Lord Mayor, Gentlemen, and Ladies. May I just tell you what I have been doing this morning. We arrived in Liverpool at about half past nine. We went to tour the area, I would call the triangle, in which many of the events which we all saw on television, and some of you experienced yourself, took place. We then went to Police Headquarters and had a discussion with the Chief Constable and his Senior Officers. We then came and met the Lord Mayor and met representatives of the City Council and County Council together. After that I saw a number of community people whom Mr. Wally Brown had got together. Following that I have seen Archbishop Warlock and Bishop Henshaw. I am afraid we are late in coming to see you. I felt it was absolutely vital for everyone whom I saw to tell me how they felt and how they saw things, because we were all very shocked at the events which took place in Toxteth and very relieved, I think, and pleased that they now seem to be on a much better footing. But I think there are really strenuous efforts needed to try to secure some reconciliation and basis for going forward. There obviously is some mistrust. We have to overcome that. I thought the phrase which appealed to me very much was one which one of the Clergy used to me. “It is not a time for denunciation but for reconciliation” . I think I would like to take that as the key. I remember some of the things we were trying to do here many years ago. When I became Secretary of State for Education we had just had the Plowden Report. We had had Mr. Midwinter in Liverpool. We were trying then to do things we felt were fundamentally right to do. We put a lot into housing. We put a lot into education. We put a special number of teachers into schools which we thought were schools for disadvantaged children. And we tried to give them extra pay. Whatever we did, we did with the very best of intentions and I believe it was right to do it. We haven't clearly solved all the problems. We might have got some more. And we have got to try to find a way to solve these. And that is really what we are trying to do. By listening to people and then by trying with them to formulate the way forward. If you have got difficulties with a community, part of the answer to those difficulties has to come from within. Because unless it comes from within we shall not have a community knit together which is absolutely vital for any solution. [end p1]
I am sorry. I hadn't meant to talk so long. Would you now like to ask me questions?
Q
Mrs. Thatcher, since the trouble in Liverpool and the outbreaks of violence throughout the country, how worried are you by what has happened? Do you think that law and order is about to break down almost totally?
PM
No. Certainly not. And I think it is a great mistake to give that impression at all. Law and order will be upheld. I think people are learning how to cope with the situation which has been going on for a week now. And I hope we shall soon have it fully and properly restored. The first thing is to support the police. It must be a very very difficult task and I think the way in which they have behaved has been magnificent. There were a lot of police officers badly wounded in Liverpool. The hospital has been wonderful. These things should never have happened. But we are, in fact, I think, getting new ways of dealing with a new situation and I think the police are the first to have those new ways. They are getting in very close contact with the community. In many cases of course they have been so for a very long time. But we have to learn to have new ways. We have to give the Police all the equipment and protection they want, both for themselves and for the confidence of the community as a whole.
Q
So how quickly are the Government going to take some positive form of action? When are we actually going to see something done?
PM
Well, immediately we have said to the police forces, look whatever equipment you want we must make available. All right, we have got the immediate things, the helmets, we are trying to get protective clothing. They are looking for any fresh equipment, any changes which they want. Whatever they want they must have, not only for their own protection, which is vital for their morale, but also vital for the morale of their families, and also vital for the confidence of the community. That is being done and I stress, whatever equipment they want they will have. But that is not the whole of the situation. We really have to try to look at the things with the whole of the community. [end p2]
Q
Prime Minister, you seem very concerned with the protection of the police, and yet if I am right in thinking the community representatives today have put it to you that it is the very presence of the police and their conduct on the streets that is one of the root causes of the violence.
PM
Of course I am concerned with the protection of the police and I hope you are too. And I hope everyone is here. We all rely on them to come and protect us when we are in difficulty, and I hope that that is not in question or in issue. Everyone must be concerned about the protection of the police. Yes, there is obviously mistrust among some of the community leaders whom I have seen, and we have to try and overcome that mistrust. When I was Secretary of State for Education we had a scheme under which the police went into some of the schools, some of the primary schools and the secondary schools. So we established a good relationship on a community basis between the local police and the local schools. Now I did ask one of your Councillors this morning who said certainly in his school that already occurred. I asked some of the community people and they said they didn't know of that. But it is important for the children at a young age to look upon a policeman as a friend and a person to whom they turn if in trouble or if they need his help. And I am sorry that that doesn't seem to have been carried out on a much much wider basis. If there is mistrust we have to get rid of it.
Q
Do you feel, as some people obviously do, that the police should perhaps be more accountable to the communities they work in?
PM
Well, I never quite understand what this word ‘accountable’ means. The police have to carry out their duties in a wholly non-political way. They must never be subject to political pressures. The law is not political in its impact and must never be. It must always be applied totally impartially. Each and every person is entitled to the protection of the law. Each and every person has the responsibility as a citizen to try to uphold the law. So as far as that is concerned, they must be absolutely independent in the judgements they make about how to carry out their duties. [end p3]
Q
Commentators are saying you, Mrs. Thatcher, are being asked for more Government resources for Liverpool.
PM
We have in fact poured quite a lot of resources into Liverpool, and so many people this morning have said look, a tremendous amount is going in—indeed that point was made by the local and County Council.
