Chairman
… Prime Minister, I was invited along to the BBC who are quite convinced that we're having an Election in June and they've got 120 people working on their Election night broadcasts. I went along and pretended to be Lord Young because I understand that he will be on an Election night broadcast and they were doing a full length rehearsal. We did it twice, two days running, and they were putting in all the scenarios that could possibly come up at the Election and really the very worst scenarios. The computers obviously know better than the BBC because both times we won. And a surprising thing that always the greatest subject they want to talk to Lord Young or to whoever happens to be there is, what is the Prime Minister going to be doing? And I'm sure you've all been doing this going about in local elections and you knock on the door and you want to talk about the sewers and the holes in the road and all the rest of it, nine out of ten people come forward and then say one of two things really and I'm glad to say the majority in Dorset say: ‘Mrs Thatcher, what a wonderful person. All those things that she has done in Russia, she really leads the country and really inspires us. And definitely I'm going to go out and vote for her’. Because there's another few people who turn round and say, ‘I hate that Mrs Thatcher, absolutely hate her’. Then they pause for breath don't they, then they say ‘… course, she's a hundred times better than anything the Opposition …’ (laughter). Which means, Prime Minister, that it's heads you win, tails they lose. Ladies and Gentleman, our greatest asset—the Prime Minister. [end p1]
Prime Minister
Mr Chairman, fellow candidates … I liked that what you said about the date of a General Election Mr Chairman, because I must tell you it has not yet been decided, it has not yet been decided. I'm very well aware that it's my job and those of my close colleagues to choose the date which gives us the best chance of getting a really big majority, which gives the rest of the world confidence that Conservative Government in Britain is well based, well established and will continue for a very long time. (applause) … It's easy to decide it but it's damn difficult to do it. That's my task.
What I have to say to you is you have to be ready whenever. When it comes, just think of all the time you've had to get ready for it, so there won't be any excuse if you're not ready. If you haven't thought about your Election address, if you haven't thought about your canvassing, if you haven't thought about what you're going to put across and how you're going to put it across in your own local area, and if you haven't thought about not only the detailed stuff, but how you're going to put across the really broad brush issues upon which General Elections on broad impressions, possibly augmented by a few specific local issues on a few specific things on which they feel strongly. But we have to get across the broad brush message about what exactly this Government has achieved during the last eight years.
But first you've got to fight the local elections, not in London but elsewhere, because everyone's got their eye on the local elections. Everyone's got their eye on how they're fought, everyone's got their eye on which Party is the better organised, because in local elections a lot depends on how many of your people you get out. And everyone knows that after the local elections we shall be having a look [end p2] at the position, not merely because of the local elections, but because, and I see Ken Clarke is there, you are a candidate Ken aren't you, because … what are you doing down there? (…) But, on the real broad brush things, I'm sorry now I've lost the threads of it … and everyone knows you'll be having a look at the position after the local elections.
It's not only after the local elections, but it's because it's about the time of the year when one would have to consider whether one takes it this summer or leaves it until October or leaves over to the following March or leaves it over to the following June. And one is in the position where if you take … march up to a hurdle and you don't decide to jump it until you're right up to it. There's the moment you decide not to take it you are limiting of course your possible chances in the future. Now it's not an easy decision to take, but Kenneth and I and one or two others will be taking it. And we hope that the results you'll let us have for the local elections will be really very good indeed.
Now can I give you some idea of how we shall fight the election whenever it comes. First we have got to get across the enormous nature of the achievements of the last eight years how they have transformed the whole of Britain, both at home and Britain's standing in the world.
