Interviewer
Prime Minister, we're from ITN. Prime Minister, have you a moment for ITN, please, for the lunchtime news? Obviously, there is a lot of concern here in Bradford about the impact on the Inner Cities of the Community Charge. Are you satisfied that the level set by Bradford won't actually do damage to Inner Cities which you might try and correct by …
MT
No, they won't do damage. I think Bradford has done a brilliant job under Mr. Pickles. The expenditure was very high under the previous Government and would have led to a Community Charge of £404. He's now got it down to £268. That is the difference. We would like to get it down further, but he can't do it all in one year. It's not how much you spend. People who spend a lot tend to spend it very extravagantly. It's spending the money well, to good effect, and managing it. Some people are good managers, others are not. So I think Bradford is doing wonders.
Interviewer
Are you not afraid that it might become an electoral liability for you?
MT
No, I think when it's … I think when it's really working it will be an electoral asset. I think, had we had a revaluation of all domestic properties to make them pay rates, a revaluation after seventeen years, with all of the improvements that people have done to their houses in that time, and they have been enormous particularly in the last ten years, they would have had a real shock, and it would have meant that only half the number of people who are able to vote for local authorities, only half the people had to pay rates. That was wrong, because it was basically unfair. Er, if you're a local elector and able to afford to pay something towards local expenditure, you should do so. If you can't, then you get rebates, and indeed one in four people will get a rebate and more will get what is called transitional relief. So, we have done quite a lot of relief during these early years, until it gets working.
Interviewer
Right, Prime Minister. Forgive me asking on an unrelated subject, but are you at all worried about the backbench revolt on Hong Kong at the moment? Some eighty MPs seem to be unhappy with the policy.
MT
Well, we shall try to persuade them. We have a moral duty to Hong Kong. It's the last big colony of Britain, but the land was on a lease, and the lease goes back to China in 1997. Because British administration was so good, people came from China to Hong Kong. There used to be only half a million there. Now there are five and a half million there. We have run that colony, and the Chinese with their enterprise have done superbly well. We're responsible for administration until 1997. We therefore have a bounden duty to look after the people who are key people, enabling us to administer that. You can't say to some people who are working for you, “We [end p1] expect you still to stay at your posts, whether it's in police, security, top jobs, but we're just going to abandon you. Even though we expect you to be loyal to us, we're not going to be loyal to you.” Of course you can't. Those people in key posts must come over to Britain, and then our duty to the rest of the people in Hong Kong, the five and a half million people, is to keep it prosperous, because that makes it most valuable to China, and means that they will be able to carry on, under agreement, with the way of life under a capitalist system that they have been knowing. And to do that, we have to keep the real entrepreneurs there. Now, you know, a few entrepreneurs make a whole city hum and thrive and flourish. And if they leave, or they go elsewhere, then Hong Kong, in fact, will not stay thriving and flourishing. So we have a bounden duty to the people of Hong Kong, to say to the entrepreneurs, “Look, we will give you a British passport and British citizenship, so that if things do go wrong, or you fear that they will go wrong, you can in fact take up residence with us.” Now, those people, also, some of them start up businesses in Britain. They have already. You can't turn round and just have no duty to them at all, if in response to our requests they're going to stay in Hong Kong, then they could take their duties elsewhere and their talents elsewhere. So I think we have a moral duty. And it's 50,000 people and their families. 50,000 would amount to 225,000 with their families. And, of course, they won't come all at once. They'd come gradually. But they're people who would help us to find new jobs here, because they'll start up their own businesses here, just the sort of people you'd love to have because they're that sort of people. That's how they built Hong Kong. So I would hope to persuade our people.
Interviewer
Thank you very much.
MT
Thank you.