Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Conservative Local Government Conference

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Church House, Westminster
Source: Finchley Press, 11 February 1966
Editorial comments: 1000.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 159
Themes: Local government, Local government finance

‘A place for big-minded people’

Local rates must go on however much we talk about having some other method, said Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, M.P. for the Finchley Division, summing up a discussion on the reorganisation of local government at the Conservative annual local government conference in London on Saturday.

“Don't talk about abolishing anything until you have got an idea of what you are going to put in its place,” she declared. “That applies to rates and local government. However much we talk the rates must go on.”

Mrs. Thatcher, who is an Opposition front bench spokesman on housing and land, said it was always easy to make out a case for larger units of local government. But the danger in these larger units was that they got more committees, more paper work, and fewer decisions.

“Local government is a place for big-minded people who can take decisions. There is no place in it for the pernickety.”