Now, we've some of us have been doing one or two experiments and given literally the list of a whole list of achievements to people who are not really very terribly conscious and who have no idea and they come back and they say this is absolutely terrific. We had no idea … . the achievements in the Health Service, absolutely fantastic … look at the achievements which Ken Baker has been telling you about and the amount which is [end p3] that is being spent on education, which is not always given the correct results. And look at the achievements in defence. And look at what we've done for law and order. They look at the achievements in the taxation system. They look pretty, nearly, they look at the achievements on what we've done in financial and banking law. They look at the achievements, yes achievements of the City of London which actually earns net seven and a half billion pounds a year for the whole of the United Kingdom and more than North Sea oil at its peak. And what we've found is that people do not know these achievements. And first … therefore, is those have to be got across. And you will be receiving not only the details of the achievements, because I hope we're going to have them very much better set out in the section of the manifesto this time as well as the Campaign Guide, so that you've got a much easier reference to them, but we're going to try to select some of the most outstanding ones so that we all concentrate on those and all get those across. So that by the end of the Campaign, people might be absolutely fed up to the back teeth to know that there are 60,000 more nurses and doctors, and we've treated a million more patients every year … they will know it, they will know it, because we've all been saying it. So point number one are the actual achievements, the new sense of confidence which there really is, and the fact that it has permeated throughout the whole of the British economy and pretty nearly the whole of the British people.
Achievements first, then because we are the positive Party, with the positive approach, we shall take up the theme that we spelled out during the last Party Conference—the Next Moves Forward, on the tremendous basis of achievements, you're in a position to take, not the Next Move Forward, but the Next Moves [end p4] with a positive approach. Now you will come up against an argument which will run roughly like this: ‘Well, if you're going to do that now, why haven't you done it in the last eight years?’ Well, it's a damn silly argument, if I might say so. Just because Marks and Spencer is going to produce new products this year, it's damn silly to say ‘Why haven't you done it all in the last eight years?’. It's because you are a very successful business, a very successful government … clear principles and, of course, you deal with things and then there's always something else to be dealt with. You tackle one peak, and just when you've got to the height of that one peak, you see another one ahead. But the idea that somehow history comes to an end and doesn't always consist of unfinished business is quite absurd. You can't say to Marks and Spencer's, British Homes Stores, … Well, you haven't produced those in the last eight years, what in the world are you doing to them now?’ That is part of staying on top, by being in tune with the needs and the moments of the time, but identifying those and by always carrying them forward, but never retreating from basic principles. So that argument should not be at all difficult to cope with.
Another argument I wish you to put very, very strongly indeed is not only the achievements on defence, which are enormous and defence will be a very, very great issue. Not only the economic achievements of a million extra jobs and of eight months now of falling unemployment, at the moment it is falling in every region of the United Kingdom, but also how the prospects for most people in the future have been transformed because we stuck to our policy of reducing taxation, of wider spread of property ownership, and a wider dispersal of decision-making powers. Now take those things together. We have to have if you are to produce more wealth, people have to have incentives. If we hadn't cut income tax, [end p5] if people had said that every time they put in extra effort, they got a bigger proportion of money taken away … from tax, you do not get the incentive, you do not get the growth, you do not get the goose that lays the golden eggs, therefore, you haven't got any eggs to distribute. And the fact that we have cut income tax and will go on cutting it, really is a matter of two things. First we believe that progress is made because people rightly work for the improvement of their own families. And that is a laudable thing to work for. They work for that. The fact therefore they get a bigger incentive, therefore, you get bigger growth and they get a bigger proportion of their own money to spend.
Don't be ashamed of that at all. Because what the Labour Party are saying is that look, take a nurse. You've given her an increase in pay that been considerable, we are now, we the Labour Party are going to take and give it with one hand and take it away with the other, by putting on higher taxation. You give teachers higher pay, now they're going to give it with one hand and take it away with another. The man who works in the factory on average male manual wages £203 a week, spends £61 a week in tax. We, the Labour Party, are saying he's not paying enough in tax. He's saying please look at my net take-home pay, that's all I've got left. Now look, it is a highly laudable thing for people to want to work to give their families a better home a better chance in life, to see the wonders of the world which they never saw, to be able to save to give the kids a start in a Building Society account so they've got a deposit when it comes to purchasing their own homes, and if every family did it we should have a responsible society of the kind which we want to see and there'd be fewer people needing help and at the same time more resources [end p6] to do it … . On the defensive about reducing tax.
There's another philosophical reason. I sometimes say to our people, when they say, ‘Oh, you want more public expenditure.’ I said are you going to go to your constituents and say, ‘you know that tax relief you were going to get, I'm your Member of Parliament and spent it, because, I reckon, I your Member of Parliament or your Candidate know better how to spend your earnings than you do. Don't you think I'm a good guy!’
