Interviewer
The streets of Britain are a disgrace and how can the British people make a start on their immediate environment and what incentive should we give people to make them responsible for their own patch? The reason I ask this question, Prime Minister, is because recently I took some bottles to our local bottle-bank and when I arrived the bottle-banks had not been emptied for I do not know how long, but there were huge crates of glass and broken glass all over the street so I put mine back into the car and drove off to the next bottle-bank and the situation was exactly the same and so one wonders whether if people are actually making a concerted effort to do something about immediate rubbish, whether local councils in this case are not playing their part? [end p1]
Prime Minister
I agree, I agree if you put a skip there or a great container then obviously it has got to be emptied regularly, whether it is for that or sometimes the Boy Scouts go round and collect paper on a Saturday morning on a lorry, it is taken straight away and they take it to where it is sold and I often notice if a skip is put down in a street all sorts of people will use it as a dumping ground although it might be a builder's skip.
We do create a lot of litter because there is so much packaging, so much more is bought in packaging now and we create a lot of litter and let us face it, each one of us is responsible for our own tidiness, the streets would not be in this condition if people looked after their own litter, carefully took it home.
We were taught as children, if you went out for a picnic you gathered everything up carefully and you took it home and you put it in your own dustbin which was properly emptied.
So the first thing is, if the streets are dirty it is the responsibility of people themselves and I think we notice that the way to get them clean is that if you really have a clean-up of a particular area and get it clean and get it clear of graffiti, people will respect it, it is quite astonishing, and that really is what we have to do. [end p2]
I just said to the Transport Secretary, Paul Channon, the other day: “Look I am fed up with seeing some of the verges and the central reservations of motorways absolutely filthy with rubbish that has been there for a long time, now who is responsible for cleaning the sideways of the roads?” He said: “Well, it is the Ministry of Transport but we contract it out to the local authority”. I said: “Well, where it is not done, you have got to take it away from them and then go and get a contractor and say your job, and we will pay you, we will contract, is to keep this patch clean and then you know exactly who is responsible and can trace it”.
I do also think that you and I live and see a lot in London, you know there are a fantastic number of shops or restaurants who late at night will put out great big black sacks full of waste and then people go and they kick them over, terribly unhygienic, I really think, I said to Business in the Community the other day, which is, you know the organisation …?
Interviewer
I do indeed. [end p3]
Prime Minister
… “Really, first thing, can you not see that where you are in shops or restaurants or offices that you go to a local contractor and say: you come and pick up my rubbish at a certain time so it is never left on the pavement.”
I noticed the fantastic difference when I went to Toronto for the Economic Summit, as you have seen, the streets, I looked straight around, no litter. I wondered if they had cleaned it up specially. “Oh no” they said, “Toronto is like this and it is like it in the suburbs and everywhere. It is the pride of people in every part, no park, no school, no office, no organisation, no shop will ever let us down”.
Interviewer
I was going to quote Toronto to you Prime Minister, yes.
Prime Minister
… and the children are taught: “Now don't you get our school into disgrace or don't you get our particular community” and it is clean and I only saw one graffiti and that was very quickly taken away. Now that is a big city so it can be done. The interesting thing also, the other important thing, and I use it as an example because you asked me what I would like to see most by 2000, one is this most marvellous clean environment and nice trees and consideration, and the other is, which you also happen [end p4] to have in Toronto, a very low rate of crime. It comes from a kind of personal pride to live up to standards and everyone knowing that, everyone saying that and everyone working towards it.
But I use that as a city, one to which I have been, to show that it can be done and it is not only government action, it is the action of people, families, schools, organisation, commerce, industry, all your local organisations, it might be your Tennis Club, it might be the Ex-Servicemen's Club, it might be a particular ethnic group living up to standards. And then when you see it, you all want it and want to keep it that way. But it starts with people. You would not have litter if people did not throw it down.
Interviewer
How can we make them stop though? There are so many people who do really care about their environment. My children are particularly aware of their environment.
Prime Minister
Children are very aware and they are taught about it and I get quite a lot of letters, they are keen about tropical forests, they are keen that they are not cut down when we do not need it, they are keen that things are not thrown down in the streets.
