The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Yugoslavia

Mr Major’s Questions and Answers at the WEU Assembly – 23 February 1996

Below is the text of Mr Major’s questions and answers session following his speech to the Western European Union (WEU) Assembly, held in London on Friday 23rd February 1996.

QUESTION (Mr Naulius, Estonia):

Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for sharing with us your vision about European security in future and also for your support for enlargement of the European Union and spreading stability and prosperity to the East. However, for smaller associate partners like the Baltic States their own future is of primary concern and therefore I would ask what is the United Kingdom’s position on NATO and western European enlargement concerning the Baltic States or how do you it is possible to increase security in the area of the Baltic States and the whole Baltic Sea area in this context?

PRIME MINISTER:

There are many aspects to that question. Let me try and take as many of them as I credibly can.

As far as NATO enlargement is concerned, I am in favour of NATO enlargement. I think we have to take it at a practical level. I re-emphasise the point I made a few moments ago: enlargement of NATO is not a one-way option; enlargement of NATO is an obligation for NATO to the new country and it is an obligation for the new country when it joins NATO, so there is a twin obligation there so I think we will take NATO enlargement steadily but securely. The order in which NATO will enlarge I think is a matter yet to be determined, I don’t think there can be any immediate progress over the next few months but I hope towards the end of this year we can begin to look seriously, after we have examined the practicalities of enlargement which are enormous, at what sort of order the enlargement will come in and I think we can say no more about that on this occasion.

As far as the western European Union is concerned, we have of course, including the Baltic States, an associate partnership position at present. What is the best way to develop that?

The associate partner status is unique in the Western European Union and the purpose of it is to give the Central Europeans and indeed the Baltic States a direct involvement in the work of the organisation. I think we can make a good deal more of that than we have thus far.

What we are looking to explore is ways of involving the associate partners more directly in the operational work of WEU. We have work such as mine-clearing, work in Bosnia. I think absorbing increasingly the associate partners into that element of work is the first step. Beyond that, I think it is for the Western European Union to look at the question of further enlargement and I for one would wish to put no impediment in front of that but the first option I think is to increase the absorption of the associate partners not just in conferences and assemblies but in the practical work, including the military work that we hope increasingly is going to be done by the Western European Union.

QUESTION (Mr Van der Linden, The Netherlands):

I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether he agrees that in order to conduct an irreversible process in Europe as was referred to by Federal Chancellor Kohl, we must have a European common defence policy which in the long term must ultimately be part and parcel of the European Union. We cannot have a European political union without defence being a part of that union. May I ask the Prime Minister for his reaction?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think I gave my reaction a few moments ago to that. The British are a very large part of the European defence component in NATO and in the Western European Union. I have to say to colleagues here present that when British troops are on active service I cannot conceive that they would be subordinated to anything other than the British Cabinet in the United Kingdom. I don’t see that there is a circumstance that I can foresee in which the determination and decision-making about British troops in action is going to be available to the European Union or the European Parliament, I cannot foresee that being accepted by this British Government or any other conceivable British Government. I don’t know what time-scale other people have their ambitions in, I tend to deal in practical slabs of time and I cannot foresee at any stage in the future as I see it that we are likely to reach a position in which British troops would have their effective decisions taken for them by the European Union rather than by the British Government, I do not believe that would be acceptable to the British Parliament, it would not be acceptable to me, I cannot believe it would be acceptable to any other British Government and I do not believe it will happen.

QUESTION (Mr Jack Thompson, United Kingdom)

Prime Minister, first of all may I make a remark about your comments earlier about the role of the WEU and say that as far as I am aware, the British Parliament, not only the British Government, supports your view on the role of the WEU so there is unanimity in the British Parliament.

Bearing in mind that in the United States we are running up to presidential elections, there is a Congress which tends to be rather isolationist these days and the situation in the former Yugoslavia is moving into a time I understand when at the end of this year the Americans are saying they are going to pull out of there. As Britain has the chairmanship of the Council of the Western European Union, what role do you think the WEU can play in terms of former Yugoslavia post the Americans leaving, if they do?

PRIME MINISTER:

On the first part of your comments, Jack, let me thank you for what you had to say. I think it is always good for all our colleagues in Europe and elsewhere to see on very vital issues there is often cross-party agreement in the House of Commons and I am grateful to you for endorsing the fact that as far as the Western European Union is concerned that is one of those occasions. I think it is useful that our colleagues realise that that is the position on such a fundamentally important issue.

As far as the Implementation Force in Yugoslavia is concerned, it is the general expectation that the force collectively would be able to leave by the end of the year. I don’t think the concept of the Americans leaving unilaterally is one that is acceptable to the other European partners and I think the Americans would understand that when the time came. We hope that we will be able to have had the work done by the end of the year; I very much hope that that is the case. If the work isn’t done, then we will have to examine what needs to be done to ensure that the work can be done but I do not foresee it being a position that the Americans would unilaterally leave; that is not the basis upon which other troops from Europe are presently serving in the former Yugoslavia either from the United Kingdom or from other countries so I hope the circumstance will not arise.

QUESTION (Mr Parisi, Italy):

At a summit held on 6 December 1995, a joint declaration was issued on the WEU within the context of European security at the end of the Italian presidency and the beginning of the British one. What progress has been made in order to apply this joint declaration and has the Ministerial Council of the WEU approved a document referring to WEU’s contribution to the IGC where there are at least three alternative options? Minister of Defence, Mr. Portillo, last December at a WEU meeting said that the British Government considered the debate on this matter as closed within the WEU as this has become within the frame of competence of the IGC. Does the Government then consider that it is easier to arrive at a compromise in future between the 15 members of the European Union rather than the 10 of the WEU?

PRIME MINISTER:

The last part of your question sounded as though it was coming from a blizzard somewhere on the other side of Venus so I am not entirely sure what the last part of your question was but let me deal with the general points.

For some time, Britain has had extremely good defence cooperation with Italy. You mentioned a particular declaration in Florence, I can think of other occasions over the last few years where we have agreed bilaterally with Italy certain matters on the question of defence. As far as how those are developing, we are seeking to develop them as rapidly as possible. There are a whole series of elements in the agreement that was announced to which you refer some time ago, some are now in the process of being implemented, some are not, there is still some way further to go.

As far as the last part of your question is concerned, with your President’s permission, if you would like to repeat the last part I will try and answer it. It was quite impossible to hear on the translation.

QUESTION:

Thank you, Prime Minister. I was referring to the fact that the British Defence Minister, Mr Portillo, last December at the WEU Assembly said that the British government considers that the debate on constitutional matters is close within the WEU whilst the matter will be referred to the IGC. Do you think that the British government is tending towards a compromise which is easier to deal with the 15 European Union countries or is it easier to do this within the 10 member countries of the WEU?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, I think the point that Michael Portillo was seeking to make is a reflection of what I was saying a few moments ago, that we do not wish to see the Western European Union subordinated to the European Union in its decision-making capability. Of course the WEU must work very closely with our European Union partners, we agree with that. But the point that Michael was seeking to make was that we don’t want institutional changes that subordinate the decision-making process of the Western European Union to the European Union with obvious future knock-on implications for the Western European Union Assembly and its relations with the European Parliament. That would have been the point that Michael Portillo was seeking to make. We do not favour unhappy changes to the Western European Union.

QUESTION (Leader of French Delegation to Assembly):

The Brussels Commission has made proposals with regard to establishing a Common Market for armaments. Is it the best body to do that and is the British government prepared to participate, given the concentration of the American output in armaments?

PRIME MINISTER:

When it comes to European armaments, the UK defence industry of course is a very major player, amongst the most important in Europe. So we are well attuned already to the benefits of collaboration with our European partners. And we see obvious benefits in extending this cooperation in the form of the European armaments agency, self-evidently that is the case. So we would certainly support continuing work in the Western European armaments group towards that particular end. What we do not see, of course is the European armaments agency simply existing as a body to prevent armaments purchases from elsewhere. There are occasions where a particular weapon is particularly suitable for a particular need, and if it comes from the United States we would buy it from the United States, if it comes from Europe we would buy it from Europe. But that there are undoubted advantages in cooperation and coordination of what our weapons actually fire – it is ridiculous that some of our guns in Western Europe fire different sorts of bullets, that our mortars are different, that our gun barrel sizes are different on heavy weapons, a whole series of things where there is a great deal of coordination that could and should take place. We are very much in favour of that and we see great advantage in the European armaments agency, but not as a protectionist model.

QUESTION (Mr Pavlidos, Greece):

First of all, I would like to congratulate you for the speech you have made to us this morning. And I think you have led us to believe even more strongly that the Western European Union can play an important role in developing security matters in Europe. However, very recently we have seen on two occasions that whenever a crisis breaks out, for example in former Yugoslavia, and just a few days ago in the Aegean, and I am referring to the now famous islet of Imia, and of course I am talking about an area which has very close historic links with your country, I am talking about the area of the Dodecanese and the period of British administration between 1945 and 1947, before you handed those islands, including Imia, over to Greece. And in this crisis we have seen again that Europe did not intervene. I would be interested to hear your views on the subject. How do you see European organisations intervening in such incidents and such cases when there is a threat to Europe’s borders, and I would be grateful if you could state for us what role you think your country could play in such incidents?

PRIME MINISTER:

The two incidents you mentioned, of course, are of a different dimension. But I understand what impels you to link them. On former Yugoslavia, Europe as a whole has had a good deal of media criticism for the way it reacted. Some of that criticism is justified, I have to say a good deal of it is not justified. If the Europeans had not acted as they did, one forgets the beginning of the dispute in former Yugoslavia, I remember very plainly the nightmare we had at the beginning of the former Yugoslavia, the nightmare we had was that the dispute would move southwards to Kosovo and beyond and that we would drag in the areas beyond and that we would have a full scale Balkan war. That was the fear at the beginning and I think some of the European nations, and since you ask for the role of Britain, I think from memory we were the first actually to send troops there to try and damp down the difficulties and prevent the danger that then existed of the dispute moving to the south and beginning to involve other nations. So we did act very speedily. I recall coming back from my European holiday as it happens, I think I was in Portugal, in order to make the decision to send British troops there, and as I say I think that was the first. So that was the role we took because we saw the danger.

I think Europe has learned a lot about cooperation as a result of what actually happened in former Yugoslavia. The only point of difference that I have with some of my European colleagues is that I believe we have to do these things by a better mechanism for cooperation, rather than by centralising a decision-making process within the European Union. That we should cooperate, I am very much in support of. That we should have a common foreign and security policy, I very much agree. What I do not agree is that that common foreign and security policy should be centrally determined against the wishes of major players. They cannot ask any European troops, against the wishes of their sovereign government, to do something and in practice I don’t think it would work. So we have to build on the common foreign and security policy and improve it. And in many of the European matters I think the mechanism of the Western European Union is also an appropriate mechanism to use. That is precisely why we want to improve its operational capability during the period of the British Presidency and immediately afterwards. We think the Western European Union can become a much more effective European arm of NATO than it is at present and we ate keen to give it the assistance that it needs to ensure that it can do so.