What sort of country do you think it would be, where the people beg the Government to take more of their own earnings in taxation. And I will tell you something. They don't. They don't. Otherwise we shouldn't get everyone saying ‘Look at our net take-home pay, we want more’. So never be on the defensive about that. It is part of our fundamental belief that everyone will pay a fair whack of tax. But we do not believe in a free society that the Government is so arrogant as to say to people ‘You are free and we are free. But you're not good enough to know how to spend the lion's share of your own money, but we are good enough to know, not only how to spend what is right and proper and due and should be paid to Government, but we are free and good enough to spend your money for you’.
So don't ever be on the defensive over that. Because in the end you get a responsible society by getting a society of responsible people. That is the people of property owners, not stopping with houses, but savings, and if you're encouraging people to save you've a bounden duty to see you don't have inflation because inflation is the most … you save that and I'll [word missing] the numerical value but I'll take a large chunk of the real value by the only [end p7] way of getting taxation through the House of Commons without a Finance Bill: it's known as printing money called inflation. So if you are asking people to save, you have a bounden duty in practice not to have inflation. And, if you look, you have got a bigger dispersal, a wider dispersement of property under this Government so that everyone who, as they come up after another fifteen years of Tory Government, that come up to retirement, they'll have the value of their house, which will be considerable and it will be mortgage free, they'll have the value of their pension and everyone will have a second pension, because that's the way we've been arranging it for a long time. They'll have the … of their Building Society or some of their gilt-edged securities or National Savings, so it will have kept their value and there are eight million people who now have shares. Don't you see what a transformation it is? When Great Grandma dies, the money, everybody will have expectations. And what used to be the privileges of the few, under Conservatives will become the expectations and the necessities of the many.
That's what capitalism is. That's what a free society is. That's what free enterprise is, it only succeeds by pleasing the masses of people, by having a higher standard of living. But then you'll find people coming to retirement owning very considerable amounts of property and money. It is very different, and let me say this to you. You hear about demise. This to me is the one way to make one nation. One nation, so that property isn't something you have in the Forsyte Saga on Sunday nights or used to on television … It's what you have in your own family. And with it will come responsibility. And we've done it. And we're going to go on doing it. And there's going to be more privatisation. Two reasons, first they get wider dispersal [end p8] of property, but secondly, I'll tell you something about Governments, they're not very good at running business, and if they were they'd be in there doing it.
And you see again, many, many companies that have now been de-nationalised, sometimes a better word than privatise, and all of a sudden people in it have got shares and they've had preference in getting shares, have a new incentive, a new effort. Governments ought not to be in that sort of business, they ought to leave it to the people who are able to run the business. It's our task to set the framework of law. Never say this Government is laissez faire, we're not. We set the framework of law to … keep competition so there aren't any cosy arrangements about cartels between manufacturers, to see that you keep competition. Now do you see, this is the way … see it and it's best between the United States and the Soviet Union. This is the way you get a thriving prosperous society and a free society.
You've got the Soviet Union highly discontented with its system, so it should be, it's awful. But what it is trembling [sic] command economy of the government's saying you have no right to … those of the government gives you, they tell you what to produce, they tell you which jobs you can have, which jobs you can't, you don't do any better if you work hard than if you don't. So in the end you have neither freedom nor dignity, nor prosperity. You get in our system a freedom under a rule of law, because it's the rule of law which makes freedom work, otherwise the strong would take it out on the weak. Freedom under a rule of law. So you get the initiative, you get the free discussion, you get … to start up on your own and gives you freedom, dignity, and prosperity. An interesting thing in the world over, there is stirrings of freedom … it is command economies without any [end p9] possible alternative, realise that it's not satisfying for people over whom they govern. So, they say to us sometimes, well, you've got the best stories, you've got the best tunes, I said well look … if you didn't have Communism you'd be a jolly prosperous society. But you realise, it is this fundamental belief we've had for years that, yes, you will have people who will go against the law. Yes, you will have people who will sit back and expect others to help them. But just because 10 per cent don't play the game is no reason for taking freedom away from 90 per cent of the people. It is the better able to cope with the 10 per cent … less than 10 per cent … because there's always been crime, because power to do good is I'm afraid power to do evil and some people take it that way.