But unfortunately it does not seem to have penetrated yet to an awful lot of people. [end p5]
We shall soon, we have to keep Britain tidy. What I would really like to see is an extension of the Neighbourhood Watch, you know the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, and is being very successful. In my area, crime has gone down enormously where we have Neighbourhood Watch. I would like people now to start Neighbourhood Care: “Come on, let us get our neighbourhood well” and if you see something you go and pick it up and do not throw it down again.
But I noticed when I went, three or four years ago, to the International Flower Festival which was the first one we had at Liverpool and there was not a piece of litter anywhere and they had young people going around picking it up on a long fork and it got less and less because as it got beautiful everyone said: “We must keep it like this”.
So it is how to get from where we are now. But the first thing is for people not to throw it down, the second thing is to have a group of young people, maybe we shall have to call them, what shall we call it? Beautified Britain, Clean Up Britain, let us have a campaign to go and pick these things up, you will have to watch, with a lorry, and get them to the places to which you take waste, for them to be dealt with and then say: “Now let us keep it like this”. [end p6]
Interviewer
Are there any plans, Prime Minister, for young offenders?
Prime Minister
I have for years been saying to the Employment, “Look we have something called a Community Programme, an Unemployment Programme, surely we can use some of the money we are putting on the Community Programme to make Britain tidy”. So far it does not seem to have been done and then we got UK 2000 going and that did not quite work.
So I have got the Department of the Environment and Virginia Bottomley having another new look at it because I said when I went to launch the Look at London Project: “If we do not in fact get it done voluntarily we shall have to bring in a law about it to say that you are responsible for keeping clean the pavement in front of your own house”. It would not be revolutionary, they do you know on the Continent.
I think myself that young people would prefer it. I think that they are fed up with having a place where there are not any specific rules to be observed. I think they prefer rules to be observed.
What is happening of course, there is a law that you can be fined if you throw down litter, but it is really with all the other things that the police have to do, if they then had to hang about and take them to court, it is not the top priority. But it is we who can do something ourselves. [end p7]
Interviewer
It is quite a low fine still isn't it?
Prime Minister
Yes it is.
Interviewer
Is it still £100 one can be fined?
Prime Minister
Yes it is, we must have a look and see if we need to revise that. But I agree with you it is extremely important and other people seem to take more pride in their roads and their towns than we do.
Some of the fast food people, I know two who already will deliberately have someone employed to go out anywhere near their shop, their restaurant, to pick up any packages which have their particular name on, and that is very good.
Interviewer
Yes, McDonald's are very good.
Prime Minister
McDonald's is one of them, very good indeed. [end p8]
Interviewer
One of the other questions was, there does seem to be a general apathy in the British people's approach to their environment at the moment and because we are a nation of avid TV soap-watchers, would it be possible for, particularly the British soaps, Coronation Street, Brookside, Eastenders and so on, could they do more within their scripts to preach the message? [end p9]
Prime Minister
They can, so long as they are not party political messages which obviously they must not put across.
I think that they could do something and I am sure that this is in the mind of some of the scriptwriters. Sometimes I notice in “The Archers”, which is radio, you will find some of these messages coming across. “Now, look! You don't do that kind of thing!” and it is very good, and I think they would get a terrific response.
I do not have time to watch television very much, but it would not surprise me if they do include those things in their scripts because I think they would like to think that they had a part in raising standards. It is quite different now, isn't it? People are interested in raising standards, and it is very important.
(INAUDIBLE COMMENT FROM UNNAMED SPEAKER) [end p10]
Interviewer
Yes, it has, hasn't it?
Prime Minister
Yes, it has, yes, and it would not surprise me if they said something soon - or have said something - about unleaded petrol. They will do it soon. They must not do it in a way that looks as if they are stuffing a message down people's throats because we all react against that.
Interviewer
Yes, nobody does want to be preached to.
It is just interesting that looking at the recent sort of readership survey of “Chat”, I mean, “Chat” readers or “Chat” viewers tend to watch five to six hours television a day … most … amount.
Prime Minister
Speaking for a moment to your older readers, that is totally different from our young day.
