Pay pause is ‘a success’

“The pay pause has been very successful and we have had no major strikes because I think the nation has realised the fundamental truth of what the Government is trying to do,” Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, told the women's section of Hartlepools Conservative Association at West Hartlepool yesterday.

She was convinced that we now had a better chance than for some years of keeping prices stable and the pound worth its value.

If the continual wage demands had not been halted, prices would have gone up, exports would have fallen sharply and we should have been unable to pay for the food and materials needed to maintain the standard of living to which we have become accustomed.