As far as the second incident that you mentioned, the now famous Isle of Imia, I think it was more a matter for diplomatic intervention than military intervention and certainly that is an area where there is a European Union member involved where I think diplomacy can play a considerable role. And we will have some proposals to make at the Intergovernmental Conference as to how that might be improved. Our position will be to make some positive proposals in that respect and to try and persuade our European partners that we can improve the cooperation of European common and foreign policy by agreement.

February 23, 1996
Mr Major’s Speech at the Opening of the Bosnian Peace Conference – 8 December 1995

Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the opening of the Bosnia Peace Implementation Conference on Friday 8th December 1995, held at Lancaster House in London.

PRIME MINISTER:

I am grateful to you – the representatives of over 50 countries and organisations – for coming to this third London Conference, and I welcome you most warmly to Lancaster House.

You have come with a serious purpose.

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has claimed over 200,000 lives.

It has been one of the most devastating wars of the past half century, and by far the most serious conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Out of a population of four and a half million people, more than two million have been forced to flee their homes. A great many of their houses, their towns and villages, have been razed to the ground or rendered uninhabitable.

Families have been broken up. Many survivors have been disabled.

No-one who lived in this beautiful and once thriving corner of south-eastern Europe can have been untouched by the trauma of three years of savage fighting.

But the conflict is over. The guns are now silent. Next week, the peace agreement will be signed in Paris.

Our task, today and tomorrow, is to make sure that the guns remain silent; that the Dayton accords are put into effect; that war does not resume through any error or omission on our part.

Today, even before the final signature of the agreement, we must begin the huge job of implementing and consolidating peace, and of rebuilding a country.

Let me extend a particularly warm welcome to the Foreign Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of Croatia and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Making peace required courage, flexibility, and a willingness to give ground from the leaders of all of the parties.

Keeping it will need tolerance, forgiveness, discipline and the readiness to make a fresh start.

No-one underestimates the demands this will make on all of your peoples.

The wounds of this war will not heal easily.

But heal they must – and they can.

In the Spring of last year, I met soldiers from the opposing Croat and Bosnian Government forces in central Bosnia. Men who, weeks before, had been under orders to kill each other. I saw them policing the new ceasefire in that region – in a remarkably friendly spirit.

That ceasefire held.

And the wider peace negotiated at Dayton must hold.

It will hold so long as the Dayton commitments are honoured:

– The commitment to keep Sarajevo as a united city within the Federation. That carries obligations on all sides. Each side must work with the others to allow all the inhabitants of Sarajevo to live together in safety and security.

– The commitments on the separation of forces and removal of heavy weapons.

– The commitment to negotiate an arms control regime and other confidence building measures. The Bonn Conference will take this work forward.

– The commitment to respect human rights and ensure unrestricted access for humanitarian work.

– The commitment to develop the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina to help manage reconstruction within the country and its relations with the outside world.

– The commitment to create conditions for free and fair elections by next summer.

– And the commitment to help refugees return freely and safely.

We are not asking you to act alone.

The international community has made a huge effort to save lives, help civilians, and negotiate peace over the past three years.

The message of this Conference is that we are ready to make no less vast an effort to help you to entrench the peace, and to find stability and security within the European family and the United Nations.

Let me now turn in more detail to the international community’s role.

In their different ways, the countries and organisations at this Conference have helped to bring peace to Bosnia.

Through many setbacks and in the face of great danger, national and international aid agencies kept the lifelines open.

More than 200 people sacrificed their lives in the service of the United Nations and of the aid agencies.

As we begin today a new and much more hopeful phase of the humanitarian operation in Bosnia, let us remember those who helped to make it possible through three long years of war, and particularly those who will not see the vindication of their brave efforts.

Likewise, from the 1992 International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia onwards, efforts to negotiate peace never relented until they were crowned with success.

We owe a debt of gratitude to all of those who took diplomatic action on our behalf – whether under the auspices of the United Nations, the European Union or the Contact Group.

Now, in this third London Conference, we must harness the resources and capabilities of the international community in four main areas:

– First, on the military side, those in command of the Implementation Force will shortly describe its mission. It will be important to ensure that military and civilian work is carefully co-ordinated.

– Secondly, we are entering, as I have said, a new phase of the humanitarian operation. We shall examine how this is to be organised under the co-ordination of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, so that we can help refugees to return and ensure that human rights and human needs are protected.

– Third, the supervision of the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a significant challenge for the Member States of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. An ambitious challenge and a vital task.

– Finally, we shall discuss reconstruction. We do not aim to supplant the efforts of the Bosnian people themselves. They will wish to rebuild their own homes, and they have the pride and the skills to do so. But they clearly will need help and additional resources. We must start by identifying the needs and agreeing on the right mechanisms for meeting them. That will help to pave the way for the Pledging Conference which should follow at a later stage.

The responsibility for pulling these strands together within Bosnia will fall on the “High Representative”. It is a task which will require exceptional energy and proven qualities of leadership. We are fortunate in having someone superbly qualified to act as the High Representative – in the former Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr Carl Bildt.

I hope we can announce today that Carl Bildt will take on this task. He will deserve the confidence and respect of all of us. He deserves all the help we can give him.

Conclusion

Many of you came to our last Conference in this building a mere five months ago.

We met then against a sombre and menacing background.

How much has changed for the better in those five months.

We took some tough decisions then, but they proved to be the right decisions.

Today we must take one decision, above all: that peace in Bosnia cannot fail. That we cannot allow the nightmare of the past three years to return. That, in our commitment to a powerful implementation force and a huge civilian effort, we must make it unthinkable for anyone to drag Bosnia back to the edge of the abyss.

Peace in Bosnia has been hard won. It has been dreadfully slow to come.

It is undoubtedly fragile.

But it is there, and each and every one of us must make sure that it lasts.

December 8, 1995
Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Douglas Hurd – 6 December 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, held in Budapest on Tuesday 6th December 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

I would like first to express my thanks to the Hungarian government for the hospitality and organisation of this conference. It is a very large conference by almost any reckoning and I think the organisation has been absolutely excellent and I am most grateful for that.

During the whole of the summit I think it is fair to say that two issues have dominated: Bosnia, of course, as it was always likely to do; and the future enlargement of NATO. On Bosnia I set out in my speech yesterday what was at stake and frankly I have very little to add to that. The British troops in Bosnia are there to help the protection forces discharge an humanitarian mandate, they are there to save lives. In the period that they have been there I believe they have saved many thousands of lives and they are there to keep the peace where there is a peace to be kept. They are emphatically not there to fight a war or to take sides.

But if the events deteriorate to the point where United Nations troops and the British contingent can no longer carry out their mandate without unacceptable risk, then of course they will have to leave, and that is simply to state a matter of fact.

I very much hope that it will not come to this, it certainly does not have to come to this. The Foreign Secretary has spoken to Serb, Bosnian and Croat leaders in the last 48 hours and all of them, without exception, have said they would like the protection forces to stay. Now if that is a view sincerely held, the conclusion to be drawn is self-evident. The warring parties must, without delay, cease fire, allow the free passage of United Nations troops and aid and make it possible to re-start the peace negotiations.

On the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation there has frankly been rather a lot of excitable comment this morning about an East-West rift. I think it is worthwhile looking at precisely what our aim should be. Our aim must be to spread eastwards the prosperity and the stability that members of the European Union and NATO now enjoy, and that is precisely why both organisations are currently developing ties with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in a number of cases with a view to eventual membership of those organisations.

We wish obviously to move gradually and carefully towards enlargement, building on the Partnership for Peace programme. I spent some time discussing this yesterday with President Yeltsin and this followed an earlier conversation on the same subject when he visited Chequers last September. And it is perfectly apparent from that discussion that President Yeltsin’s concern is that NATO would enlarge swiftly to Russia’s Western border, possibly starting as early as next year. I said to him in our conversation that in fact NATO’s proposals were to move cautiously and without deadlines. NATO’s study into future membership is about the how and the why of enlargement, not the who and when of future membership. I made it clear to President Yeltsin that the United Kingdom wanted the outcome of the study to be discussed openly with all Partnership for Peace partners, including Russia, and there should be no surprises and there should be no secret deals about the enlargement of NATO.

I formed the impression that President Yeltsin was entirely satisfied with that approach. He is concerned with the pace and the scale of NATO’s enlargement, he does not want to see a new dividing line drawn across Europe and neither do any of the members of NATO or the would-be members of NATO wish to see such a dividing line. It is therefore very important for NATO to continue to build up its relationship with Russia and that is why I hope that Russia will soon be able to sign its Partnership for Peace agreements with NATO.

The talk we have heard over the past 24 – 48 hours of a relapse into the Cold War ignores I think yesterday’s very substantial achievements – the strengthening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty through the accession of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the entry into force of START I, and a clearing of the way towards the ratification of START II. And I think what those agreements, signed yesterday, show, is that a great prize is still very much within reach between East and West, a partnership between Russia and the West from which the sharp hostilities of the Cold War will be absent.

I think therefore that much of the talk about difficulties between NATO and Russia has been grotesquely overdone, there are concerns and I think those concerns can readily be met.

During the period we have been here both I and the Foreign Secretary have had the opportunity of a large number of bilateral discussions with other Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government and that also has been a very useful adjunct to the conference as a whole.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (Paul Reynolds, BBC):

How can you explain how the situation has arisen where you are talking of withdrawing troops when the Security Council resolution clearly gives you the right to use all necessary means to carry out the humanitarian mandate?

PRIME MINISTER:

I explained that rather clearly yesterday, I think, Paul. The troops are there for an humanitarian purpose, for so long as they can safely carry out that humanitarian purpose, they will stay. I am not anxious for the troops to leave, quite the reverse, we were one of the first countries to send troops there in large numbers and we did so because of our humanitarian concern for what is happening there. But those troops are not equipped to fight a war and they are not there to fight a war and we have to have concern for the safety of those troops, as indeed to other troop contributors. And the point that I have been making is that if they cannot safely undertake their task then it is not credible for them to remain. I hope that will not occur but I have to warn that it could.

QUESTION:

Is the British government thinking in terms of time to withdraw their troops from the former Yugoslavia and to get a peace plan approved by the various sides?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, we have not got a particular timescale in mind and as I indicated just now, I very much hope that it will not be necessary to withdraw troops. But if they cannot satisfactorily undertake their task, and it is not safe for them to remain, then we may have no choice. As far as seeking diplomatic conclusion is concerned, the Foreign Secretary has had a range of meetings over the last weekend with Foreign Minister Juppe, he met Mr Milosevic and others, the Contact Group are resuming and we very much hope the peace plan can move forward, the Foreign Secretary may wish to add to it. Certainly we wish to explore more diplomatic moves to see whether a settlement can be reached, that infinitely is the prize that we must all aim for.