In a way, television has enabled us to see many things. It has enabled us to see what is going in Ethiopia, the Sudan, India, even enabled us to see the inauguration in the United States and so on, some of the tragedies and some of the world's great beauties and some of the seas and skies around us. [end p11]
But there was no such thing when I was young and radio was comparatively new so then perhaps we did more together as a family because you did not sit down. You were not quite so much a spectator - you were more a “doer” society.
I believe that young people will now be much more used to television than we are and there will come a time when they do not watch so much - they go out and do things more, because they will have got used to it.
Interviewer
But will that happen with satellite? I mean, now there is more and more television for them to choose from.
Prime Minister
I do not necessarily think that the “more” will make that much difference to the time. I think that it is important that young people go out. We used to go to clubs, we used to have to make our own entertainment. The family used to go out for a walk on a Sunday, a Sunday evening. You would just go out for a walk and you would see other families going out for a walk. It was a great social occasion but we saw more of the countryside, we knew the names of the wild flowers, we knew the names of the birds and you would go to a musical evening, all kinds of things. It will come back but it is all getting up standards, getting up pride. [end p12]
Interviewer
Well you have answered the question of “Were you aware of your environment as a child?” and “What we can do to educate today's children?”
Prime Minister
It was much cleaner. We had far less money. It was much much cleaner, because there was far less packaging about.
When I buy things, you know we watch very carefully what we do with the packaging and I must confess I am one of those people who does not like to pay a great deal for packaging. Of course, at Christmas we wrap things up beautifully - that is different - but packaging is what you tear off and throw away. It is for content that I like to pay.
Interviewer
I noticed that yesterday I happened to receive my sort of Barclaycard invoice which, as you know, is this thick and the envelope in which it came was sort of rather like “War and Peace”. It was just full of bumpf that went straight into the bin. Now that is sad, particularly when it is paper, and I am sure that everybody else in the country just tosses it straight into the bin. [end p13]
Prime Minister
I think most people do. You do, of course, these days get quite a lot of free newspapers which I think some of the older people find quite attractive because it is something for them to look at, but I agree.
The other thing is that if they are left on the doorstep and they blow around that is another thing which contributes to litter.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, how have your personal habits changed since you have been in power? I mean hairsprays, make-up!
Prime Minister
I don't think make-up has changed. Make-up is conditioned by your skin isn't it? Mine, I am afraid, is very sensitive and I have to have non-allergic things - very sensitive.
We have got one of these sprays although I notice that there are two big supermarkets that are doing hairsprays that are ozone-friendly but not all the hairsprays are yet ozone-friendly. I believe they will be and I think it is important.
I just have to watch. I have a very dry and very sensitive skin. It is not since I have been here; it is that as you get older you really must take care of it. [end p14]
So many of the things you have for households are in aerosols. We do have an aerosol when it comes to flies and wasps and things, but we have never done our furniture with an aerosol but with cream - it is much better for the furniture.
Interviewer
Yes, indeed.
Prime Minister, is there a role for any of the conservation groups like Greenpeace and Friends of The Earth to combine forces with the Government and tackle the environmental problems together, rather than separately?
Prime Minister
I think that they have done a fantastic job in making people aware of the need to do things and I think that has been enormously helpful to us in dealing with the ozone layer depletion. Everyone has heard about it. They are not quite sure what it is but they know you must not have the depletion and you have got to take action about it.
Sooner or later they will be very much aware of what is called the “greenhouse effect” and it is that which enables us to do things. They are also very much aware of pollution but you see, we have been on this for quite a time. [end p15]
Don't forget we did the Clean Air Act years ago in the Fifties and if we had not done the Clean Air Act our cities would be much filthier and our lungs would be in a simply terrible state, and that was one of the first things.
Do not forget too that we started to scrape and give a facelift to the buildings and it has taken a long time and, of course, some of the chemicals are right into the stone so you have to really conserve the stone.
All of this is very good and “Keep Britain Tidy” has been going for a long time. They have now got an advertisement on television. So they are helping us with awareness very very much indeed.
What I think I must make clear is that some of them kind of give the impression that you can go back to a kind of village life without the standard of living we have now, without the standard of consumer goods we have - you cannot! And if we did, we should not have the jobs and we should not have the money to help people to get out of poverty into more education, more opportunity. So to give that impression is totally wrong.
