TRANSCRIPT
John Major
andSarah Montague.
Sarah Montague
The laboratory is in the constituency of the former Prime Minister John Major who is in our radio car now. Good morning.
John Major
Good morning.
Sarah Montague
What do you think should be done?
John Major
As far as the company is concerned I very much hope the discussions that are going on will provide the financial resources to enable this research to continue.
Sarah Montague
As far as the law is concerned?
John Major
Well I'll come to that in just a second. I think the first point to make is that it is essential that they have long term funding. The idea of constant extensions of funding of a fortnight or a month of course just discourages business to the company and forces it out of business commercially. As far as the law is concerned I think the changes the Government had in mind are fine as far as they go, changes in the Trade Union and Labour Relations' law and also on the Intimidatory law, the so called hate mail. I think there are other things that can be done as well. I think it's necessary to look at how company directors can easily be identified, and staff as well, and therefore targeted and I have some ideas I shall be putting to the 91热爆 Secretary about that. I think also we might look at some tighter controls on electronic data basis which provide a good deal of information to the demonstrators. So there's a range of things I think, and I believe the Government are sympathetic, the 91热爆 Secretary is sympathetic, I think there are a range of things the Government are looking at and can continue to look at in order to protect against this sort of activity.
Sarah Montague
The trouble is if somebody wants to protest against somebody who is experimenting on animals they are always going to be able to find out who would be experimenting on animals.
John Major
Well no one is objecting to proper protesting. There is a long tradition in this country of reasonable protesting but what has been happening at Huntingdon is not normal everyday protesting. Hate mail is appalling; there have been fire bomb attacks; there have been ammonia attacks on staff. All sorts of serious criminal activity has continued. So I think we ought to realise that we are not just talking about the average everyday protest. We are talking about serious criminal activity, and serious criminal activity requires protection of the law for people going about their law abiding business.
Sarah Montague
But in terms of how you would change the law and then enforce it as Steven Evans was reporting there, that difficulty.
John Major
Well I think the enforcement of the law in some cases related simply to the fact that is confiscation of property, but of course the penalties can be changed by Parliament. Parliament may have to change the penalties away simply from confiscation of property to other forms of punishment. That's a matter for the 91热爆 Secretary to consider, and I hope he will do so.
Sarah Montague
Of course the future for Huntingdon Life Sciences depends on this decision today by the Royal Bank of Scotland, who of course are making a commercial decision here. What would you say to them?
John Major
Well I think it is wider than a commercial decision. If this company, which are carrying out Government licensed activity, are forced out of business because protestors are targeting their financial advisors then the first thing that happens is that those protestors will move on to other companies in the pharmaceutical area. So I think there is a much wider interest which of course is why Lord Sainsbury and the Government are concerned about it as well. So I think there are several options, one is the extension of the facility by the Royal Bank of Scotland; a second one under examination is a wider package to assist the company with new investors to make sure that it can continue its work. A range of discussions are going on at the moment and I hope they will come to a satisfactory conclusion very speedily.
Sarah Montague
Changing the subject now. The Times is reporting on its front page today that we are in for a dirty election, assuming of course that the election is in May, that there are going to be personal attacks on party leaders. Now given of course that the last election the famous, now infamous Tory line was with the demon eyes campaign where you targeted Tony Blair, what would your advice be to the current Tory leadership given your experience with that?
John Major
Well really do come off it. There was one single advertisement of that sort that was withdrawn. The attacks on the Conservative leaders both in the period into the run up to the last election and during the run up to the last election and in the election were continuous. It's been the constant habit of some members of the Government when under criticism to attack the critic and not to answer the criticism. Now one way of course of having a proper debate at the next election would be to have had the televised debate that was on offer. Now I am very sorry that that's not going to happen, but the Government have backed away from it, the fact that the Government have back away from it, there's a certain sense of deja vu there. We saw that before the last election I was challenged to a debate. I think, anytime, any place was the suggestion put to me. Once I agreed it turned out to be no time, no place. The labour party put every blockage they could in the way of that debate whilst leaking to the press, in the way that we have subsequently come to realise is there habit, that it was us who were preventing the debate from going ahead. I would hope the Prime Minister this time would in fact accept a debate with William Hague.
Sarah Montague
But surely the crucial phrase that you use there is "once I agreed", because it took you some time and it was at a point when you realised that you were lagging in opinion polls that you agreed?
John Major
Simply not so, that's simply not so. We agreed, we asked someone to negotiate and during the negotiations the Labour party put up objection after objection in order to push it back. We could have agreed a debate and we could have had a debate. That is history the Labour party backed away from it last time.
Sarah Montague
Just very briefly. This time do you think you would have faired differently?
John Major
This time I think we would and I think the Prime Minister is very unwise to back away from this debate, I cannot see why he is doing it unless he thinks he will lose the debate. It is several months before the election the media can make satisfactory arrangements. I think it's now accepted that Mr Kennedy the Liberal Democrat leader should have a part in that debate. There is ample time to set it up on a proper footing, and I would think democratically that's the right thing now to do and I hope it will happen.
Sarah Montague
Thank you very much.
John Major
Thank you.
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Please Note:
This transcript was typed from an on-air broadcast and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the 91热爆 cannot vouch for its accuracy.