QUESTION (Nik Gowing, Channel 4 News):

How much, if a withdrawal has to happen, will be dictated by what is happening on the ground, how much of it in the end will be dictated by your military advice which says Prime Minister if we do not go now, it is going to be increasingly difficult to withdraw. And secondly, is the withdrawal likely to take the 165 days which the UN mentioned at the beginning of last week or can it be done much quicker?

PRIME MINISTER:

The points you raise are interlinked, of course. But the other point that needs to be made, it is not just a question of the British, it is a question of the other troops who are there as well, they are there as United Nations troops, of course we are particularly concerned about the British contingent there, but the United Nations themselves will be concerned about all the troops. We have to look both at what the situation is at present and what it looks as though it is going to become. Withdrawal is not an overnight affair so of course we must have contingency plans for that, but if you will forgive me I will not go into those in depth.

QUESTION:

I would like to ask if from the British point of view can we expect any concrete steps forward from the participants of this summit in connection with the Bosnian problem?

PRIME MINISTER:

I am not sure what concrete will emerge from this particular summit except the frustration that everyone feels, there is a universal desire to end the fighting and reach a negotiated settlement and repeatedly that universal desire is frustrated on the ground by one party or another. So I think undoubtedly there is a huge amount of frustration about that. What in concrete terms may emerge from this summit, I am not sure that this summit is going to produce anything that will definitively move the process forward and I am not sure it was ever likely that it will be able to do so.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I think the sequences of what needs to happen is now increasingly accepted, the order of things, though some of the substance of them is difficult. First, there has to be a ceasefire and a cessation of hostilities, beginning in Bihac. There is an argument about how long it should be for, arguments about how it should be worked out, and that is really for the UN on the ground to negotiate, as Mr Akashi is trying to do. Then there needs to be acceptance of the Contact Group plan. As you know, it is accepted by everybody except the Bosnian Serbs and even some of them yesterday in Belgrade said they should accept it, that is a new development, foreshadowed to Alain Juppe and myself by Mr Milosevic when we saw him the night before last. But that plan is not yet accepted by the Bosnian Serbs. Then there can be talks about territorial adjustments, about land swaps, among the parties to see if such swaps can be agreed. At the same time there can be talks about Constitutional arrangements, as set out in the Contact Group document. And then there needs to be a Bosnian Serb withdrawal to the 49 percent which under the Contact Group plan they would be entitled to occupy within Bosnia Herzegovina, the integrity of whose frontiers is stated by the Contact Group plan.

So that is the sequence of events. As I say, there is argument at several points of it, but everyone I have talked to, all members of the Contact Group, President Milosevic, President Izetbegovic, President Tudjman, accept that that is the sequence, that is the order in which these things ought to happen.

PRIME MINISTER:

As the Foreign Secretary sets out, the route map to peace is perfectly clear. The question at issue is whether the leaders of the opposing groups will actually march down that route, we very much wish to see them do so.

QUESTION:

Mr. Prime Minister, the Baltic States is considered during all the European structures as a security question but at the same time in Western countries sometimes we hear about some neutrality or special status of the Baltic States because of the neighbourhood of Russia. What is your opinion about these things?

PRIME MINISTER:

NATO itself is developing a Partnership for Peace proposal which stretches straight through to Russia and includes Russia. We very much wish Russia to take a full part in the Partnership for Peace. That is a stepping stone. We need to deal with the realities of what needs to be done to avoid awakening old fears across Europe.

Of course NATO is going to enlarge – that is no longer in question – but NATO is going to enlarge cautiously and carefully and I think no-one should be in any doubt about that. There is a great deal to be done. It isn’t just a political point, it is a military point as well. One needs to ensure that the circumstances are satisfactory for a cautious but worthwhile and continuing enlargement of NATO. That will take some time. In the meantime, Partnership for Peace is a very attractive and very worthwhile stepping stone.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

We certainly see the Baltic States as part of the European family, a welcome part, and we British are very active there, for example with the Nordic countries training the Baltic peacekeeping battalion and last Monday we agreed in the Foreign Affairs Council on a mandate to open negotiations for the next agreement between the European Union and the Baltic States. As the Prime Minister has said, they are part of the Partnership for Peace; they have all three agreed to the Partnership for Peace and are working out the actual content of each Partnership agreement for each of the three countries so things are on the move and I think they will make steady progress.

PRIME MINISTER:

I had the opportunity of meeting the Baltic leaders not very long ago in Vilnius and we had the opportunity of discussing all this and how the progress forward might come and I think they are very realistic about what can be achieved and in what time-scale.

QUESTION (John Sergeant , BBC TV):

Prime Minister, can I ask you a question on the burning domestic issue and that is can you confirm that if the Government were to lose on the VAT issue you wouldn’t try to make up the shortfall by increasing borrowing and are you prepared to make a last minute appeal to potential rebels not to carry out their threat because if they do so at the very least the Government would be seriously embarrassed?

PRIME MINISTER:

I hope we are going to win the vote this evening on the Budget resolution, I very much hope we are going to win; I shall no doubt learn more about that when I return to the United Kingdom later on this afternoon but the Chancellor set out the circumstances yesterday and I am going to say no more in Budapest this afternoon.

QUESTION (RAI ITALIAN TV, CHANNEL 3):

Mr. Prime Minister, do you believe an arms sale embargo should be lifted in Bosnia and in your talk with President Yeltsin what has emerged as an obstacle to developing a common document on Bosnia which is not coming out?

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me deal with the first point of lifting the arms embargo. We don’t believe lifting the arms embargo would be a wise development; we don’t believe that would aid peace. We do believe that lifting the arms embargo would make it impossible for the United Nations humanitarian mission to safely continue and if the humanitarian mission were to leave that is going to have very profound effects for a lot of people and I think it highly appropriate for people to think what would be the position on the ground if the arms embargo were lifted and the United Nations troops were to move. The single simple question to ask oneself is does that bring peace nearer or does that bring peace further away and I think the answer to that question is self-evident; it takes peace further away, it puts more people’s lives at risk, many more people would be killed and who knows to what extent the war then would spread.

I don’t believe it is appropriate to have a situation where United Nations troops have had to go, the arms embargo has been lifted and one then sees a much wider war perhaps spreading southwards. Who can tell what precisely would happen? It is conceivable that events will force us down that path but we will not go down it willingly because we think it will add to the bloodshed and not end the bloodshed and it has been our determination to end it from the start of this conflict.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

On the second point, efforts were made to agree a separate document on Bosnia and our delegation tried to reconcile different points of view so there could be a document. My understanding, unless there has been some breakthrough in the last ten minutes, is it has not been possible to agree such a document. Our guidance is therefore the decisions of the Contact Group, the Security Council and indeed under the Security Council of the North Atlantic Council.

PRIME MINISTER:

I can’t speak for the last ten minutes but it certainly wasn’t agreed fifteen minutes ago.

QUESTION (Ian Black, Guardian):

Can I ask you, Prime Minister, whether you are not becoming increasingly concerned about the possible damage to relations between Britain and the United States over the situation in Bosnia? We have had the argument within NATO about bombing and we had Senator Dole in London last week. Is this not going to get worse and worse as long as this situation continues?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think when people look at differences between the United Kingdom and the United States these days they are confusing differences between Congress and the British Government rather than the American Administration and the British Government.

The American Administration I think now very largely shares our view about the dangers of unilateral lift and what in practice would happen as a result of unilateral lift, so there are no strains of the sort that many people were forecasting some time ago between the British and the United States administrations about this. If I may borrow the word I used a few moments ago, we are both frustrated about the lack of progress, we both want to see a negotiated settlement. I think we both now recognise the dangers of unilateral lift.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I had a long talk last night with Warren Christopher before he went off to Damascus and I must say I felt quite strongly at the end of this talk that we and the United States, after a period of disagreement, were now actually moving in outline and in detail in the same direction. Since the Contact Group agreement on Friday night, the United States has had its contacts with some of the parties, we have had our contacts with some of the parties, we have compared notes, we were all saying the same thing so this is now an effort which we and the Administration are pursuing together. There are voices outside the Administration just as there are voices in Britain who take a different line but the two governments are working closely together.

QUESTION (Peter Oborne, Evening Standard):

Mr. Major, at the weekend your Cabinet colleague, Peter Lilley, said that the group of nine should have the whip reinstated at once. Do you share that view?

PRIME MINISTER:

He didn’t say that. What Peter Lilley said was that there was no choice but to withdraw the whip and he hoped colleagues would return in due course. He didn’t put a time-scale that. I hope colleagues will continue to support the Conservative Government. In due course, therefore, they will no doubt wish to return to the Conservative whip but I think you are putting words into Peter’s mouth.

QUESTION (Peter Oborne, Evening Standard):

Secondly, what will you do to those who vote against the Government or abstain tonight?

PRIME MINISTER:

I made it clear that I hope colleagues will support us tonight. I don’t propose to go further than that, you would be surprised if I did. I think that comes into the category of “Very good try, Peter!”

QUESTION (National Review):

Back to Bosnia for a minute, Sir. In your speech yesterday you emphasised that no side in the conflict there can expect to gain a military victory. Isn’t that precisely what is happening at the moment with the Serbs occupying 70% of the land there? If, therefore, the British contingent of the UN peace force is brought home, what danger remains, what justification exists for still not allowing the Bosnian government the right to defend themselves through lifting the arms embargo once that danger has been removed?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think you are drawing two things together that don’t necessarily follow. I think it is very likely that if not the British but the United Nations protection forces were to withdraw, then very probably the arms embargo would be lifted but that is a separate proposition from lifting the arms embargo with United Nations troops in the middle of Bosnia and of course there are different things happening in different parts of Bosnia – there are Bosnian advances in parts of central Bosnia.

One of the things that has bedevilled this whole enterprise from the start is that when one has moved close to what one thought might be a conceivable diplomatic settlement, one side or other has sensed some territorial advantage of the weeks or months that lie immediately ahead and at that stage the diplomatic settlement has slipped away and of course that has happened on a roller coaster basis time and time again.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary, what kind of message do you think it delivers to people living in Europe that this Conference apparently is unable to agree even on words that should be spoken about the greatest crisis on the Continent which is the war in Bosnia?

PRIME MINISTER:

It would have been very agreeable, we may yet get an agreement but we hadn’t as at fifteen minutes ago; it would have been very agreeable to have had one. I think what they would be better advised to look at is the large number of people in Europe who are anxious for a settlement, who have been sufficiently anxious for a settlement not only to put diplomatic effort into achieving a settlement but troops and humanitarian activities on the ground to try and promote a settlement and ease the suffering until there is a settlement but there are people with sharply differing views here and that is why it has not been possible thus far to agree a form of words.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I don’t honestly think that many people are sitting up looking at their watches and saying: “When is the CSCE going to produce its document on Bosnia?” That is not what is preoccupying people really. The CSCE has to adopt everything by unanimity and that does put a limitation on what it can agree but what has happened – and quite dramatically – over the last few weeks is that all kinds of different ideas about how you can achieve peace in Bosnia have been examined and at least for the moment dismissed. There is no mention in the Contact Group document of the arms embargo; no government is now pressing for that to be lifted. There is no mention of a military victory, indeed it is excluded as a possibility and President Clinton was clear about that yesterday so everyone who is seriously engaged in this matter is now talking about a negotiated peace. Then you lead into how you achieve that and of course that is extremely difficult and has frustrated everybody up to now but then you get into the sequence of events which I mentioned before which I won’t repeat so there has been a lot of clearing out of ideas which don’t fit the present situation and that is helpful because if you are going to seek to do the things that are necessary you have to get out of your mind the things that aren’t possible.