What we have to do is to find a way through science, which has solved so many problems - it will solve this one - of dealing with the waste, of dealing with the pollution, dealing with the greenhouse effect and keeping up a standard of living and also recognising that the countries in the Third World have not yet had their enormous increase in standard of living. [end p16]
What we have to say to them is: “Yes, of course! It is our job to help you to have a rising standard of living, but do learn from our mistakes! Do learn, because we now know what not to do. We know how to deal with pollution. We have got the specialist companies to turn some of the chemicals into harmless chemicals and so please learn and do not go on chopping down trees just for cooking food without replacing them! Please do not go on chopping down the great tropical forests just because you want more agricultural land!” We are now giving grants for the preservation of tropical forests; we are giving grants through ODA, our Overseas Development Department. We teach them to look after their forests and that they are very important for them as well as us.
So there is no question, however much you may hanker after it, of the old village life. We have a high standard of living. We have to keep that high standard of living and enable other people to get it, without doing damage to the environment - and that is why in this country we are taking the lead.
I think we should be quite proud. It was our researchers who discovered the big holes in the ozone layer. It was the British Antarctic Survey. We had kept our research going; we had always recognised the Antarctic was going to be important one day. We were keen on the wild life there, keen on what precious metals there might be there which we might need one day, and they were doing a [end p17] lot because in both the polar ice-caps and the tropical, you have got this cold, cold, hot in the middle, and how the currents go, how the air goes and how the water goes really creates the climate, and we are very good on research on climate. We have one of the four world research stations, so the British Antarctic Survey discovered this problem with the ozone layer and this is one reason why we are in the lead about cutting down on the aerosols that cause some of the problem, why we have got a conference on March 7th. But just let us blow our own trumpet because our research people, our researchers, are very good good and they came in and gave me a whole presentation here and they were marvellous.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, will we go lead-free?
Prime Minister
Yes. We had the recent great campaign, Motability.
Now, Motability is the essence of so much of what we try to do. It is a combination between grants by Government and the private sector. The Government give grants and then the private sector help to provide the cars for the disabled and that gives a much bigger dimension to their lives and I think it is marvellous that they have all decided to go lead-free. [end p18]
Now for many many cars it is not difficult and it is not expensive, but for some of the older cars or some of the older-designed engines it is expensive and so it will take a bit longer. Some of the Government cars we are having to wait as we renew them because it would be too expensive to convert. About one-in-three of ours is converted and all the new ones automatically come in.
In the last Budget, Nigel Lawsonthe Chancellor cut the price of lead-free petrol to get more but I think we have not got enough garages yet with unleaded petrol on the forecourts. I think the message we should get across is if you have your engine converted to use unleaded petrol you can use leaded as well, but you cannot the other way round.
But I think associated with Motability were some of the oil companies and I think you will find that gradually they will cut out their two-star petrol and put unleaded petrol in their tanks because people will demand it.
Interviewer
I hope so and I heard on the radio that Vauxhall are offering their car-owners free deals of having their cars converted and apparently from 14 million owners a million only have taken up the offer, which is sad! [end p19]
Prime Minister
They will have seen the effort we had at Buckingham Palace Mews with the Queen and some of them will say: “Let's have it!” and then they will see cars queuing for the unleaded petrol. I think it will come because this is how we are going to get the environment better - by everyone saying: “What can I do?” “This is what I can do: not put down litter; clean it up when I see it. Have unleaded petrol!” and make jolly certain that we are efficient in the way we use fuel so we do not burn too much so it does not go up in carbon dioxide on the greenhouse effect layer.
Interviewer
The last one, which was the national scares we are going through at the moment. Toxins in nappies and white goods and salmonella and listeria are the cause of much concern at the moment. Does the Government intend to introduce tighter controls on industry to prevent such health and environmental risks?
Prime Minister
There are quite a number of controls in industry and on canteens and restaurants.
We have got a lot of new food technology. You know, I had never heard of cook chill two years ago. There is far more buying of fast-frozen pre-cooked food, so we have got a whole new lot of technology to cope with and a whole new lot of housewives' habits to cope with. [end p20]
What we have got to look and see, as we learn more about how bacteria multiply … look, there are bacteria in the body - we could not do without them; there are bacteria in the air; there are bacteria in food. It is when they suddenly multiply to become a large problem and what we have recently learned is that on the listeria one, the bacteria can multiply at temperatures far lower than we thought.
