Interviewer
Prime Minister, what actually happens at Question Time?
Prime Minister
I usually go in about five minutes before my questions are due so one gets the atmosphere and listens to the previous Minister answering and of course if it is a Ministerial occasion then there are several Ministers answering from one department. The moment I get up I am on my own, I have not anyone else to turn to and say: “You take that question” .
Mine are really rather unusual question. They are not about specific topics, for example tomorrow, let me just look, tomorrow the first nineteen questions are all the same question: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for today. The twentieth then asks a specific question. So I say what I am going to do that day: I have had a Cabinet meeting, I have had several meetings with Members, I have gone out to a specific engagement and maybe I will be having a reception or a speech to make that evening and then of course I have no idea what the real question is going to [end p1] be. They use that formal question to try to put a block-buster to me, it may be about a hospital in their local constituency, it may be about a Social Security case, it may be about industry, it may be about industry starting up or not—anything right across the whole spectrum.
Last week we had about three about Cambodia so it may be anything, and I have to prepare very carefully and sometimes we will look down the list of people who are asking questions and we will spot that one of them comes from a coal area, one of them comes from Lancashire, two or three come from Scotland, one from Wales and so we try to spot what the questions might be.
Then I have to remember, well, he comes from a coal mining area, so I bet he thinks I will think that he is going to ask a coal question and so he is going to ask something different. So you know it is very much a game. It is not always the answers they are interested in, it is tripping up the PM.
Interviewer
You say that you do not know exactly what you are going to be asked but you try and guess. How often are you right?
Prime Minister
I should think we get four out of five and the fifth one we just have not thought of, but the fifth one might be what I would call a standard question, that is some of the standard Social Security problems or the pensions which one usually has in the back of [end p2] one's mind or it might be a particular case that the person did not get the chance to ask a week or two weeks ago and so it might come up now. We quite often find that happens. For example, supposing they were amalgamating two research stations, two medical research stations or agricultural research stations, then the person who is losing it from their constituency is cross and the person who is gaining it does not say anything. And you might just remember that that was news two weeks ago so it is still in your mind and you can still answer.
Otherwise there are some that just come out of the blue. We have one Member who asks about every kind of wildlife all over the world and you just have to know what the problems are with particular animals or plants.
Interviewer
When you are taken by surprise, what do you do, how do you give yourself time to think, time to work out some sort of answer?
Prime Minister
Well, you just learn. It has been very useful to have been a lawyer, you learn quickly to think on your feet and to find some requisite answer. [end p3]
Interviewer
But if somebody is asking you about wildlife, which can be very technical, what do you say?
Prime Minister
All of a sudden, I now know, because obviously many people are deeply concerned about saving the various species and one knows the mains ones. But now and then someone will come up with something that one does not particularly know about, one will take note of it and enquire into it.
Interviewer
Apart from trying to work out what you might be asked, how else do you prepare yourself for Question Time?
Prime Minister
Systematically because it is cumulative and the worst time is when you come back after a long recess and you have not been answering for three months. But bearing in mind you are on twice a week really from now until just about the end of July all the knowledge is cumulative and you are re-doing it constantly and keeping up-to-date with the statistics. So every weekend I will just up-date myself on what the latest statistics are because they are constantly coming out. [end p4]
But then on a Question day, the drill goes like this. The night before I will have the list of the questioners and the question but the question reveals nothing. But the questioner, who is going to be the questioner, you might have some idea of what he has been interested in.
I will go through the statistics again, I will think myself now what would I ask under these circumstances and then make a note that we must check up on the facts with regard to what I have thought of.
The following morning I am listening to radio and reading the paper from early on and go down then at about 9.00 am and we have a meeting then about comparing notes about what we think is the news of the day because people like to ask a topical question and then we go through that, what have you thought of, what have I thought of, we must get the facts about that one.
So out go the messages and I should think that we have between us thought about some thirty questions that we required the facts for. Now it is jolly difficult to hold all those in your head and not get muddled so you do have quite extensive notes and you have to hold them in your hand, usually in alphabetical order so you can pull them out quickly.
Then I go on at 9.30 with the morning's business, maybe Cabinet Committees or it may be one is receiving delegations or fashioning policies with a group of people or going out somewhere to carry out an engagement. [end p5]
We reassemble at 1.00. Now on Question days we do not have very much lunch, you do not really want a very full stomach before you are going in to bat in the House so you have just a very very light lunch, some have sandwiches, I just have a bowl of soup and a piece of fruit. And again we look at the news that has come in during the morning, look at the information that has come in the morning, try to sort it out in one's mind and get it into some sort of order because it is no earthly good having information higgledy-piggledy, you have got to have learnt some method of sorting it out and classifying it in your mind.
Then at 2.30 I come across here and we look at the final run through from the tape because what people really like is they know I go in at 3.10 and they would love to trip me up with something that has come on to the tape between 3.10 and 3.15 when I could not possibly know it. So we have to be alert for that as well.