PRIME MINISTER:

In the best-organised circumstances unanimity is not always possible.

QUESTION (Judith Dawson, Sky TV):

I was just wondering about the remarks the Russian Foreign Minister has made about the sanctions on Serbia wondering whether there can be agreement amongst the Contact Group at least that those sanctions are lifted so that you might get Mr. Milosevic to put some pressure on Mr. Karadzic to actually get them to the peace table.

PRIME MINISTER:

The Foreign Secretary met Mr. Milosevic the other day and spent an hour and a half with Mr. Kozyrev this morning so he is perhaps better placed than I am to give you an up-to-date answer.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Both Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kozyrev believe that the international community has not sufficiently recognised President Milosevic’s courage in accepting the Contact Group plan; they believe that it should be further recognised by further relief of sanctions. Alain Juppe and I have explained to both of them that that is not practicable unless there is further progress. There has been some relief as you know, there are now flights into Belgrade airport, certain events which fell under sanctions have been relieved and there is a provision for humanitarian relief but further lifting of sanctions will have to depend in practice on further progress and President Milosevic knows that.

December 6, 1994
PMQT – 12 April 1994

Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 12th April 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

Engagements

Q1. Mr. Austin-Walker : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 April.

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. Austin-Walker : Does the Prime Minister recall that not a single vote was cast in the House on Second Reading against the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill and that 231 hon. and right hon. Members voted for it? Will he assure the House that nothing will be done by the Government side to obstruct the passage of that Bill and that an early opportunity will be found for the Report stage and Third Reading?

The Prime Minister : As I have indicated to the House before, we share the aim of eliminating discrimination against disabled people. We have done a great deal for disabled people in recent years and will do yet more, both in this Parliament and the next. What we need to do in Committee and thereafter is to look at the practical implications of the Bill, and that will be done.

Sir Peter Tapsell : Following his recent success in encouraging and welcoming the introduction of Russian ground troops into the former Yugoslavia, as part of the United Nations Protection Force, will my right hon. Friend try to use his influence to improve communications between the Secretary-General of the United Nations and President Yeltsin, so that the Russian President will not feel excluded from the implementation of resolution 836, for which Russia voted in the Security Council on 4 June 1993?

The Prime Minister : As my hon. Friend clearly indicates, Russia has a very important part to play in the peace process and I very much welcome the actions by the Russian deputy Foreign Minister during the past 24 hours to support the ceasefire negotiations. As far as the recent close air support is concerned, UNPROFOR and NATO acted in accordance with the Security Council resolution that my hon. Friend mentioned. Both resolutions 836 and 844 were at the time accepted by Russia. In that instance, the close air support operation did not require further consultation with any Government and in those circumstances it was correctly authorised by the Secretary-General’s special representative, but clearly, where it is militarily practicable, it is wise to seek the support of those countries that supported the resolution.

Mrs. Beckett : Is the appearance of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury at yesterday’s manifesto launch of Westminster city council–a council that the district auditor said wasted £21 million of taxpayers’ money–an admission that the Government are happy to condone waste and incompetence?

The Prime Minister : Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending some time in Birmingham, which I much enjoyed. If the right hon. Lady wishes to talk about waste and incompetence she might look at some of the activities of Birmingham city council in recent years.

Mrs. Beckett : What is the country to make– [Interruption.]

Madam Speaker : Order.

Mrs. Beckett : What is the country to make of the fact that the Minister in charge of the nation’s purse-strings openly endorses a council that sold three cemeteries for 5p each, which had to be bought back at a cost of millions of pounds, and that the district auditor says has wasted £21 million of public money? What kind of standards are these?

The Prime Minister : I should be more impressed with what the right hon. Lady has to say if she applied precisely the same criteria to many Labour authorities, not just Birmingham– [Interruption.] –that I have mentioned. Some of my hon. Friends have just mentioned others and there are many to draw from.

Mrs. Beckett : Does not the Prime Minister understand that he and his Government deceived the public about the poll tax, deceived the public about income tax and deceived the public about value added tax, and are now trying to deceive the public about council tax and about their record on local authorities, that no one believes the Government any longer and that that is why the local elections and the Euro elections will be a referendum on the record of the Prime Minister and his whole Government?

The Prime Minister : I am bound to say that that was just a touch laboured. If she wants to talk about deceit on taxation, the right hon. Lady might look at her hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) who, on the council tax, was forced to admit after weeks of prevarication that Conservative councils were noticeably less expensive to the council tax payer than Labour authorities. Whatever band of council tax one takes, the answer is the same : Labour councils tax more than Conservative councils.

Mr. Fabricant : Is my right hon. Friend as alarmed as I am at the unusual comments made by Vladimir Zhirinovsky in France this morning when he spoke about the possibility of a nuclear attack on France? Does he agree with me that now is not the time to talk about nuclear disarmament as some Opposition Members have done?

The Prime Minister : I agree with my hon. Friend about that. There should be no doubt that we will maintain our nuclear deterrent in its strength, quite unlike Opposition Members who for many years have been prepared to abandon it unilaterally.

Mr. Ashdown : Will the Prime Minister reaffirm that apart from the action taken by the United Nations being consistent with UN Security Council resolutions, as he has suggested, it was also necessary to support the authority of the UN and it was required for the protection of UN peacekeepers? Does he also agree with me that now is the time to keep our nerve, maintain our military determination and increase diplomatic pressure on the Serbs in order to persuade them that they have more to gain from returning to the peace process than from aggression or from further challenges to United Nations authority?

The Prime Minister : On this occasion, I am able broadly to agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Close air support will remain available to the UN commanders, and they will be able to call on it again if they consider it necessary under either resolution 836 or resolution 844. I hope that those who may be prepared to attack UNPROFOR will draw the appropriate lesson from what has happened so that further use of close air support is unnecessary. As regards keeping our nerve, we are determined to do whatever we can to try to bring about a full settlement. A huge amount has been achieved in the past eight weeks or so. We need to build on it in the weeks ahead, and there will be no loss of nerve here or, I hope, anywhere else.

Mr. Bates : Has my right hon. Friend seen the latest edition of Plant Location International which has carried out a poll of the world’s best regions for foreign direct investment in which Shenzhen, China is third, Cape province, South Africa is second and the northern region is first? Does not this excellent news demonstrate how the economic fortunes of the north-east have been transformed since 1979 under the present Government?

The Prime Minister : I am afraid that that particular publication was not part of my Easter reading, but I am delighted to hear what my hon. Friend has to say and I certainly share his view about the renewal of prospects, not just in the north-east, but in the whole of the northern part of England.

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

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

Mr. Donohoe : Making reference to the statement made earlier by the Prime Minister in connection with Birmingham, will the right hon. Gentleman condemn the lies and deceptions contained in last week’s Tory party broadcast?

The Prime Minister : I never condemn reality and truth. The reality is that we could have given a whole series of illustrations, not just of Birmingham city council, but of a series of other councils–Coventry, Waltham Forest, Derbyshire. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) knows all about Derbyshire and the chairman of the finance committee.

Mrs. Beckett indicated assent.

The Prime Minister : The right hon. Lady may contemplate that before she asks me again about Westminster or any other Conservative authority. So I think that the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) ought to consider the depth of corruption and despair that there is as a result of Labour local authorities.

Deregulation —

Q3. Mr. Steen : To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with other European political leaders about deregulation in respect of European directives.

The Prime Minister : The Commission has said that it will bring forward proposals that will involve the simplification or repeal of about 25 per cent. of Community legislation.

Mr. Steen : In view of the Prime Minister’s success in persuading the Commission of the need for greater deregulation, will he try and persuade the other European leaders of the need to embark upon a compliance cost assessment before any directive is implemented, so that every country in Europe knows the cost to its taxpayers before a directive is enforced and implemented?

The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend is right to stress the importance of compliance cost assessment, and we are actively encouraging other member states in the Community to introduce systems similar to our own. We are seeking to strengthen the Commission’s systems, so ensuring that all proposals for Community legislation are justified in terms of their costs and of their benefits, because the only rational way for Europe to behave in terms of its future legislation is to ensure that Europe becomes more competitive and avoids unnecessary on-costs and over- regulation.

Engagements

Q4. Mr. O’Hara : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 April.

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

Mr. O’Hara : Talking of Westminster, Library statistics tell us that Tory Westminster spends £78 more per capita than Liverpool and yet it manages to do that on a band D council tax which is less than one third of Liverpool’s. What possible justification can the Prime Minister give for such flagrant politically motivated gerrymandering of central Government support to Westminster?

The Prime Minister : One of the great differences between Westminster and many of the local authorities that the hon. Gentleman is so fond of is that Westminster collects its rents, for example. If one were to consider– [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman

Madam Speaker : Order.

The Prime Minister : If the hon. Gentleman were to examine the list of local authorities that have a bad rent collection record, he would find Labour local authorities heading that list and running right down it. He would find the same if he considered local authorities in debt, and the same with local authorities who have empty dwellings. The reality is, on any realistic measure of local authority performance, the worst local authorities are socialist local authorities.

Ministerial Visits

Q5. Mr. Brandreth : To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to visit the city of Chester.

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

Mr. Brandreth : Is my right hon. Friend aware that the city of Chester is one of the great cultural capitals of Europe, the home of two fine theatres and the place where the first movie was shown in this country, in 1890? Will my right hon. Friend join me in saluting the extraordinary contribution of film and theatre to this country’s economy and standing ; a contribution best exemplified by the unique career of Sir John Gielgud, who is visiting Westminster today and who celebrates his 90th birthday this week?

The Prime Minister : I am certainly happy to join my hon. Friend in his tribute to the film and variety industry, to the city of Chester and to Sir John Gielgud. I did not myself hear it, but I gather that those who did hear his remarkable King Lear over the weekend regarded it as one of the finest Lears that they had ever heard. He will be very welcome in Westminster, and I should like to add my congratulations to Sir John on his 90th birthday.

London (Policies)

Q6. Mr. Simon Hughes : To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the policies of Her Majesty’s Government which have been assessed as the most popular in London.

The Prime Minister : The hon. Member will see the best of London local government if he looks at the outstanding services offered by Conservative boroughs throughout London.

Mr. Hughes : If the Prime Minister is unwilling to change his most popular policies, which have reduced his support from more than 45 per cent. to 26 per cent. in the capital, would he like to consider changing his least popular policies and not close hospitals such as Guy’s which have now been shown to be part of a health service in which there is no surplus of beds, no surplus of resources and a huge amount of still unmet London-wide need?