Now that is the creed, and it is a fantastic creed. We have to turn it round, because it's [sic: it was?] getting more, and more and more Socialist. More and more. And the British people, without [sic] one characteristic about Britain, would have said “It's a free society,” we're saying, “No, it isn't. There's incomes control, prices control, dividend control, exchange control, industrial development … and what's more we're governed by the bosses of the trade unions and not by the Government.’ And they didn't like it. So we had to set free our faith, we had to get rid of those controls. We had to get more property to the people and have to get more power to the people by privatisation. We had to take power away from the big, arrogant bosses of the trade union movement and give it to the ordinary decent, hard working members. The faith is the same the whole time. In our country like this, the great thing is the British character. The British character is that the overwhelming majority are decent and hard working and you give the power to them and you will gradually overcome [end p10] the other problems. You will say, where does that leave Government? I will tell you. If a Government gets too much involved in the other things, it doesn't do the job it's meant to do. And the job it's meant to do this. First, to see that that … [end of first side of tape].
… Conventional weapons have never been enough to stop conventional wars. We shouldn't have had World War One or World War Two, if they had been. A third conventional War, that would be more terrible than any of the others. If it started, even if there were no nuclear weapons at the time and I would never completely give up ours, just supposing other people had their way, the race would be on as to who got it first and because I must tell you in the last War … had Hitler got it first we shouldn't be here talking now … . And that is why nuclear weapons are so important, you can never have disinventions but you can [sic] disinvent dynamite. They are so horrific that there can be no victor. And I believe … We never give up the nuclear weapon unless you've got something else that is more sure, and always remember that we're a small country having to stand up to a big potential aggressor where nuclear weapon is the only thing that equalises your deterrent capacity.
So the country knows that we are sure of defence and that is something only Government can be, they have to be strong to do it. And we are. Don't underestimate the effect of defence in the next Election. Most people want to be proud of Britain and to have a strong Britain. And right now they can be, and it's strong. The second … of Government. Yes, it is to do everything you can to keep law and order, … everything you can because law and order is a joint venture on the part of Government and people. We've got to uphold the police. We have. We've got [end p11] to increase the numbers of police. We have … . got to pay them according to the risks they undertake. We have. You've got see that they have the right amount of equipment. They have. And you've got to be a bit more … work to them and not interfere. Because they … the law, they do not serve a political party. And then you've got to say to people, there's no way in which you can have a bobby on the beat at every street, at every minute, every hour of the day. Yes, you have a duty to do as much for crime prevention for your own house. To see that the locks are all right, the hinges are all right, the windows closed and have Neighbourhood Watches. You have a duty to co-operate with the police if you see something suspicious and let people know. You have a duty to lock your car, you have a duty not to leave things in … temptation. This is what we have to do, we have to support the police, and this Government has not only done that, it's seeing that the Courts have the sentences which they need and we're strengthening the sentences now in the Criminal Justice Act, Criminal Justice Bill. So that's the second purpose, and again it wouldn't have happened but for us and the crime position would be infinitely worse now than it is. And when people say it's all due to unemployment, may I point out that crime in the United States is good deal worse than here? It's got more to do with people's attitudes. And with structure of what is acceptable in society and what is not, than it has to do with unemployment.
The third thing: Government has got in fact to seek that the finances of the nation are well run and sound improvement. [sic]. Everyone knows that so long as this Government is in power, that will be so. They're taking it for granted … And the fourth thing is our fundamental belief in a property owning democracy. [end p12] But it's also this, that when by your economic policy you've got the engines of growth going, it is to see that those who genuinely need help receive it, and receive it generously. I say genuinely need help. That is why our record on the Health Service is far better. First because we create the wealth, then we do a fair distribution. And then we have a very good safety net throughout society for those, in fact, who are genuinely unfortunate or who are old and were old at the time before everyone had a very big basic pension, and so we set out to help those. And although we've one million more pensioners now, we have in fact honoured our pledge to keep in … more than abreast with inflation.
And then to set a framework within which your industry and your commerce can work and then in fact you make certain that Britain's voice is heard in the world. You have to be strong to do all those things, like a parent in the way you've got to be strong enough to let your child … . the people have the responsibilities which their fundamental human right entitles them to. Now this Government has therefore been a very, very strong Government and will continue. He said I wasn't going to talk long. I want you to get the … embedded into the belief. Now what will be … income tax will be one, don't run away from it. Unemployment will be another. But it's nothing like as bad as it was as an issue. Because of the fantastic number of things David Young and Ken Clarke have done in training, retraining—we've still got jobs which are vacant because we haven't enough skills to fill them. And don't forget the new Job Training Schemes come on this month.