Then you have so much information in your mind that you really have to rely on years of training to be able to get up and order your thoughts and see the words come out in the right order as you are trying to put your point to the questioner
Interviewer
It is very noisy in the Commons, particularly at Question Time, do you ever or have you ever in the past felt a bit daunted just by the Opposition baying and yelling at you? [end p6]
Prime Minister
No you get used to that, the real difficulty is, you are quite right it is very noisy and I sit down in the pit, you know we are on the ground floor and there are rows of people up behind you and rows of people in front of you and I must say the sound in the House of Commons is not good. And against the background of noise, if someone is asking you a question quite high up opposite, it will be quite difficult to hear precisely what it is and sometimes you just get the general gist of the question but not the particular thing.
There are little microphones you know in the back of the seat, little receivers, you could put your ear to the them to try to hear but it looks rather odd to people in the gallery if all the time you have got your ear back there, they wonder just exactly what you are doing.
There are occasions when I say: “Mr Speaker, insofar as I beard that question, the answer is … ” and if that was not the question they have to ask it again. But it is very noisy, very noisy sometimes, and sometimes you will just stop and wait until the noise has subsided.
Interviewer
What is the effect on you when you literally cannot hear yourself speak, from what you have just said? [end p7]
Prime Minister
Normally you just lean forward because there is a microphone there, you know there is a tall Despatch Box and you can lean on it, and the only way I can make myself heard to people wanting to listen as distinct from people just wanting to make a noise, is to speak right forward into the microphone then it will go through the microphone system and people can hear.
Now it is going to be very difficult with television because as you go forward to the microphone, the cameras that are televising you are right up there and so if you are not careful they will not see your face, they will see the top of your head and it will be quite difficult. So we have got to get a technique, I do not know whether we higher the microphone or what but I can only tell you that once you are at the Despatch Box your mind is not on what you look like or anything like that, your mind is totally devoted to the question and the reply which you have to find quickly.
And as I indicated, I cannot pass on my questions to anyone else, or there is no one to relieve me to answer the next question. I am just up and down the whole time. It is particularly continuous where at the end of Questions we then have to give a statement and are then answering questions on that statement for about another forty or fifty minutes.
But you get used to it. I have had ten years now to get used to it and we have got through so far. [end p8]
Interviewer
MPs on all sides of the House, your side as well as the Opposition side, all make a lot of noise at one time or another, do you think it is really necessary for the Commons to be so noisy?
Prime Minister
Oh, I do not think it is necessary, I think it has got more noisy over the years although I am told it was very noisy in about 1956/57. But you see the questions have varied. When I first came into the House the questions asked of the Prime Minister were specific questions about a specific subject.
Then the Members learned that sometimes the Prime Minister would say: “I really cannot answer questions which should have gone to the Minister of Health or the Minister of Social Security or the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Defence” and he would pass those questions over to someone else and they would not appear on the Order Paper.
So now they have devised, although I have never passed on an Oral Question, never, so they have devised this means, a question which is meaningless, as a basis on which to ask supplementary questions and I think it has made quite a difference to the amount of noise that you get. [end p9]
Interviewer
You are sometimes accused of being shrill, of being strident. Do you think there is ever an element of truth in that or do you think it is just sexism from our largely male House of Commons?
Prime Minister
No, no, quite deliberately they raise the volume of sound to make one raise one's voice to be heard. The great advantage of a woman's voice is that it can be heard through the hubbub whereas a man's sometimes cannot, it can be because it is at a different pitch.
Sometimes you just simply stop and say: “Right, Mr Speaker, if they do not wish to hear the answer to the question then either I will not give it while they are making a noise or I will wait until they subside” .
Interviewer
But in terms of the noise it is actually an advantage being a woman?
Prime Minister
You can make your voice penetrate when a man's would not always. But you know I have found sometimes with questioners, we have one or two who shout away and they shout so loudly that you cannot hear them. [end p10]
Then you get problems because the microphones in some parts of the House are not good and sometimes you miss the whole first half of the question because that microphone is not live. The other problem that you have is that you are talking always to the Opposition and your own people are behind you and they cannot always hear what you are saying, those directly behind you cannot and you tend to want to turn round, it is natural courtesy, to answer the person who is addressing you but then you will lose that microphone, that one will not catch it and that one is too far away so you know that your voice goes.
If we are going to have television permanently after the experiment we really shall have to look at the microphones in the House, I think some of your people think that they came from the age of steam, which they probably did, but we really shall have to because the sound is not terribly good particularly as I say you are down here and all the noise is going on up there and sometimes going over your head and your microphone is there and if you turn that way or that way to Mr Speaker your voice will not be heard.
Interviewer
For all the reasons that you have said it must be very difficult and you must presumably have had some bad moments at Question Time, what is your worst experience at Question Time? [end p11]
Prime Minister
I really cannot tell you. You know once you are in there, from the moment you get up, your mind is so concentrated on the question and finding the reply that you really do forget every single thing else. Sometimes at the end I say: “Oh goodness me, is it the end of Questions?” you forget everything else, I could not tell you what the most difficult things have been, we have just got through.