One of the first objectives has been to clear the slums and improve the housing. That to a very considerable extent has already been done. And as you know the housing in some of the areas we have been through is very good. Perhaps not 100 per cent perfect, but we never get 100 per cent perfect. But I do think they were right in a priority. Now we poured a lot of money into new schools. I came up in 1970 to open the Netherley Comprehensive School, which was a school which was not skimped on in expense in any way. On the contrary. Also a new housing estate. Now I gather that is not one of the more popular housing estates. May be then they got the design of the housing estate wrong. I think we did put a lot of money in and I think we did put things of a design which has not turned out to be very good, but tower blocks are not always the most popular for very understandable reasons. Maybe we didn't build the houses as part of a community with all the facilities there. It has not been lack of money, and indeed some of the youngsters from the community representatives made that very point. They said it is not money. It is something totally different. Now what I am concerned about is that we do use the money in the best possible way. Some of your County Councillors and City Council leaders have said, look, there are a lot of organisations. Are we sure we have got the co-ordination right? That the money we put in for one purpose doesn't conflict with money put in for another? And obviously we must have a look at that co-ordination, because it is no good having a lot of money unless you use it in the very best possible way in the interests of the people here. That is the objective. In the interests of the people here. Their housing, their education, more jobs. That is really what we are trying to do. [end p4]
(Mrs. Thatcher now being asked about the high rate of unemployment on Merseyside.)
PM
High unemployment is always distressing in its own right. It is very much easier to talk about than it is to go and find a solution to. After all, if it were that easy to find a solution to, we could all go out and start up a factory and produce goods or services which people could buy. In the end that is what we have to do. One of the encouraging things I think is wherever we put up advance work shops and small work shops here they are taken up very quickly. That is encouraging. It is not a quick answer, and that is why we have Youth Opportunity Schemes to tide us over and to get us through a very very difficult period. And it is not going to be easy to find jobs for everyone. Because jobs come when people buy the products which other people make. And we can't get away from that.
Q
Wally Brown said that he thought you were shocked by the intensity of the feeling expressed about the Police. Were you?
PM
Shocked is not the word I would use. I wanted all of those young people who came to have a chance fully to talk and to let me know exactly how they felt. Their feelings were very very strong. I wanted to listen to them. I did listen to them. And I learned a great deal from listening to them and I would like them to know that.
Q
Mrs. Thatcher, is your Government considering restricting trial by jury? (Mrs. Thatcher being asked for changes in the law.)
PM
As you know, some cases are dealt with summarily under our law. Other cases of a more serious nature go for committal proceedings and then go for trial by jury. What we are trying to do is to get the proceedings speeded up, because as you know, sometimes [end p5] it takes rather a long time, and we do want the proceedings speeded up.
Q
How will you do that?
PM
Well, you can always do it by setting up courts, the ordinary courts, setting them up so that those particular hearings can come forward.
Q
Do you see other changes in the near future?
PM
We are considering whether there needs to be changes either in the Public Order Act or in restoring the Riot Act, or any other changes. That is already under consideration. That's changes in the law. Those are under consideration.
Q
Mrs. Thatcher, from what you have seen this morning and from what you have been told, is there anything new your Government can now do to alleviate the problems in Toxteth and Moss Side—What can Mrs. Thatcher do to alleviate the problems in Toxteth? Anything new?
PM
There are no new recipes and instant solutions. I think if I might say so you are on to the wrong tack. I do think that we have to try to understand feelings here, and again I point out, that what so many people said to me this morning is, “Please don't impose solutions on us. If you do they won't work. Please try to understand how we feel and get solutions with us, and take those feelings into account.” Now obviously you can't go on indefinitely consulting, because one of the things that you have to do is come to decisions as to how to go forward. Now of course, we have in the last two years, because we felt that not everything was being done, we did set up an Urban Development Authority.
It took quite a time to set it up because the rights of people are affected, and, as you know, it is only just coming into operation, and we passed the Order through the House on Thursday and gave it £17 million to start its work. And we hope that that can clear sites, get services to it, and then start to attract people to that area. I hope soon that the Speke Enterprise Zone will be in operation. I hope by the end of July. Again it has taken its time. We are all concerned with trying to attract [end p6] more jobs to this area. It has taken a time, but we haven't just been sitting back. We have been taking action to try to get more jobs here.
(2) BBC Radio News Report 1800 13 July 1981 [end p7]The prime minister's personal view of the last 10 days came at a news conference in the Liverpool Town Hall:
Thatcher
They have been the most worrying days, the most worrying days, that I do indeed say. We haven't had very much sleep.”
Smith
She can't have had much sleep last night either, because she drove up from London and by nine o'clock was touring the Toxteth district, scene of the worst rioting, burning and looting. There were groups of policemen at every corner, but that's nothing new since the street violence began. She said she'd found the maintenance of law and order the main concern:
Thatcher
Many many people.… the majority would say the protection of the police must come first because without them there can be no law, there can be no society; and the vast majority say that. A number of them say that there's great mistrust, and I have said to them, and will continue to say, that the law must be upheld whatever mistrust there is, we must try to get rid of it. And that is a two-say business. But there is no future for any society unless the law is upheld totally impartially. The law has no colour, no colour at all. The law applies equally to every single citizen and must be seen to be so.”
Community leaders came out of the talks shaking their heads and saying that Mrs Thatcher had not wanted to discuss the root cause of the trouble. As they see it, police harassment. Instead, they said she had implored them to keep the stone-throwers off the street. By comparison, Sir Trevor Jones, leader of the City Council, found the talks useful. He plans to involve the whole community in further consultations with a questionnaire on what should be done for the future.