The Labour Party says it's fiddling the figures and then say they're going to do the same thing. We've spent £10 billion on special measures since [end p13] 1979. But jobs come from a thriving business. The Labour Party can't stand private sector business … inner cities. And when Labour has been in power in the inner cities, there you have poverty and there you chase the private sector away and there you have many bad schools. It's they who want to keep it that way—it's we who want to get … those are the issues.
Housing—there's a great deal more to be done spreading ownership more widely, and a good deal to be done in the inner cities and a great deal to be done when we get back. If we hadn't introduced the Rates Bill, if we have an Election this autumn before the rates go in the next Session of Parliament … it will get through in the House, because … is concerned, this sitting. And then education, Kenneth told you, will be one of the really major big things. There will be certain more trade union reform, and quite a lot of other things. In fact it will be the most radical fundamental manifesto, that any Government in its third term, that you've ever seen.
… a lot more to be done. We're not running out of steam. We're just getting up steam. And I hope you're feeling the …
(Male voice: Ladies, and Gentlemen, please identify yourselves when you get up).
Question
Prime Minister … the great achievement of pushing the role of the State back at a national level, but does … (impossible to hear).
Prime Minister
As you know, we're having to change really the whole of the rating system and to make another fundamental, another, a number of other fundamental changes, because some [end p14] of the customs and conventions between local government and central government have broken down. They've broken down particularly in education, but they've also broken down in some expenditures, and some of the people who are lending these authorities money, I keep saying to them, Government does not stand by that loan. So, yes there will be enormous problems, it is a kind of recklessness, and it's a kind of wish on the part of those local authorities to control the lives of people within in them. I said … . like … we'll see that you have a subsidised rent or don't pay any, pay no rates, we'll give you a job in the local authority. This isn't freedom at all. Then we'll have quite a lot to say about local government, about a totally different rating system, about inner cities and, as you know, the steps we've taken to replace or to put Urban Development Corporations in four more cities, have been really welcomed. We shall need more of them. And we shall be having a look and giving those Urban Development Corporations more powers than they have at the moment.
Question
(something about the CAP.)
Prime Minister
Quite easily. Dependent on the Common Agricultural Policy as we are, the Common Agricultural Policy properly operated was never intended to produce surpluses … a year's surplus of butter heaven knows how much it would be. Of milk power, of tobacco, of wheat, or barley. And I would say to him a half of the entire European budget not, I'm saying a half of the agricultural European budget, a half of the entire annual European budget goes to storing those surpluses and exporting a small part of them. So already, a half of the entire European budget goes nowhere [end p15] near present day needs … And I would say to you, now, you're a farmer, now you know a thing or two about money, do you think that's the way to continue? How much to you think there will be left to pay for your, this year's production of milk, or beef, or wheat, or barley? If that goes on, and very soon it becomes three quarters of the entire budget, that goes to the … Because they know that there's no way in which you can pay farmers to produce goods which no one wants to eat, and you have to pay a fortune to store. And the only question is, how far, how long and rapidly you can adjust? That's why milk quotas had to be introduced. Many of them are above milk quota, if we'd actually paid them to produce above milk quota, even with the co-responsibility levy and in fact is having to be adjusted. But you—there's a way—and if we went on that way, there would soon be no money to pay the farmers of today. And we have to do two things at once. We have to try to get rid of the surpluses. It's no good giving them away, because if you do people promptly don't buy any of this year's butter, or beef, or barley, or wheat. And it's one of the most difficult things, and you know, I don't know any other business which is entitled to make, entitled to produce however it much it wants and expects to be paid for it. Now because we've always had to make special provision for agriculture in every country … and we will continue to do so. But I talk to the farmers. I believe they understand that they cannot go on producing surpluses and if you want chapter and verse for that, get the NFU's last document ‘The Way Ahead’. They understood it. The only question is, how far and how fast can we go? The problem which they have got now, in particular, is those farmers in particular producing beef. Because every time Ireland goes to the CAP as it has done every year, it gets [end p16] a particularly preferential settlement which means that their farmers have the subsidy of about £80 per head of cattle and come into our market and our farmers haven't got the market, and that's what we've got to deal with on the devaluation of the Green Pound which has to be greater than that of either Ireland or France. And I would turn round and say to them, now look, I suppose you know what Owen says about the CAP, they have absolutely no idea and I suppose you know that they want to rate agriculture land and property. There is no other Party with which the farmers will get the deal they will from us. Because we believe they are fundamental to the whole fabric of our society in the rural areas and the whole of Britain. And they will. But if they're just going to say, no matter how much we produce, the British taxpayer has got to pay, it's already—the subsidy is already about £2 billion. And that's not going to get anyone anywhere. I'll tell you something else. There are a lot more housewives too and you can't go on putting up the price of food to the housewife, the consumer. So we actually have got a problem. We are dealing with it. And the best deal they'll get is from us. You tell me anyone else who'll fight the European Community for a better deal for … .