The Prime Minister : What the hon. Gentleman either fails to understand or fails to mention is the fact that the changes in the hospital structure in London are mirrored by changes to primary health care that will deliver very dramatic improvements in primary health care for all Londoners. There is no doubt that that is necessary and that, as a result of these changes, Londoners will both deserve and receive the standards of health care that I believe they should have and that are enjoyed elsewhere.

April 12, 1994
Mr Major’s Speech to the British/American Chamber of Commerce – 1 March 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech, made to the British/American Chamber of Commerce in New York on Tuesday 1st March 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

Mr Chairman, thank you very much for that very warm welcome. It is a pleasure to be here in New York and to be your guest today and to see such a magnificent turn-out at this luncheon. I am very tentative about looking at the size of the turn-out, I recall the advice that Churchill once had for a speaker who was over-impressed by the size of the audience: “Always remember”, said Churchill, “that if you were about to be hanged the audience would be at least twice as large”. As a politician I am not sure whether it would be the same audience but I am sure it would be twice as large.

You mentioned a moment ago, Mr Chairman, C-SPAN and Prime Minister’s Questions. It occurs to me this is a Tuesday afternoon and so far as I can judge I have an audience in front of me that is unlikely to shout and answer back too much – we shall see when we come to questions.

I went yesterday to Pennsylvania with President Clinton. We went there, amongst other things, to see how the state was changing, how Pittsburgh, once one of the heartlands of the steel industry, has taken on an entirely new life in recent years. That cannot have been a pain-free transition for Pittsburgh, it must have taken a remarkable effort to make the changes that have been brought about in recent years. And I say that with a certain degree of confidence because my country has been changing as well. And it is very easy to forget from this distance of 3,000 miles how partial a view we may have of one another, even though we believe we know one another extremely well, a view so frequently provided principally by the distorting lens of news priorities and soap operas.

I wonder how many people in Britain think that all American life offers is either the glamour of Dallas or the mean streets of the cop movies that they see so frequently on television. And in precisely the same way I wonder how many people in America get a view of modern Britain either from downbeat films of inner city life or recreations of a bygone age, a world of Miss Marple or Middlemarch, a hidebound unchanging class ridden society.

It is a view I think reinforced, reinforced by the story first told by the scientist, Arthur C Clarke. During the last century the Chief Engineer of the British Post Office was called to testify before a Parliamentary Commission on whether an American invention deserved any notice at all, and the particular American invention was a telephone. And when asked whether Alexander Bell’s invention would be “of any use in Great Britain?”, he replied! “No, Sir, the Americans have need of a telephone but we do not, we have plenty of messenger boys.”

My more cynical advisers say to me; why not leave the image like that, let our American friends see us as still living in the Remains of the Day while we get on with running Brooks Brothers, Burger King or BP, making your shirts, grilling your burgers, pumping your gas, all by British companies.

But I do not wish to do that because I wish the image of my country to match up with the reality of the changes in my country and Britain has changed out of all recognition in the past 15 years and it is changing again, and again at speed in the 1990s. So let me just try in the next few minutes to change a few perceptions and perhaps remove a few misconceptions, because the companies from over there are doing rather well over here.

American figures show that British companies invested over 7 billion dollars in American business last year. We have 100 billion dollars worth of investments here in the United States and their exporters sell America 60 million dollars worth of goods each and every day of the year.

Like you, we in Britain have come through a recession, but we have come out stronger than we were before. In manufacturing our productivity rose over 5.5 percent last year, our labour costs actually fell. Unemployment too has been falling, much earlier in the economic cycle than after the recession in the early 1980s.

And this past year Britain’s economy has been growing twice as fast as forecast. And in the coming year, in the coming year we are again expecting the fastest growth rate among the main European countries.

But what we are looking for is not just a fast growth rate for one year or two years, what I am seeking is sustained growth, not a single year of success, and that is what our policies are set to achieve in the 1990s. And in the quest for that sustained growth with low inflation we start now from very solid foundations. We have low inflation, we have a sound financial framework, an enterprise culture, a flexible labour market and above all an open economy, open to trade and open to competition.

And let me expand on those virtues for just a moment. Last year our headline inflation rate dropped below 2 percent, our underlying rate is lower than we have seen for a generation. The inflation psychology, so damaging for so long to British interests, is at last in retreat and I intend to keep it that way.

British industry has certainly got that message, there has been a crucial change in the workplace, Even in the 1980s wages continued to grow too fast, earnings never rose by less than 7.5 percent a year, even in years of no growth and recession. Today that has changed, today the figure is down to 3 percent, the lowest figure for a quarter of a century,

And low inflation is important for many reasons, it has its own virtues and one of them I believe is that low inflation creates its own dynamic for investment and for growth, and because we have got inflation down and because the markets now know that it will stay low we have been able to cut interest rates from 15 percent to 5.25 percent in the last 4 years.

In our recession borrowing by the government rose, with recovery it is beginning to come down again and we took some tough decisions in our budget to ensure that it will. But we have still managed to keep our direct tax rates low, they have helped over recent years to make Britain a magnet for enterprise and for investment, Our business taxes are the lowest in Europe, our labour reforms are the most far reaching in Europe. I wonder how many of you remember half-time Britain, how many of you remember strikes as the bane of our economy, But these days you do not see that problem, these days they have faded into history, today we have less industrial strikes than at any time this century.

These are welcome changes but they are a platform upon which to build, they are not the be all and end all of what we are seeking. Because we still need more change, more change to sharpen our competitive edge, and that is why we are embarked on a fundamental review of all the factors affecting our ability to succeed in the global market place. Competitiveness is the key challenge for the 1990s and it is a challenge that the British welcome.

Long-term competitiveness depends, above all, on the quality, the ability and the skills of the workforce, and for that reason education is at the top of our domestic agenda. When we are told, for example, and this is a statistic I do not like, when we are told that the average child in Singapore or Japan is 2 years ahead of their British or their American counterpart alarm bells should ring on both sides of the Atlantic, we have heard them in Britain loud and clear.

So in Britain we are seeking to raise standards in our schools by developing a national curriculum and testing pupils’ attainment. Over the past decade we have doubled the number of young people going on to university. And over the three years immediately ahead of us, over those three years, we will treble the number of young people skilled as technicians, craftsmen and supervisors.

These are continuing changes, let me tell you what they are aimed to produce. What we are working for is nothing less than the re-skilling of Britain for the 21st century, and when I set it out in that fashion l hope you can begin to see what I mean about the pace of change in the United Kingdom.

We have taken exactly the same radical approach to science, to engineering and to technology. We are putting more into science and we are working to get more out of the science that now takes place and we are putting much more into supporting and assisting our export effort. Right here, for example, our “North America Now” campaign is an example of our new approach. We do not take our traditional markets for granted, we recognise that they have to be worked for and they have to be won, year after year after year after year in a world that is increasingly competitive.

If we are to be competitive, increasingly competitive, as a nation, it is not just industry that must innovate, of course industry must innovate but on their own that is not sufficient, government must do so as well and that is why I have launched a 10 year programme of reform. In every service funded by the taxpayer we are publishing standards and league tables of performance, devolving decisions and bringing in competition. We are now opening up capital projects to private sector investment and expertise, not just tiny projects but great communications projects like the Channel Tunnel rail link or new motorways.

There are huge opportunities here for national and for international investors in Britain in the years ahead. I believe that the days of monolithic government are over. The governments that will help their countries to be competitive will do less but they will do it better. All our government departments have been told to roll back the burden of regulation on business, if there is one British product I want to see less of it is our historical famous red tape, the sooner that can go the better it will be for all concerned.

We look around and see remarkable changes in the world, not just in my country but elsewhere. Power and economics have become much more diffuse, more complex, more multinational. Trade, finance and technology have made national boundaries economically less absolute. Even if we wish to, and personally I do not, we cannot insulate old industries and old habits from global competition, we have to be as lean as the leanest, to work as hard as the hardest, to be at the cutting edge of learning and advance technology.

It was put best I think by Professor Michael Porter of Harvard, let me quote to you for a moment what he said: “Innovation and up-grading result not from a comfortable home environment in which risks have been minimised but from pressure and challenge, from demanding home customers, from capable home-based suppliers, and most of all from local rivalry. The lesson to be learned is that competition works.” I am utterly sure that that is right.

Britain and America share that commitment to open markets. It is never easy to do that in the face of political pressures and that is why we applauded so much the conclusion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it did give America a moral leadership at a crucial time which enabled Mickey Kantor to build on the work that Carla Hills had done and to work with Leon Brittan together to drive through the most far reaching world trade deal in history.

But that is I think a beginning, but not the end. Those tariff cuts need to be implemented and they need to be implemented fast. I agreed with President Clinton about that in our discussions in the last two days. And we agreed we should set an early target – 1 January 1995 – for bringing the GATT settlement into effect. There is much unfinished business, particularly on services, much still to be done to remove trade tensions.

We understand and we share America’s impatience to see a freer flow of imports into Japan, we want to work for this within the GATT framework in which all countries take part. We must find a way of working together to open Japanese markets. Britain and American business, we can encourage the Japanese business community to support the forces of change in that country.

We in Britain have long been the spearhead of a new European relationship with Japan, we have been open to Japanese investment and that investment has triggered a revolution in technology, management, skills and industrial relations in the United Kingdom. And what America for a long time, and Japan more recently, have both realised is that Britain is the ideal base for operations in Europe. It is no accident that nearly 40 percent of all United States investment in Europe comes to Britain and we intend to keep it that way.

So that fight for competitiveness shapes our approach to Europe. There are still some, I fear too many, too many in Europe who wish to see it remain a narrow club, one which turns its back on the competitive challenge. I have said frankly to my European partners, and I repeat it here today, much of Europe is over-regulated, that costs jobs, there are people unemployed in Europe who would not be unemployed but for the burden of regulation in Europe over the last decade.

And how could it be otherwise when businessmen calculate that social costs represent nearly 50 percent of the average wage bill in say Germany or France. That is twice the burden carried by employers here in the United States or in Japan. In Britain we have kept much closer to your levels and while in continental Europe the dole queues grow longer, our unemployment has been falling.

We have said “No” firmly and finally to yet more social regulation and we will go on saying “No”. And it is not just an economic point, I think it goes beyond that. I believe it is morally wrong to give more support to people in work when doing so gives people out of work even less chance of getting a job in the future. The need for flexibility is a message I believe that Britain and the United States can jointly bring to the G7 job summit next month.

In Europe I believe that our arguments are gaining ground. We will remain in Europe at the centre of the debate, working for a new Europe that is open, wider, prosperous and peaceful. I believe that opening our doors to new members is essential to those aims. The progress of European Union membership underpinned democracy in Spain and Portugal in the 1970s, it is now the best hope of future peace and prosperity in central and Eastern Europe.