Interviewer
When you come out, particularly if it has been an especially dramatic Question Time, do you want a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or do you sometimes think you would like something stronger?
Prime Minister
No I come back in here and we usually just see any questions that we must learn for next time and then we have to pack up because usually after Question Time I am seeing one or two Members of Parliament because they know that I am in the House at that time, a number from one's own side or even from Opposition side, because I have always made a rule that if anyone has a factory closing in their constituency I would see them.
And so soon after Questions or statements I tend to have two or three Members of Parliament to see in here and so again you switch your mind to their problem. [end p12]
But do not forget, I have been answering Questions for years, I have been in the House for thirty years. I came in in 1959, I was made a Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Pensions in 1961 so for three years until we lost power I was answering questions on Social Security and that has been the best basis that one could possibly have had for picking up questions from that department.
Then when we were in opposition I did Shadow Minister to many departments: Fuel and Power, or Energy as we now call it; Transport; Housing and Local Government as well as Pensions; and then started shadowing the Chief Secretary's job and then I shadowed Education and then I became Cabinet Minister for Education so I was answering questions for four years on that.
So I had been on the asking end and on the answering end. You do not just go from the bottom rung of the ladder to the top, there are quite a lot to climb in between and you are learning the whole time.
Interviewer
Having seen it from both the asking and the answering side, which is more enjoyable, which is more fun?
Prime Minister
I would rather answer questions than find the difficult one to ask. I always think it is difficult if you are expected to find ones to ask day after day after day because there are not that number of really penetrating questions and I think perhaps you [end p13] know when you are answering them, you know better the more penetrating questions than when you are on the asking side. I have been on both sides and I prefer to be answering them.
But someone else who perhaps had not had that same amount of experience or who perhaps had not got a particular memory for statistics, may prefer to ask. I know some people who are very very good at asking. Norman Tebbit was an absolute gem to find a question that the then government could not answer, absolutely terrific, he was very good at answering them too when he became a Minister, he just had that knowledge of what people wanted asked and then he has the knowledge of just how to answer it.
Interviewer
Do you see, Prime Minister's Question Time as primarily an important exercise in political point-scoring?
Prime Minister
I do not know that I think about it as much in that way. It is certainly an exercise in trying to trip up the Ministers of the Government but that is part of the whole system. It is invaluable in that when you are negotiating on behalf of your country overseas in Europe or in the Economic Summit or at the Commonwealth Conference and when you are thinking of putting your name to something on behalf of your country or thinking, shall I agree to that or not, always but always in your mind, and not at the back of it but pretty well in the forefront, is could I get this through [end p14] the House of Commons, always. And I do not think that some of my European colleagues realise the difference between our Parliamentary system and so many of theirs that this Question Time and answering and making statements and having to be cross-examined on the statement is much more developed and much more central to our system than it is to theirs.
I went to one of the European countries on an official visit on one particular occasion, I went to their Parliament because obviously I had had talks with their government and the leaders of the Opposition wanted to see me, it was a country whose policies were fragmented and there were eleven leaders of eleven oppositions. So they all lined up on the opposite side of the table like this and each of them asked me three questions and made a little speech. And at the end when we got right down to this end, the last one, he did say to me: “Thank you very much for coming, Mrs Thatcher, it is not often that we have the chance to question a Prime Minister” .
Well now I really was knocked backwards by this, I did not expect it all. I said: “But doesn't your Prime Minister come and answer questions every week?” “No, he will come down about three times a year to make a statement” . So I said: “Well will be not be cross-examined on the statement?” “No.”
Now there you see it is much easier for them to get out of touch than it is for us because every day we have to be in touch with Parliament and two days a week we are actually answering questions. [end p15]
And then, all of a sudden, it dawned on me, just in a flash, it came in a flash, not a slow dawning, that our Parliament and our system means far more to the life of this country and is far more important than theirs. They do not have to answer in the same way to their Parliaments quite as we do here.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, you have mentioned television once or twice, You were not very keen on the idea of televising the Commons, What do you hope will come from having cameras in the Commons?
Prime Minister
I do not know what will come. I only know that when you televise anything it changes. You never televised the House as it was before it was televised, you only televise the House as a televised House. I do not know how it will change. Some will think that it will get noisier. Some think that more people will play to the gallery knowing that if they make sensational statements those are the ones that are going to be selected for transmission whereas the deeper, heavier, more solid things which might mean more in the life of the nation cannot be televised so easily. People talk about that ghastly phrase called a sound-bite which if you make some quite electric statement or some sensational statement you are more likely to get that chosen. [end p16]
I do not know, I only know that whatever happens I have to take what comes and just cope with it and just get on with it. But then that is what most women do anyway and they do it very well.