Interviewer
Prime Minister, the French seem to do these things on a bigger scale than us. Have you actually enjoyed the Summit and the Bicentennial?
Prime Minister
We have enjoyed it very much but it seemed quite long because we had the two things. But we have been looked after wonderfully and the arrangements with regard to the Summit were really extremely good and of course with regard to the Bicentennial spectacular.
Interviewer
You have of course at this Summit reaffirmed the sound economic policies that the seven have been following but there are worries on inflation. Do you see any relief in sight for British home owners and others? [end p1]
Prime Minister
I think one of the benefits of these Summits is that we all now know the right economic recipes and that we spot them when things are going wrong in sufficient time to correct them. Yes we have an inflation problem, so have some of the others, and therefore we are saying that the top priority is to correct that.
We have also spotted something else as being a slight tendency towards protectionism again and so we have come up with a very vigorous communique to stop that as well.
Interviewer
But you have said that you think inflation may have peaked, does that mean you think interest rates will soon be going down?
Prime Minister
We hope that inflation will be going down particularly towards the end of this year. It takes sometime to wait for them to work.
Interviewer
Another domestic problem that you have dealt with here is drugs. We understand that you are particularly concerned about the phenomenally addictive drug, crack. Do you really think, given the size of the industry, that there is any chance you can stop the drug barons now? [end p2]
Prime Minister
We have come to cooperate far more on the drug scene. As you know, there was a new United Nations Convention last year which asked all countries who ratified it to pass laws which meant that the drug barons could not benefit from the profits of their trade. We have passed ours and we have made many agreements with other countries that they can trace the profits of their criminals in our country and ours in theirs. So the net is drawing in.
What we have looked at this time is to look at some of the arrangements for laundering the money so that it goes from dirty money to being respectable, deciding that we do not know enough about how that is done and where it is done and got the biggest international financial organisations on tracing it so that we can tighten up again, tighten the noose again on the drug barons so that they do not profit from their trade and therefore we hope that trade will be strangled.
Interviewer
And tougher penalties?
Prime Minister
Yes, we have quite tough penalties. On ours you can have up to fourteen years imprisonment for laundering money, among other things. And we have already taken £8 million away from the drug barons and we have got another £8 million under restraint. So bearing in mind it is quite a new law, that has been very successful. [end p3]
Interviewer
Moving rapidly on, Mr Bush is very pleased with the package for Hungary and Poland and we have seen that extraordinary letter from Mr Gorbachev. Do you think in your lifetime we will see effectively the complete crumbling of communism in the East?
Prime Minister
May I say that we are also very pleased with the package for Poland? We did ours and Mr Bush has done his and they are also very similar. And also pleased with the package for Hungary. Because we have said to them: “Look, when you change your politics, ready to free them up, and have got a chance of getting through on a freer economy, then we will help. But of course you will have to change your ways to run your economy soundly”. And so we have all come out with that similar formula.
You ask me whether we shall in my lifetime really see the Eastern economies really free, really prosperous. I do not know, I would hope so. The early years of difficulty are going to be the worst because they do not know how to start because they have got no-one there who has ever worked in a free economy. They have got no-one there who has ever run a factory on their own responsibility and it is jolly difficult when you have been told you do not do anything unless you have got a specific instruction to turn round and do it in a highly controlled country. [end p4]
But then had you asked me ten or fifteen years ago whether I thought this crack in the communist system, this tremendous fissure would have come, I would not have thought it would. And it came because of Mr Gorbachev and his vision and his sense to see that his country was not delivering the goods.
So the unexpected happens in politics and what they are wanting now is a breakthrough of enough people to be successful to show others that it can be done. And that is where we want to help all we can.
Interviewer
The final topic of course is the environment. You have set up an international framework but what more should we be doing in Britain to protect the environment?
Prime Minister
Well, we are doing a very great deal, as you know. We have got a very expensive programme on taking sulphur out of the coal for electricity, something like £2 billion. We are doing a great deal on rivers, 95 percent of our rivers are good or fair which is the best in the Community, and we have a big programme for cleaning up the beaches and for raising the quality of water even further. [end p5]
Every single thing we do about it does require a lot of money which means that we have got to go on growing in order to meet the expenditure. And we have quite stringent rules now, and quite rightly so, about what is dumped in the North Sea and what cannot be dumped and that also is very good.
We have a framework agreement as you know about the ozone layer but not one about the layer responsible for the greenhouse effect and we must get that. We work a lot through the Community where we do regulations for the Twelve and that really is quite a large chunk of Europe.
So we are going ahead quite fast. I think our problem in the West is to convince people, some of the poorer countries, that really they should develop in a different way from us and they should not have to go through the mistakes that we have gone through because we know the chemicals that are damaging and we can tell them how to avoid doing those things.
Interviewer
I do not know if you have seen the papers, but they are suggesting replacing Mr Ridley with a Green Minister in your reshuffle would help. [end p6]
Prime Minister
Mr Ridley has done wonders. Much of the expenditure and arrangements for improving the environment have happened while he has been Minister of the Environment. For example the £2 billion on reducing acid rain. All of the arrangements for better water and beaches. When we came into power the dirty beaches had not even been identified. He has identified them and cleaned up two-thirds. He has done a fantastic job.
You ask me about reshuffles, I have nothing to say, I have not made up my mind about them yet.
Interviewer
Will we see one before the Recess?
Prime Minister
If I do one I will make arrangements to let you know.
Interviewer
Thank you very much indeed, I look forward to that.