Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for Anglia TV (spending cuts)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Wymondham, Norfolk
Source: Anglia TV Archive: OUP transcript
Journalist: Tim Child, Anglia TV
Editorial comments: Exact time and place unknown.
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 464
Themes: Economic policy - theory and process, Education, Energy, Pay, Public spending & borrowing, Transport

MT

We are trying shield the schools as much as we possibly can from the cuts and in spite of those capital cuts we are managing to have all new schools for which we need the places—therefore basic needs projects—going ahead. And also all projects for special schools and projects for nursery schools. So what is being delayed for about a period of eighteen months are the replacement schools. I am afraid those who have been carrying in old buildings will have to carry for about a year to eighteen months longer than we had expected.

Tim Child, Anglia TV

Mrs Thatcher, it's been suggested that you could save perhaps £25m if you adopted a proposal to do away with free school transport. This is obviously of concern to parents living in rural areas. Is there any likelihood now that you may take this economy measure?

MT

There was a working party on what to do about school transport, because there's been a good deal of criticism from it. For example, those parents just within the statutory … the limit, say three miles for secondary school, had to pay the full fare, or usually had to, and those who lived just outside it had to pay nothing. So we set up a working party independently, they made recommendations. We are not, uh, constrained by the recommendations in any way. We'll consult about them and consider them.

Tim Child, Anglia TV

But do these recommendations look more attractive—particular that saving—in the present sort-of economy time.

MT

It's not necessarily a saving because there were other suggestions for extra expenditure.

Tim Child, Anglia TV

What about teachers' pay? We have seen some … [word inaudible] … for teachers in the east of England already. What chance have they of better wages when … [words inaudible] … prime industrial concerns like mining are being turn down?

MT

Well, teachers' pay is negotiated, first, through their own negotiating machinery—Burnham—and that is of course subject to the general policy which affects everyone else. So we're all in the same boat there.

Tim Child, Anglia TV

A lot of educationalists in fact have been rather surprised by your lack of comment on Mr Barber 's cuts, they had expected perhaps for you to take the lead and to defend them from economy measures? [end p1]

MT

The cuts go right across the board. I think most people that under the present circumstances we have to take steps which are not, uh, welcome to any of us. But then the underlying circumstances are most unusual and most unwelcome.