Question
(inaudible).
Prime Minister
A Ministry for Women. Who's going to set up a Ministry for … Because when I sit in the House of Commons watching Mr Kinnock trying to put questions to me …
Question
(inaudible). [end p17]
Prime Minister
Well, it's bound to be because a lot of the finances of local government's being fundamentally changed. I'm afraid we brought in the existing system, but as you know, when you start to distribute the Rate Support Grant, there's something like seventy criteria through which it is distributed and frankly, it's crazy. So we are altering the whole system of Rate Support Grant and we're altering the system of Capital Grant because that has got in an awful mess, and we're altering as you know the whole system of the rating system to go to a Community Charge, because, believe you me, if you're going to hang on to rates the next thing you'd have to do on domestic rating is to have a revalution. How many of you have lived through revaluations. Those in Scotland have. They're terrible. The rates rocket and that's what happened in Scotland. I've never allowed a revaluation. Because as I say we're going to stop the domestic revaluation of rates, because I've lived through too many myself and that will be, we will have to revise the rating system. And if those who want to cling on to a present revaluation, we can give them all sorts of examples of what happened in the past, and it also means that we're going to take the, as you know, we're going to take the business rate out of the hands of local authorities over a period of years, there are so many local authorities are saying, look the people who support our Labour authorities, don't pay rates, business does and people who live in owner-occupied houses, therefore, we can in fact put expenditure, we can in fact give them high rates and you're just not getting a fair deal. So there will be quite a lot of changes. We were not able to take through this year the compulsion to put contracts out to tender, because the less you make it compulsory on local authorities to put some of their contracts out to tender [end p18] they in fact have a good deal of slack inside the system, that will have to go after the next Election.
Question David Thomas, Falkirk West
Prime Minister, my constituency has just had £9.2 million spent on it in the Health Service, but I'm a medical student and I know just how well my profession, or the senior members of my profession call for more resources, more money, more beds. In the radical manifesto, will this Government go beyond RAWP and act as amongst others the Economist has suggested, and not just transfer money between Health Authorities, but actually start redeploying consultants who are presently in post and move in physical resources as opposed to just finances as being done at the moment?