Mr Chairman, ancient hostilities still lie close beneath the surface of the new Europe. In the former Yugoslavia, as we see daily, they have broken through into tragedy. Every day on our television screens we see their effects in Bosnia. For the past 18 months or so, 2,500 of our troops have served bravely in the most difficult and the most dangerous part of Bosnia, thousands of people are alive today who would otherwise have died from hunger and privation because of their efforts.

I have agreed this morning with President Clinton that Britain and the United States will take joint action to build on the Sarajevo ceasefire, we have agreed to send a joint British/American planning mission to see how we can help restore public utilities there, we are both encouraging the United Nations to take action on Tuzla and Srebrenica and to develop plans for the other besieged towns; we both believe in the firm action taken just the other day to enforce the No Fly Zone and to protect United States forces; and Britain is supporting the American-led diplomatic initiative to seek agreement between Bosnia’s Croats and Muslims. Strong, coordinated international action has brought a small glimmer of hope in Sarajevo. To develop a wider peace will be enormously difficult but if our two countries with other international partners can strengthen the hand of the United Nations we may yet turn the corner in Bosnia and that must be the aim for us all.

Mr. Chairman, even in the United Kingdom we are not free from ancient enmities. I know that very many Americans care passionately about Northern Ireland; so, let me tell you, do I.

I want to see peace in Northern Ireland, not just a ceasefire, not just a temporary peace but a permanent, long-term peace that can give the people of Northern Ireland the opportunity to plan for the long-term future without the disruption and mayhem that they have had to suffer so consistently in the last quarter of a century.

I believe we took a large step forward in December when the Irish Prime Minister, Albert Reynolds, and I signed our Joint Declaration. Our initiative calls for a permanent end to violence and offers Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, an open highway to democratic life. It is there for them to take. The British and Irish governments, whose positions used to be so far apart, have united behind a common set of principles.

Our Declaration has received overwhelming support. Last weekend, a poll of opinion indicated that over 90% of the people throughout the whole of the island of Ireland want Sinn Fein to seize the opportunity and renounce violence and yet they still continue to hold back from the peace process and perpetuate violence. There have been 17 attacks on the security forces since the Declaration.

Lest anyone present should be unfamiliar with the realities of terrorism in Northern Ireland, let me give you just two statistics: the number of people killed in Northern Ireland last year by terrorists – 84; the number of people killed by the security forces – none. I hope that Sinn Fein can yet be persuaded to end violence and I believe that the strong support for peace coming from America can play an important part in this but in the meantime the British and the Irish governments will continue to work with the constitutional parties for a lasting political settlement and those constitutional parties represent 90% of the people of Northern Ireland.

I know that across America there are many people – businessmen, churchmen – who would like to help in the cause of peace. You can help. The business community in particular can help by investing in Northern Ireland and providing new jobs. As I have seen for myself on many occasions in factory visits in Northern Ireland, investors in Northern Ireland have chalked up a string of successes and just before I left the United Kingdom for this visit the leaders of the four main churches in Ireland called to see me in Downing Street. They wanted my support for their call for fair employment and investment in Northern Ireland and they got it wholly and unequivocally. I warmly endorse that appeal and I know that it is supported by the church leaders here in the United States as well. That investment will play its part in providing jobs across different religious instincts in Northern Ireland and will play an important part in promoting peace.

Mr. Chairman, change – difficult, demanding change – that has been the theme of everything I have had to say to you in the last few minutes. Technology has shrunk the world and calls for it to move and change at an ever faster pace. It has created a global financial market that never sleeps; it has made it feasible to design products in one corner of the world, manufacture them in another, assemble them in a third and sell them in a fourth; it has placed a higher premium than ever before on competitiveness. I won’t waste your time with cosy reminders of old friendships between our nations. Those friendships are part of our history and I believe part of our future as well but you who work at the sharp edge of our trading relationship know the realities of the market place: we work together when it is to our mutual advantage, we compete when it is not but we share an agenda for open markets, a healthy respect for successful competitors, an appetite for change. Mr. Chairman, in my belief those are the true guarantees of closeness and mutual esteem in the challenging years ahead. I have no doubt of our business and trading relationship; it is good and it will get better because of our shared interests, our shared instincts and our shared beliefs. [Applause].

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION:

Mr. Prime Minister, exactly how strong do you expect the British economic recovery to be in 1994 and 1995? Specifically, Sir, can you tell us how much do you expect the GDP to grow and how much do you expect unemployment to decline?

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me take those two points absolutely directly:

In the current year, we think GDP growth will be around 2.5%. That is a Treasury forecast, we see no reason to believe it will be less, certainly we would expect to reach 2.5%. It will be a little higher, we believe, the year after.

The recovery is steady and spreading. It is not sensational but it looks secure and steady and it looks as though it is going to grow. Over the past year, we have had unemployment falls in ten out of the last twelve months, rather earlier as I said a moment ago in the economic cycle than on previous occasions. We tend not to forecast the future of unemployment. I can only say that it does look as though the trend is downwards, how sharply I think it is difficult, to be frank, to make an honest judgement about but I think we will see a continuing decline in unemployment throughout this year and I believe throughout next as well.

QUESTION:

When, Mr. Prime Minister, do you anticipate that there will be true peace in Northern Ireland and what specific steps can the US Government take to contribute to bringing about that peace?

PRIME MINISTER:

The sooner the better, frankly. After 300 years it is a long time for people to realise that they can’t all sit in entrenched positions. There is a great will for peace in Northern Ireland, that is what has changed in the last few years. That will is manifestly there and those who dissent from that are being forced to the edges of debate on either side. How soon the peace will come, I would be very unwise to forecast. I believe there is every chance that it will come. The prospects for that are better I believe that we have seen for very many years. There will be setbacks. Nobody should imagine that it is going to roll gently ahead to a solution. Of course there will be setbacks, it is that sort of patchwork in Northern Ireland but I believe we are in a better position to try and secure it than we have had before though I would be very unwise to put a time frame on it.

As to what can be done from here, I believe the repeated and unequivocal support for the Joint Declaration that we have had from the United States Administration is immensely helpful. I believe allied to that the point I made a few moments ago about investment in Northern Ireland is immensely helpful. That isn’t just a plea for investment for the sake of jobs; it is because it genuinely does make a contribution in bringing the community together. Increasingly, the fresh investment and the fresh employers are bringing the community together by employing both Protestants and Catholics. It has a much wider impact than many people externally may imagine and it is very warmly welcomed not just by the churches but by every part of opinion in the Province.

QUESTION:

What were the significant trade and economic issues that you raised in your talks with President Clinton and what was his response?

PRIME MINISTER:

There were two really. The first was to look at the GATT deal. The GATT deal is a very remarkable deal. I think it is often not appreciated what a tremendous breakthrough it has been. It is infinitely the biggest and widest trade deal that the world has ever seen. It has brought whole sectors like agriculture into the GATT framework where previously they were outside. It is a remarkable innovation that GATT deal and it will become increasingly apparent I believe as year succeeds year that that is the case.

We discussed bringing forward the implementation of GATT if it can be done. It is not of course at the gift of the United States or the United Kingdom governments but we will lobby and encourage others to bring the implementation date for GATT forward to 1 January 1995. That is the first of the issues we discussed.

We discussed a range of issues to do with open markets and in particular the problems with Japan that I mentioned a moment ago. I won’t reiterate the points I made in my speech except to say that there is a wish I think across the industrialised West to see Japan accelerate the opening of her markets. There has been some movement and everyone is pleased about that but there is a very long way to go and we took the opportunity of discussing how we might assist in the opening of those markets.

QUESTION:

Mr. Prime Minister, what is your appraisal as to how well or poorly progress toward a true Common Market is going now? Do you have any plans for re-entering the European Monetary System and what are the prospects for European Monetary Union by, say, the year 2000 and carrying on from that, referring to your remarks in the speech, in terms of opening the doors of the European Union to new members, which new members?

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me take the last point first. We are in the last stages of negotiation with the EFTAN states Austria, Norway, Finland and Sweden and our expectation is, providing those negotiations are satisfactorily concluded, that they will enter the European Union within the next eighteen months or so – they will be very welcome.

At the moment, the Community is a fragment of Europe, it is not truly a European Community. Beyond that and on a longer time-scale, we wish to see the Visegrad countries enter; they won’t do so until they are economically ready. That is clearly some years ahead. In the meantime, we will try and negotiate trade and cooperation agreements with them and seek to progressively open our markets to their exports but to bring them into the Community too soon would neither help the Community nor help those particular states for they would not be economically ready for the competition within the Community.

As to how true a Common Market it is, truer today than it has been in the past. The Single Market has made a big difference. I wouldn’t pretend that it is perfect. There is just occasionally room for doubt as to how clearly all the regulations of the Community are enforced in some member countries. I put the point delicately here, I put it less delicately elsewhere so to that extent it isn’t a true Common Market and there is certainly more to be done.

We have no immediate plans to return to the Exchange Rate Mechanism. The likelihood of us returning in this Parliament think is minimal. I don’t believe that will happen.

As far as Economic Union is concerned, by which I take it you mean moving beyond the Exchange Rate Mechanism to a single currency right the way across the European Community, there are very sharply differing views in the Community about the desirability of that and how speedily it can be brought about so the views I express you must accept as my views and that there would be widely differing views from other quarters.

I don’t believe we will move to Monetary Union speedily and I don’t believe so because I don’t believe that the economic conditions right the way across the European Union will be appropriate for us to do so. If we were to attempt a single currency without a proper coordination of economies, I think we would give rise to very substantial structural unemployment in the southern states of Europe and as a result of that a political imperative for massive resource transfers from the north of Europe to the south. That would be politically impossible for the northern states, German, France and Britain, to persuade their electors to make so I believe on economic grounds that European Monetary Union ought to be treated very carefully and I do not myself believe that the economic circumstances to bring it about are likely to be there in the next few years. Others disagree but quite apart from the political and other arguments, economically early Monetary Union seems to me to be a folly we should avoid. [Applause].

QUESTION:

Mr. Prime Minister, finally, can you give us your views please on the prospects for peace in the former Yugoslavia and as a corollary to that what do you see as the future role of NATO and the specific British and specific US involvement in NATO? Do you think that NATO should take a more activist, armed role in policing the trouble spots of Europe or of the rest of the world?

Do you see the entry of NATO forces into the Bosnian War as a precursor to a more activist NATO policy or is this just an isolated, perhaps one-time case?

PRIME MINISTER:

NATO is changing at the moment. The nature of the Alliance is changing. I think it was set out perhaps most vividly in the Partnership for Peace agreements that were reached at the recent NATO summit and the plans for combined joint task forces that are now being examined and implemented at the present time.

I think that does imply that NATO will become progressively more activist. Whether it will become dramatically more activist in the short-term I think is open to doubt but where there is a need for some intervention in a trouble spot around the world, frankly I see no other body other than NATO that would be remotely competent to undertake that role so although it has particular problems for the main contributors to NATO, I do believe over time it will increasingly become more activist.

