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Dy) Q
10 DOWNING STREET
LONDON SWIA 2AA
From the Principal Private Secretary 12 April 1999
HORIZON BA/POCL
The Prime Minister was grateful for the Chief Secretary’s useful minute of
9 April.
The Prime Minister duly met Mr Naruto this afternoon. Naruto was
accompanied by Keith Todd and George Hall (ICL) and an interpreter. Lord
Falconer, Steve Robson, Geoff Mulgan, Jonathan Powell and I were also present.
The Prime Minister opened by thanking Naruto for the sensitive way in
which Fujitsu had handled the closure of their semi-conductor plant in his
constituency. Naruto in turn thanked the Prime Minister for the help that Fujitsu
had been given by local agencies in the North East - 479 out of 550 employees
had now found new jobs.
Turning to the Horizon project, Naruto said that he was very grateful for
the work Steve Robson had done in recent weeks. He understood that ICL were
now close to agreement with the DSS and POCL on a new way forward. ICL
were fully committed to supporting the UK Government. He wanted to ask the
Prime Minister to give Steve Robson complete authority to bring the current
discussions to a successful resolution. On 23 April the Fujitsu Board would meet
to decide whether to support the new project. He personally looked forward to
securing a positive outcome. But he sincerely wished to get a legally binding
agreement before the 23 April meeting. Fujitsu was spending £5-10m a month
on the existing project. Nearly £300m had been invested so far. Sums of this
magnitude could not simply be ignored.
Keith Todd added that more progress had been made in the last 6 weeks
than in the previous 9-12 months. The project now in prospect was fully
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deliverable. Any assistance the Prime Minister could provide in bringing matters
to a successful conclusion would be extremely welcome
The Prime Minister said that he too was very keen to make progress over
the next 3-4 days. His only concern was to get a viable system agreed that would
actually deliver what the Government wanted both now and in the future. Steve
Robson agreed — he was working towards the 23 April date and hoped the
remaining issues could be resolved.
I am copying this to Rod Clark (Department of Social Security), Antony
Phillipson (Department of Trade and Industry), Mark Langdale and Sebastian
Wood (Cabinet Office).
JEREMY HEYWOOD
Ros Roughton Esq
HM Treasury
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