Prime Minister
No—you cannot do everything, we'll have to leave some of the Health Service after the next Parliament. Obviously when you look ten years ahead it is actually quite worrying as to how one is going to begin to meet the demand, because more and more people are living longer, and that of itself makes enormous new extra demands and the speed at which research is going means that almost every year you get a new kind of operation and therefore you get a new kind of waiting list, and the waiting lists now for hip operations, for cataracts, open-heart surgery are really quite considerable, but I think we shall get through the next five years with the what we're doing now in improving the management, and again I have to say to people that there's no way in which Government can run the management of every hospital, of every local district—just think of it, there's no way in which you can do it. You've got to get the co-operation of [end p19] your doctors, of your nurses, of your local authorities, and you've got to say to them, how is it, that there's a hospital up there, I can get far more operations out of the same money than you can? Now, you know there was no management system, and Roy Griffiths is putting one in and we are in fact, because we're taking a tough line on management, releasing monies which are not being taken back, they are in fact being put into the Health Service and at last we're beginning to get that co-operation. I think that will take us through, and what we're saying to them, and it is already happening, for example, there are some very good schemes in Wales, saying to them, look, don't have too much dogma, if there's a BUPA hospital down the road and the surgeon has got two or three vacancies for hip operations, or cataracts or open-heart surgery, or they're not so busy in August, all right, pay them to do it there, out of National Health Service money. It's your job to get the patients' waiting lists down. As you know, we want to get waiting lists down. This year, we've put up, made them bid for £25 million as to who could get the waiting lists down the most. That first £25 million has gone out and another one will go out. But you know, they've got to learn management. There've been so many extra resources, the way which I've put it is this: it's not government that pays for the Health Service, it's the people. But then I walk into Number Ten Downing Street, you divide Britain up into families of four, which in fact is broadly speaking correct. You find that every family of four on average pay to maintain the Health Service every week £11. This year … [End of tape 2]
Prime Minister
… so you demand more or you're telling me to take more out of your own pocket. Just remember, that at the same time, you're paying £23 every week for education, and £55 every week to keep [end p20] pensions, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, supplementary benefit and your pensions going. And I put it this way to make them realise it is not Government paying, it is you paying. But I don't think there will be any fundamental structural change as we've embarked on improvement in management. You can't do everything at once but we are, we shall have to have a look … how we're going to meet the demand which we can see arising.
Question Graham Riddick, Colne Valley
Prime Minister, up in the North our political opponents are forever telling us about the great divide and that the haves are getting wealthier and the have nots are getting poorer. They tell us that there are now some 8 million living below the poverty line and that there are over 100,000 people homeless, and that there are billions of pounds that could be spent on new council houses and so on. But perhaps you could give some guidelines … the most effective way to answer these criticisms.
Prime Minister
Well, they love trying to put the worst face on the North don't they? It's actually too ridiculous, there used to be a very big North/South divide, the days of the industrial revolution were not as wealthy and rich. That's where the big industries were started, … just look, I'm going back, your great big manufacturing industry, your coal, your steel, your shipbuilding, your great big engineering firms were started, flourished, and thrived in the North, your great big textile, the great big merchanting, go around and look at some of the houses, and the South didn't have very much of it. Now then, the very initiative of enterprise that started that going did not seem to be revivified, and it is quite true that there are more of the older industries [end p21] in the North than there are in the South. But not always so. We're in Birmingham, Birmingham's not in the North. Birmingham had a problem because of the car industry, but that was not kept going with the drive it should, as a matter of fact too many companies were put together under Wedgwood Benn and that caused enormous trouble. But you know you've got shipbuilding in the South, Vosper Thorneycroft in Southampton has just the same problems as shipbuilding in the North East. Coalmines in Kent have just the same problem as coalmines elsewhere. Now there are more of them in the North, but textiles have made a come-back in the North, they're doing very well. We have … steel and coal and people work in it are thriving because they've got a good future and they have to thrive. Half of the self-employed, the new self-employed—800,000 … half of them are in the North including Scotland and Wales. They're coming back. The Enterprise Allowances are being taken up well in the North … if you want good roads go and look in the North. We're getting them in the South now too … superb roads in the North East and in the North West, linking it up to the whole of the United Kingdom. You've got good Universities … let me just remind you, Manchester University excellent, Manchester Technical College excellent, Manchester Higher Education College, Manchester Catering Colleges, excellent, Manchester Teaching Hospital—the biggest teaching hospital complex in Europe. Manchester Music, Cheetham's, Manchester Northern School of Music, Manchester Art—aren't you lucky?
Newcastle. You wait, it's a very good guide to see where your big multiples are setting up their stores. Marks and Spencer in Newcastle, the second most thriving Marks and Spencer in the [end p22] United Kingdom. Look at where Asda's setting up its stores in the North, Gateshead, the biggest new shopping complex in Europe, in the United Kingdom, maybe in Europe. Just tell them that they're good, just tell them that you have a far higher standard of living, salary for salary, up there than you do in the South East. And tell them not to complain that their houses are lower priced. Tell them not to complain that they don't have to spend as much on transport, because at last companies are beginning to realise that that's a good place to stop. Tell them to notice that Nissan with very considerable success has started up in Sunderland. You know, if you're a salesman you shout your advantages. I do that sometimes when I get there. I went up to Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the President got up and said everything was awful, except that had I noticed that Manchester had better restaurants and more of them than anywhere in the United Kingdom. … said about Manchester, all the things I've said and the whole audience got up and cheered me. You've got to shout your wares. There are fantastic opportunities … North, the North/South divide is no greater than it used to be but in fact unemployment is falling fastest in the North, the North East, and Wales. So you're going to win.