One sees this to a point of course in Yugoslavia with the decision being taken to enforce a no-fly zone, a Security Council Resolution passed very nearly a year ago that it was necessary to implement just a day or so ago and of course there are a substantial number of troops from NATO nations on the ground in Bosnia at the present stage.

I wish I could tell you what the answer is to your first question about peace in Bosnia. I fear I can’t. What it does seem to me is that the present position is this:

There are two strands towards bringing this frightful conflict to a conclusion. The first is the political process and the advances made over the last 48 hours in Washington with the negotiations with the Muslims and the Croats certainly are very welcome. I think that offers a glimmer of hope and I hope we can build on it and persuade the Serbs also to make political advances.

The second element is what is physically happening on the ground. What happened in Sarajevo was a very remarkable exercise. The commander on the ground, General Rose, negotiated a ceasefire and agreed that the heavy weapons in the area would be corralled and effectively policed by United Nations troops. That, with the impact of the ultimatum and also I think the impact of the Russian involvement, meant that that was a very successful enterprise indeed.

There are differing views about whether Russia should be involved and to what extent. I take the view very strongly that Russia does need to be involved and that we wish Russia to use her influence on the Serbs just as we wish the United States and the European Union to use their influence upon other combatants. That, I believe, is the way that we will move more speedily towards a settlement.

There is a glimmer of hope now. We have seen it before and it has slipped and faded away. Agreements that were made have often been dishonoured almost before the ink is dry on the agreement so no-one can be certain that we are on a pathway to peace. I do believe the prospects are better now than they have been because of the success of Sarajevo and because of the success of the talks in Washington over the last few days.

March 1, 1994
PMQT Written Answers – 24 February 1994

Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 24th February 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

Advertising

Mr. Matthew Taylor : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list all television advertising, newspaper advertising, radio advertising and other promotional campaigns with a budgeted cost in excess of £10,000 conducted by his office (a) in the current financial year and (b) planned for 1994-95, showing for each the objectives and mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of the advertising.

The Prime Minister : No advertising has been incurred in my office on promotional or advertising campaigns in the current financial year. None is planned for 1994-95.

Royal Family

Mr. Frank Fields : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list those areas with regard to the royal family, on which it is his practice to answer questions.

The Prime Minister : I will answer questions which are within the conventions of this House and raise issues of public policy, where appropriate.

Engagements

Sir Peter Tapsell : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 24 February.

Mr. Harry Greenway : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 24 February.

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

Yugoslavia

Mr. Wareing : To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 21 February, Official Report, columns 33-34, if Russia would be consulted and its approval need to be given before NATO air-strikes in Bosnia-Herzegovina were carried out.

The Prime Minister : United Nations Secretary Council resolution 836 authorises the use of air power in support of UNPROFOR in and around the safe areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina. There is no need for further decisions by the Security Council.

We nevertheless regard consultation with Russia as of the utmost importance. We welcome the Russians’ positive contribution to lifting the siege of Sarajevo, which demonstrated their commitment to bringing the conflict to a peaceful end.

Mr. Wareing : To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 21 February, Official Report, columns 33-34, if he will give President Yeltsin’s response to his description of the specific terms of the North Atlantic Council’s response to the United Nations Secretary-General’s request for NATO assistance at Sarajevo; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister : I have nothing further to add to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member on 21 February at columns 33-34.

Gifts

Mrs. Clwyd : To ask the Prime Minister in what circumstances gifts made to the Prime Minister which are state property may be used; and, in the case of gifts of jewellery, who is entitled to wear it.

The Prime Minister : These are matters for the Prime Minister’s discretion.

February 24, 1994
Mr Major’s Comments on the Former Yugoslavia (II) – 11 January 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the former Yugoslavia during an interview given in Brussels on Tuesday 11th January 1994.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked whether the threat of air strikes was useful as it had been used before].

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t think NATO have made threats in that sense. NATO has set out its policy in certain circumstances, they did that last August. What has happened today is we have set out two specific areas where we think action is needed: one is in Srebrenica where it is necessary to get the Canadian United Nations contingent out and the Dutch contingent in, and secondly, of course, at Tusla airport where it is very desirable to open the airport to increase the flow of humanitarian aid.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked if there was now a mandate].

PRIME MINISTER:

There are a number of people who have to agree with that. It isn’t just a question of snapping your fingers and then proceeding. There has to be a proper plan drawn up, it has to be agreed by a series of people, in some cases by the United Nations Secretary-General but it is agreed that we will prepare plans for those contingencies.

QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked if this was likely to be the situation].

PRIME MINISTER:

That is not for me to determine. We have made it clear that if necessary it will happen and if necessary it may involve the use of air strikes.

January 11, 1994
Mr Major’s NATO Summit Statement – 10 January 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s statement at the NATO Summit on 10th January 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

NATO’s fundamental role

NATO has been the cornerstone of post-war Europe’s security. It has been by far the most successful collective security organisation in history.

Now is not the time to weaken the cornerstone.

But we cannot take it for granted. Keeping our security insurance up to date requires a continuing commitment from all of us.

US Commitment to Europe

President Clinton said yesterday that the core of American security remained with Europe.

I warmly welcome the renewed commitment by the United States.

NATO has been vital to the transatlantic relationship; and the American contribution continues to be vital to NATO.

The need for change

NATO must adapt to meet new challenges, while preserving its effectiveness.

The main challenges are clear:

– what relationships to develop with the new democracies to our East;

– how to organise ourselves politically and militarily, to engage in new missions to promote and restore peace;

– how to ensure that NATO adjusts to the emerging security and defence identity of the European Union.

Enlargement\Russia\partnership for peace

It must be our objective to consolidate democracy in all of the countries to the east now embracing it; to develop a closer partnership with them; and to help to enhance their security and stability.

These countries are not all alike, and NATO’s relationships with them will differ. Partnership for Peace recognises that. It is, rightly, an evolutionary and transitional process without a predetermined end result.

We must be clear about a number of points:

The process could clearly lead to the admission of new members. The door is open.

We cannot yet define who will be able to meet the obligations of membership, or when.

Those who wish to join have much work to do, with our assistance, to prepare themselves.

The Poles, Czechs and Hungarians are European peoples with fast-developing democracies and a strong claim to membership.

There must be no new dividing line in Europe; no recreation of opposing blocs.

We must show that NATO is a genuine partner for a democratic Russia, not an opponent. It is therefore essential for NATO to build a closer relationship with Russia, which acknowledges that country’s special status.

Partnership for Peace will provide real and practical benefits to NATO and to Partners; through a non-discriminatory, gradual and incremental approach, with the prospect of eventual membership for some.

Equipping NATO for new tasks\Combined Joint Task Forces\European Defence identity

NATO itself needs further change to ensure we are better prepared and equipped for new missions such as peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian and sanctions operations.

Combined Joint Task Forces are a sensible and imaginative concept, to supplement but not to replace the Integrated Military Structure.

The UK will play a leading role in the Combined Joint Task Force in the NATO HQ at AFNORWEST in High Wycombe. We also have a strong contribution to make in AFCENT in Germany.

These more flexible structures will also help NATO to be more responsive to the European Defence aspirations. Europe cannot afford and does not want separate forces, separate HQs or separate command and control structures.

I support the idea of a further review of NATO’s military structures designed to promote adaptation to new missions and to facilitate a more specific European profile within the Alliance.

Counter-proliferation

I support the US approach on counter-proliferation. The defence-related aspects should continue to be seen in wider political context of non-proliferation policy. I am glad that NATO’s work can be carried forward by all Sixteen Allies, including France.

Former Yugoslavia

NATO has so far done efficiently what it has been asked to do: support for the United Nations, sanctions enforcement in the Adriatic, air operations in support of UNPROFOR and the no-fly zone, and planning for a peace implementation operation.

As Bosnia struggles through another desperate winter of war, we face very serious questions which cannot be resolved today.

On the one hand, the parties purport to be negotiating seriously while, on the other, they are bent on prosecuting the war, with UN humanitarian forces from my own and other countries operating with difficulty between them.

We shall remain in close touch with our partners in UNPROFOR and NATO. We shall consider with them what realistic help we can continue to give to keep Bosnians alive and encourage the peace process.

Conclusion

Europe is still in flux following the end of the Soviet Union and of the cold war. A NATO which continues to change rapidly and relevantly will remain central to the Euro-Atlantic cause. Partnership for Peace, combined Joint Task Forces, the new focus on counter-proliferation, are important steps along the way. Follow up work will have full UK support. We were at the forefront of NATO’s creation and will be equally active in its transformation.

January 10, 1994
PMQT – 7 December 1993

Below is the text of Prime Minister’s Question Time from 7th December 1993.

PRIME MINISTER:

Engagements

Q1. Mr. Madden : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 7 December.

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. Madden : May I ask the Prime Minister a question of which I have given him notice? Will he explain why only a quarter of the 4, 000 refugees from the former Yugoslavia whom Britain agreed to take 12 months ago have arrived? As the British Government have always opposed military intervention to stop aggression and the means of self-defence for the people of Bosnia, does the Prime Minister agree that he and his Government have an overwhelming moral obligation to persuade the United Nations to take appropriate action to ensure that protected areas are protected, that humanitarian relief gets to the people who so desperately need it and, finally, that vulnerable people, including those who need medical aid, receive refuge and the urgent medical attention that they need?

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

I understand the genuine concern that the hon. Gentleman expresses, and I know that he has expressed it on occasions in the past. He will be aware that, just over a year ago, we agreed to take up to 1,000 humanitarian cases from the former Yugoslavia. We agreed to do that when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross judged it to be necessary. It is not necessary at the moment to give a further undertaking because, to date, only 438 cases have been recommended to us for receipt in this country. As the hon. Gentleman will know, in addition to that commitment, we have given more than £150 million worth of assistance to the former Yugoslavia, and our service men, as at the end of last week, have now escorted more than 1,500 aid convoys delivering more than 70,000 tonnes of aid.

Mr. John Townend : Is my right hon. Friend aware that, since the Budget, the forward interest rate has dropped? Is that not an indication that the markets have confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver their promises on lower inflation and large reductions in the Budget deficit?

The Prime Minister : It is certainly the case that the markets are indicating greater confidence about the future levels of inflation than we have seen for many years. Certainly, the forward market illustrates that. Inflationary pressures are very subdued at present. We intend to keep them subdued in the future.

Mr. John Smith : Can the Prime Minister explain why the first Budget resolution to be voted on tonight is designed to prevent any debate or vote on VAT on fuel? Why is the Prime Minister so desperate to avoid allowing the House of Commons to vote on that issue?

The Prime Minister : The House of Commons has voted on that issue on more than one occasion in the past. Since we seem to have provided the compensation that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) thought was necessary, I am surprised that the right hon. and learned Gentleman raises the matter.