But what we are first doing is getting the advice of the scientists, because what we do must be scientifically sound. When we have got that, the Chief Medical Officer, who you have seen on television, goes straight away to Food or appropriate Committee and says: “Now, we must fashion a new regulation!”
Unfortunately, things sometimes get partially reported and the headlines are much more alarming. I have got with me the actual advice which the Chief Medical Officer gave about cheese and about cook chill. I have got the full thing. I will give you a copy and you will see what I mean.
What he said is: “Look! Listeria, we are finding there is more of it in soft cheese. The normally healthy person need not worry, but we have found from our medical experience that it does matter to the pregnant mother because it attacks the foetus and could lead to miscarriage. Therefore I must say to pregnant mothers: please do not eat this cheese and anyone who is a permanent invalid, because your system is just lowered against the resistance!” No-one said ban any cheese at all. [end p21]
If only the whole thing had been put out! And then he gave general advice to the public. I will give it to you, it is all there. I will give you what he put out on salmonella and raw eggs as well.
I am afraid it has just got out of all proportion. You will see there what he says.
We have a duty to warn people when there is a problem. The trouble is you warn and people do not hear the whole warning and things get a little bit exaggerated. We have a duty to warn, they have to be scientifically-based warnings and that is what we are steadily doing.
It has happened to other countries on the Continent. I don't think anyone else has done quite as much so far on salmonella as we have, with the exception of the Danes - they have.
One soft cheese has been banned, that was in Switzerland because they found about eighteen months ago it gave rise to problems.
All of a sudden, you will get an increasing number of cases of a particular kind of food poisoning. You have got then to trace it and then you must give warnings because otherwise you think it might increase.
The very important thing is to keep your kitchen very hygienic always and, of course, you have always had salmonella in meat and chicken and that is why you cook and it cook it well to get it right out. It is comparatively new to have it actually in the egg and that is the new factor which has given rise to the trouble. [end p22]
Interviewer
It has been widely reported, Prime Minister, as well, that the next scare is going to be pork and bacon because of the hormones that are introduced.
Prime Minister
But always, ever since I was a child, you know that you have to cook pork well. You know that you have to cook bacon well. You know that you have to cook has well. You have always known that.
We did take action in Europe on hormones in beef quite some time ago because the particular one they were using, if used in very large quantities, could in fact have been harmful so we took action about that. So many things are if they are used in too large quantities, so we were quite well ahead with taking action about that.
But you have always known cook pork well, cook meat, beef well, cook ham and cook bacon well. We were always brought up to that and I think that people will have to look at the labels.
We shop differently now. Don't you find you go to a supermarket and get a whole load of things and you might get cook chill. You think it is perfectly all right in the fridge; then you look and it says: “Eat after 3 days!” and you are still doing it after five. You will find some people take it out and will cook it and get it piping hot and not eat it all; then it goes back into the fridge and then perhaps they do not re-heat it properly. [end p23]
You will see what the Chief Medical Officer said about that, and I think we have just got to watch and be very careful. It is never worth risking anything. Sometimes, I will take something out of the fridge, particularly if you are dealing with fish, and I think: “Gosh! I know that has been in there five days because I brought it back this week-end!” and we will not risk it. Straightaway, out it goes! It is not worth risking.
We shall be bringing out soon also some regulations - I know they are looking at these - on temperatures of those fridges in shops because that is the part that is not covered because your fridge works, of course, by extracting heat which comes out of the back so you have got it cooled in the front and you just have to make certain that the temperature is kept cool.
But these are problems that our mothers did not have to deal with. We did not have fridges, but we knew how to keep meat all right and cooked it well.
