what is his new timetable now? I think we should be told.

    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman needs to do a little more research before he asks ill-advised questions on this subject. The discussions on the scientific evidence are continuing with the Commission. Those discussions were not especially appropriate for the Agriculture Committee. Many of them are technical discussions and they are continuing. As I said to the House very clearly earlier this week, scientific issues that arose after the Florence agreement remain to be determined

    As I told the House on Tuesday, of course the Florence agreement is still in being. Much of that agreement has already been met, and, as I set out to the House on Tuesday, a determination on the rest of it depends substantially on the points still under discussion. I shall explain again gently to the right hon. Gentleman that those points arose after the Florence agreement in the light of changed science that is still being discussed. I hope that that is now clear enough for the right hon. Gentleman.

    Mr. Blair: I do not think that it will be clear to the farming industry, to Europe or to anyone else. What is clear is that the Prime Minister said that the beef ban would be lifted by November. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. We all remember when he stood at the Dispatch Box and said that the ban would be lifted by November. Is it the position now that it will not be lifted by November, and that he cannot tell when it will be lifted? I think that is true. He simply cannot tell us what the position will be.

    Is not that weak and ineffectual leadership–precisely what means that his Government can no longer advance Britain’s interests abroad, nor look after them properly at home? That is why people in this country say, “Enough is enough”. [Interruption.] Yes, they say that. If we are to get leadership, direction and purpose back in Britain, let the British people decide, and let this weak and vacillating Government go.

    The Prime Minister: That really was one of the most trivial series of comments–utterly trivial. This is a matter of great interest to British agriculture. Scientific changes are important to that industry, but the right hon. Gentleman does not understand them, does not enter into any research on them, deliberately distorts what little he does know, ignores the reality of what is happening to the British beef industry, and moves–as he does on his third question every Tuesday and Thursday–into a carefully pre-packaged, pre-prepared piece of irrelevant, juvenile sloganising. [Interruption.] I hear applause for the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), who is undoubtedly the author of much of this sloganising. The right hon. Gentleman should give up this matinee performance, and start dealing with the realities of the beef crisis and other matters that we deal with daily.

    Mrs. Peacock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the county of Yorkshire has an economy that is bigger and better than those of many small nations? Is he also aware that 140 companies from Yorkshire are quoted on the London stock exchange, which is more than many other regions in this country? Will he send congratulations to all those in the county who have worked extremely hard to achieve the present state?

    The Prime Minister: I am certainly happy to congratulate the successful innovators who have produced a successful economy in Yorkshire, and undoubtedly many of them have been successful. That is also true in other parts of the country. At the moment, we have the most innovative and the most competitive economy in western Europe.

    Mr. Ashdown: The national debt has been going for 300 years. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he has doubled it in the past six?

    The Prime Minister: Can the right hon. Gentleman name a single expenditure cut that he has supported?

    Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Union that he wishes to protect is the Union of the United Kingdom, and that his Government will have no truck with proposals that put the Union at risk, and would not give people living in England the same opportunities as the people living in Scotland?

    The Prime Minister: I confirm the importance of the Union not only to Scotland but to England and the rest of the United Kingdom. I have never advanced the argument that devolution, or the separation that the Scottish National party wants, would be bad for Scotland alone, although I believe that it would be bad for Scotland–because I believe that it would be bad for the rest of the United Kingdom too.

     

    Q2. Mr. Austin-Walker: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 31 October.

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

    Mr. Austin-Walker: Yesterday my right hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) reminded the Chancellor of the Exchequer of a BBC radio interview in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman, recalling the introduction of VAT, said that if we could start again we could have VAT on everything. Does the Prime Minister share the Chancellor’s desire to extend VAT to children’s clothes, water, public transport and food, or does he share the view of Opposition Members and of the mass of the British people–that enough is enough?

    The Prime Minister: I certainly think that enough is enough of absurd sloganising of that sort. I am delighted that the Opposition have decided to spend so much of the money that they have apparently accumulated on the sort of trashy advertising campaign that they are trying to conduct this afternoon. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know about VAT, I shall tell him what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) said about a Scottish nationalist proposal to reduce VAT to 5 per cent. He described it as

    “another cynical ploy from an increasingly opportunistic and desperate party”.–[Official Report, 23 January 1995; Vol. 253, c. 49.]

    Now the Labour party is doing the same.

    Mr. Garel-Jones: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, following yesterday’s rise in interest rates, mortgage rates in this country remain at their lowest level for a generation? Can he recall any Government-announced interest rate move, whether upwards or downwards, that was not opposed by the Labour party?

    The Prime Minister: No. One part of the shadow Chancellor’s litany is absolutely consistent: if interest rates go down he claims that that shows weakness in the economy, but if they go up he claims the same thing. It is a consistent litany. My right hon. Friend is right about the present level of interest rates. He is also right to say that the British economy is exceedingly strong, and that we shall keep it strong and keep inflation low.

     

    Q3. Mr. Hutton: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 31 October.

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

    Mr. Hutton: Does the Prime Minister accept that, after 22 Tory tax rises since 1992, which have left the typical British family with an extra tax bill of £2,000, the British people are entitled to say that they have had enough both of him and of his party’s broken promises on tax?

    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the level of tax, I look forward to finding out which tax reductions he has supported in recent years. Will he say now that he will not support the windfall tax, the tartan tax, the health tax proposed by his Front-Bench spokesmen, or the teenage tax that will result from child benefit being taken away? Which of those, all of which have been proposed by the occupants of the Opposition Front Bench, will the hon. Gentleman oppose?

    Mr. Riddick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the European Commission has disgracefully suppressed new evidence showing a clear link between rigid labour laws and high unemployment? Is not that a huge embarrassment for the Commission and for Opposition Members who support the job-destroying social chapter and a minimum wage? Does it not show that the Labour party’s approach would lead to massively increased unemployment?

    The Prime Minister: I have not seen the report, but like my hon. Friend I have heard that the report exists and that there has been some difficulty in getting it into the public gaze. I shall certainly ask whether the report will be published, so people can have a sensible debate on the policies that underlie it and see whether they are, as we believe, costing jobs; if they are, we shall consider whether we can take action to prevent that from occurring in the future and to reverse those expensive, job-costing policies, which are so much the flavour of the month with Opposition Front-Benchers.

     

    Q4. Mr. O’Hara: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 31 October.

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

    Mr. O’Hara: Two days ago in the House, I repeated to the Prime Minister our invitation to co-operate in the introduction of legislation to regulate the advertising and sale of certain dangerous knives and weapons that are obvious to Opposition Members and to the British public and that ought to be obvious to the Government. The Prime Minister once again retreated.

    [Hon. Members: “Question.”]

    Madam Speaker: Order. Those who are calling out for a question are often the first to be guilty. I am asking the hon. Gentleman to carry out the regulations and put his question, but he does not need any guidance from Conservative Members.

    Mr. O’Hara: Certainly, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister once again retreated behind the need for a definition. We have now produced a definition and–

    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must now put a question; otherwise, he must resume his seat.

    Mr. O’Hara: Has the Prime Minister seen the definition, does he agree with it, and will he now sit down with us and discuss it?

    The Prime Minister: Of course we will examine very carefully any constructive proposal. I understand that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has written to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and that there will be a meeting with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) in the near future. I must say, however, that it seems that the Labour Front-Bench team has been forced to accept what my right hon. and learned Friend has said all along: that it is not easy to define knives to be banned, despite the fact that the hon. Member for Blackburn said that it was. I believe that he has had to change his position. Of course we will consider any constructive suggestion from the hon. Member for Blackburn or from the hon. Gentleman.