Mr. John Smith : If the Prime Minister is confident about his so-called compensation package, why can we not debate it and vote on it in this House? Surely the reason why the motion has been tabled is to let Tory Back Benchers off the hook after they promised their constituents that they would vote against it.

The Prime Minister : We shall be interested to see whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to bring that back in the future, in view of the fact that, from the beginning, his policy has been to have some sort of energy tax and he signed up to that as recently as a few days ago. I reiterate the fact that we have provided compensation which his colleague suggested was necessary.

Mr. John Smith : The Prime Minister is not dealing with the question. Why, in the motion, is the House of Commons to be deprived of an opportunity to debate and vote on VAT? Why does not the Prime Minister have the honesty to admit that he wants to avoid an embarrassing debate and an embarrassing vote on a tax that will remain deeply unpopular with the British people and those Tory Members who vote for it?

The Prime Minister : The right hon. and learned Gentleman has a faulty memory. We voted on the matter and approved it after the Budget in April. All that has changed since then is the generous compensation package, amounting, in the third year, to £1.2 billion to help 15 million people.

Mr. Luff : Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the decision of the American company, Southco, to locate a major manufacturing plant in my constituency of Worcester, creating some 200 new jobs in the next few years? Is that not further proof–if proof were needed–that the Government have the right policies to attract inward investment to this country and that the Opposition have the wrong ones?

The Prime Minister : In recent years, this country has certainly received a disproportionate amount of inward investment coming into Europe and from one European country to another. That reflects this country’s disinflationary tendency, the many supply-side reforms that we made to free up the market, and the fact that we are not prepared to add to employers’ social costs, which would create unemployment. This is the place to invest, to be competitive and to grow, and investors around the world recognise that and are acting on it.

Q2. Mr. Eastham : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 7 December.

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

Mr. Eastham : A few months ago, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry undertook an inquiry into the aerospace engineering industry. That industry is one of our biggest exporters, contributing £2.7 billion to our balance of payments. The all-party Committee recommended to the House–

Madam Speaker : Order. I really must have a question from the hon. Gentleman now.

Mr. Eastham : Will the Prime Minister look at that report, in which the Committee recommended that special aid be given to the industry over the next 10 years? That would reinforce the industrial base which the Prime Minister is always talking about.

The Prime Minister : I know the hon. Gentleman’s long-standing interest in the aerospace industry. Equally, he will know that the Government have done more to assist the aerospace industry in recent years than either any party in the history of this House or other countries across Europe.

Mr. Ward : Does my right hon. Friend agree that the collapse of the GATT round would be a disaster for world trade and that it would affect in particular the EC and third-world countries? Will he do all that he can to get it back on track?

The Prime Minister : I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the GATT round. There have been substantial discussions between the European Community negotiator and Mr. Kantor from the United States in the past 24 hours. They have not yet reached agreement on all the issues. Substantial progress has been made and I hope that they will soon be able to go to Geneva where any outstanding matters can then be solved. I must repeat a point that I have made to the House before : the advantages of a satisfactory agreement in the Uruguay round are profound, not just for the industrialised countries in the north but for countries in the south that need our markets open to them for their future. The consequences of a failure in the GATT round could be damaging, not just for the industrial countries but for everyone. I hope that each country that finds itself unable to agree to any minor part of that agreement will consider the implications for the whole world if the agreement is not signed.

Q3. Mr. Kirkwood : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 7 December.

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

Mr. Kirkwood : Will the Prime Minister accept that thousands and thousands of second marriages in this country may simply be blown apart by the additional financial pressure caused by Christmas unless the Government act immediately on the recommendations of the Social Security Select Committee on the operation of the Child Support Agency? Will the Prime Minister take personal charge of framing the Government’s response to that report– [Interruption.] –so that the recommendations can be taken as a whole and acted upon before the House rises for the Christmas recess? [Interruption.] The Prime Minister must understand that the bipartisan Opposition support that the Child Support Agency has enjoyed to date will be put at risk, or may even be withdrawn, unless he does that before Christmas.

The Prime Minister : I caught the gist of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I am afraid that, with the disruption immediately in front of him, I did not catch all of it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security and I welcome the Committee’s unequivocal support for the basic principles that underpin the Child Support Act 1991. My right hon. Friend is examining the recommendations that were made by the Select Committee, together with comments and observations made by other people recently. He will reply as soon as he has completed that examination. We will ensure that there is no unnecessary delay.

Q4. Mr. Harry Greenway : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 7 December.

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

Mr. Greenway : Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to see today’s report of the new schools inspectorate which speaks of real improvements in many schools, but says that some primary schools should achieve higher standards and that joined-up writing should be taught to children before the age of eight? Is it not time for some joined-up thinking on education from the Labour party?

The Prime Minister : On the last point, my hon. Friend must not ask for too much. He certainly must not ask Opposition Members to run before they can walk. As Her Majesty’s chief inspector said, the report published this morning shows that what he calls “significant dividends” are now flowing from the national curriculum and testing. The report also puts the spotlight on some continuing problems that we are determined to tackle. For example, it is unacceptable for some pupils, particularly those in inner- city schools, to be short changed by an inadequate education. I can assure the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will make full use of his powers to ensure that those children receive an adequate education.

Ms Corston : Is the Prime Minister aware that the miserly 50p a week announced by the Chancellor to assist pensioners with their fuel bills means that a pensioner with gas and electricity will spend 10 weeks’ money in one year just paying the VAT on the standing charge? Is not that a further fraud on the British pensioner?

The Prime Minister : The hon. Lady has neglected to mention that £1.2 billion extra will be available to help 15 million people meet the costs of their fuel. She also neglected to acknowledge that that extra help is built into the base of the pension and is a permanent addition upon which future increases are paid. At the end of the three-year period, a number of pensioners will find full compensation and others will be very nearly to it. That is not a miserly contribution.

Q5. Mr. Gallie : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 7 December.

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

Mr. Gallie : Is my right hon. Friend aware of the technical and cost -effective successes of Jetstream Prestwick in the production of turbo-prop aircraft? Is my right hon. Friend further aware of the problems it faces from a highly subsidised and competitive marketplace which is currently restricted?

The Prime Minister : My hon. Friend is a formidable fighter for Prestwick and for Jetstream. I am aware, of course, of the tradition of success of the Jetstream turbo-prop aircraft. As my hon. Friend knows from his meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, both the Department of Trade and Industry and the Scottish Office remain in close touch with Jetstream about the future. [Interruption.]

Madam Speaker : Order. The Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister : You must let the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) shout for a minute Madam Speaker–it clears all that is in his brain.

DTI officials are today meeting Jetstream to consider how to pursue its representations on unfair support to manufacturers overseas. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry will be meeting Jetstream later this month to discuss the up-to-date position.

December 7, 1993
Text of the Queen’s Speech – 18 November 1993

Below is the text of the Queen’s Speech, given in the House of Lords by HM Queen Elizabeth II, on 18th November 1993.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

The Duke of Edinburgh and I look forward to our tour of Caribbean countries next spring. We shall visit France to inaugurate, with the President of the French Republic, the Channel Tunnel in May; and to attend the ceremonies to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings, in June. We shall visit Canada to attend the Commonwealth Games in August.

My Government attach the highest importance to national security. They will maintain full support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. They will work to secure NATO’s adaptation to the changing security environment, and to continue developing the operational role of the Western European Union. My Government will work for full implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, and for the entry into force of the Open Skies Treaty. Britain’s minimum independent nuclear deterrent will be maintained.

My Government will work for the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to promote the indefinite and unconditional extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to encourage international 2 responsibility in conventional arms transfers. They will take part constructively in negotiations on a verifiable and comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban. They will continue to help with the safe and secure transport of nuclear weapons for dismantling in the former Soviet Union.

Now that the Treaty of Maastricht has entered into force, My Government will attach particular importance to implementing the new common foreign and security policy and intergovernmental co-operation in the fields of justice and home affairs. They will work to ensure that the principle of subsidiarity is applied to European Community legislation. My Government will promote financial and budgetary discipline in the Community. They will work within the Community for a successful conclusion to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations.

My Government will work for a rapid conclusion of accession agreements with Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and will continue to put forward the case for European countries which are ready and wish to join the European Community.

My Government will strive for a peaceful settlement in the former Yugoslavia. They will provide help for political and economic reform in the states of the former Soviet Union, and their integration into the international community.

My Government will play a constructive role in strengthening the United Nations’ capacity to undertake peacekeeping and preventive action. They will work for full Iraqi compliance with Security Council Resolutions.

My Government welcome the recent breakthrough in the Middle East peace process. They will continue to support efforts to bring lasting peace to the region.

My Government will work for the long-term stability and prosperity of Hong Kong and to co-operate with China to implement the Sino-British Joint Declaration in the best interests of the Hong Kong people.

My Government will play an active part in the Commonwealth. They will support construction of a democratic society in South Africa.

My Government will maintain a substantial aid programme to promote sustainable development and good government.

My Government will introduce legislation to place the Secret Intelligence Service and Government Communications Headquarters on a statutory basis; and to make further provisions for the oversight and accountability of them and the Security Service.

In Northern Ireland My Government will continue their efforts to defeat terrorism through impartial and resolute enforcement of the law, to uphold the democratic wishes of its people and seek political progress by broadly based agreement, to strengthen economic progress and to create equality of opportunity for all sections of the community. They will maintain positive relations with the Republic of Ireland.

My Government will maintain their fight against terrorism, throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Members of the House of Commons,

Estimates for the public service will be laid before you.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

My Government will continue with firm financial policies designed to support continuing economic growth and rising employment, based on permanently low inflation.

My Government will bring together tax and expenditure decisions in a unified Budget. Fiscal policy will be set to bring the budget deficit back towards balance over the medium term. My Government will reduce the share of national income taken by the public sector. They will continue to promote enterprise and improve the supply performance of the economy.

The Citizen’s Charter will remain central to My Government’s programme for improving public services.

Legislation will be introduced to give force to the changes in the European Community’s system of own resources following the agreement at the Edinburgh European Council.

Legislation will be introduced to facilitate deregulation and to remove obstacles to contracting out by central and local government.

My Government will continue to give priority to law and order. Legislation will be introduced to allow the courts to deal more effectively with young offenders and to make improvements in the criminal law.

A Bill will be introduced to improve the organisation and management of the police so that they are better able to combat crime, and to strengthen the administration of magistrates’ courts.

My Government will continue to develop their policies on social security so that help is concentrated on those most in need and expenditure is kept within 4 affordable limits. Legislation will be introduced to raise the National Insurance Contributions paid by employees.

Legislation will be introduced to privatise British Coal.

My Government will bring forward legislation to reform local government in Scotland and Wales.

My Government will introduce legislation to establish new arrangements for funding teacher training in England and Wales and to reform student unions.

My Government will bring forward a Bill to reform the law on Sunday Trading in England and Wales.

Bills will be introduced to take forward Environment Agency planning, and to reform the law on trade marks.

Other measures will be laid before you.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.

November 18, 1993