Interviewer
It was more hand-to-mouth too, wasn't it, that one bought food, cooked it and ate it then did the same thing the following day? [end p24]
Prime Minister
That is right, that is right, or you went and bought every day or alternate days, you had your joint on Sunday, it was cold on Monday, shepherd's pie on Tuesday and that was finished, so you did not get a problem. So it was cold just the one day and re-heated piping hot with shepherd's pie the second day or rissoles, jolly good, jolly good recipes there were for rissoles too, but rissoles usually with the mince meat and the herbs you put in, and the onion and if you had got any mushrooms which you had been out to gather, and then bound it all together, really very good rissoles.
But we used to get fed up with it in my generation.
Interviewer
Well, it was always the same wasn't it? [end p25]
Prime Minister
Cold on Monday, rissoles on Tuesday.
Interviewer
It was the cold on Monday I objected to.
Prime Minister
But you see it was all over by the third day.
Interviewer
That is right, that is right.
Prime Minister
And then you went out and got something and cooked it for Wednesday, got something and cooked it for Thursday, it was either fish or sausages in our household.
Interviewer
Fish on Friday, yes.
Prime Minister
But they are different problems and so regulations have to take account of different habits. Our bodies would not work unless they had quite a lot of benign bacteria in the digestive system. [end p26]
Indeed, you probably have heard, if you have a course of antibiotics for something then the first thing people say is: “It has got rid of all the good bacteria in your digestive system as well and you must eat some natural yogurt to get them back in”. So you have to keep good hygiene, sensible habits. Listeria is in the air and of course it will settle on food and the question is: how much settles? That means that you have got to be very certain that you cook it, which gets rid of it.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, thank you.
Prime Minister
Have you got enough?
Interviewer
I have I am sure, I have more than enough thank you.
Prime Minister
Now the year 2000, you asked, let me just do that very quickly. Yes it would be for us all to have a marvellously clean environment of which we are proud, to be very conscious of planting trees and shrubs, which we tend to do in our gardens. [end p27]
I am a great big believer in trees in streets and planting trees to beautify Britain but part of the environment is the crime. As I say, it is part of the same thing - a Neighbourhood Watch to get rid of crime and teaching children: “No, you do not do this, no you do not let your group down, your school, your community”.
Of course people will break the rules, of course we are not all good and would not like to be really … of course you are not, but the thing is you have got to have certain rules by which to live so people know where they are.
And if we can get down this crime, the worst thing is the violent crime, the worst thing is the vandalism, the worst thing is the terrible things that are done to children and old people. That is part of the environment and we all have to be on our guard against that.
Interviewer
Sadly it is.
Prime Minister
That is why we can point to a city where people are proud. And these, if I can say it, these are not things which depend upon a wealthy society or a poor society, these are matters of personal pride and behaviour. [end p28]
I remember some of the people have been unemployed are very particular about the standards by which they personally live, the way they turn out their children, about living up to standards, it is not a matter of rich or poor, it is a matter of personal standards.
It is a thing in which each and every one of us has an equal role and equal duty and equal responsibility and equal liberty.
And our task, I should say this to you, our other big task of government, which I feel very strongly about, is always to extend opportunity to young people who have not had it. That is why we are so keen on education. That is why I am so keen on having people able to build up capital out of their own carningo. That had never happened until this generation. You start by building up capital out of your own earnings, buying your own house and mortgages. Then out of your own earnings saving in a Building Society, then perhaps buying some shares.
This is the first generation whereby we have been able to have every man a capitalist out of earnings so that it means that by the time that great-grandma dies at about the age of eighty-five, ninety, or ninety-five, you know in about twenty years time every great-grandma will have something to leave to future generations. That is going to be quite different, so they will feel that they can profit, they can do something for new great-grandchild. [end p29]
Great-grandma can do something for new great-grandchild because great-grandma in twenty years time will have some resources to do it and influence the future.
Well, aren't we lucky? But we are lucky by our own efforts. You get luckier. The harder you work and the keener you are to use the responsibility that comes from freedom, the better the whole community and society will be.
I am very keen, you know all of us who came up the hard way are very keen that you should be able to build up capital, your own home from your own savings. They were ahead of us in America, they can. That is why we must not tax people too much. We must leave them the money to look after themselves and build up their own security, every man a capitalist, their own independence.
And more young people have Building Society accounts than ever before. It sounds dull but it is exciting, it is enabling, it gives them a chance we never had, it is an exciting world, they can then go and travel and see how other people live.