Question
(inaudible).
Prime Minister
The education system is rather different in Scotland and you'll find the Secretary of State for Scotland in fact has more powers than the Secretary of State for England has. And indeed, Kenneth Baker 's only powers in Scotland are towards … University Grants [end p23] Committee to the Universities in Scotland. You're quite right that Scotland … but you've got to get this across. Look at Glasgow, it is transformed through our policies. It is the cultural City of Europe. You look at the railway station there, that too is transformed and I go and look at them and think, my goodness me, I wish to goodness we had something like that in the South. More is spent on the Health service up there than down here. But one has in fact to tell them, the last time I was doing a television broadcast up there, there was allegedly one interviewer who was quite sympathetic … I will have an interview with him. And of course, his producer wasn't sympathetic and so he was told in fact really to go at me hard. Fortunately, it was independent television and I have their house magazine with me and their advertisement manager has written an article in the house magazine. Now of course the advertisement manager has to sell advertisement space on television to people who will buy it, and what would he say, boy oh boy, what would he say, I've trotted it all out … Did the advertisers realise that the wages and salaries in Scotland and incomes were the second highest in the whole of the United Kingdom? London and the South East being the only part that was higher. That in fact they have a bigger proportion of that money to spend on consumer goods, because they spend less on housing. Did the advertisement people realise that Edinburgh was the second largest finance centre of the United Kingdom? And employed 80,000. Did they therefore realise that the Scots have had nothing like the difficulties of North East England and therefore advertisers, … advertise on this marvellous thriving place in Scotland. So you've got to take this. I know the problem you have because there's not a single newspaper that's with us. But you've got to simply take these things and put them across. [end p24] … it is we who believe in strong defence, otherwise where would Rosyth be? … It is we who in fact help … the whole of the oil industry is a tribute to private enterprise. And of course, as you know money was poured into places like … It is a question of trotting it out again and again. The fact is, that the proportion of council houses in Scotland and low rents leaves you with the specialist structure, and it is used that way by some of the local authorities. And once you've got that you can see how people learn to live within that structure, but in fact in the last month, unemployment is now falling in Scotland. And we've got to go on fighting. We've got to hold our seats. And I hope gain some more because Glasgow is a success story for this Government. Don't let the local authority take it.
Question
Prime Minister, I was very pleased to hear a few moments ago what you had to say about Northern industries, particularly in the North East … What I was going to ask you, Prime Minister, is this, we have been selling very hard the new … the incoming Japanese—are you concerned Prime Minister over relations, strained relations in particular, with Japan …
Prime Minister
Well, in fact as you know, we've being saying to Japan for a long time, your own markets are so closed to our consumer book [sic: goods?], that the only way … continue to have our market is to manufacture within the United Kingdom. What I think they have been a little bit worried about is some possible … on their components. But there's something … warranted then they will have to be made. The arrangements normally we make with this Japanese inward investment, is they're not just the assembly plant, they are to … from home industry. What we have to make [end p25] certain is that our components are as competitive and as good quality as some of theirs. And we're gradually getting that … because quality matters and the British components industry is coming up again but, if we're to compel them to buy their components from here, it's not only got to be the price that matters, but the quality as well. But I think that it will be all right, I think that we're playing the hand reasonably well in the Japanese … they realise … but we're just giving them a little bit of time. I've just seen this morning … the European Commissioner came back from Japan … they simply have to open up those markets and we're still in—Cable & Wireless is still in discussion with them. I think we're handling that just about right.
Chairman
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Prime Minister now has to go and I want to thank you so much Prime Minister for coming here and giving us such an excellent … . Just remember, Prime Minister, to keep looking at those polls, because we want to see it going well over the 45 per cent and then you'll start seeing these people who think they were in difficult seats, being there with us in the House of Commons after the next General Election. Thank you.
Prime Minister
… We'll meet again before a General Election. We always do anyway.