Judith Chalmers
Hello, and if it's not too late to say it, a very happy New Year to you, and we're delighted that to start us off in the New Year we have with us, the Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher. Welcome to Afternoon Plus Mrs. Thatcher. We also have with us seven ladies who have actually reached the top also of their professions who will be putting questions that concern them, and us to the Prime Minister later in the programme. Well it's been twenty months now since you took Office Mrs. Thatcher, an eventful twenty months to say the least. Indeed you come to us fresh today after reshuffling the cabinet. Can you tell us, with that reshuffling what you hope to achieve?
Prime Minister
Well first reshuffling isn't a job that any Prime Minister welcomes, because if you are to promote those who have done well, it means you've got to ask some people to relinquish their portfolios, and that's the difficult part, and you have to really grit your teeth to do it, but you've got to promote people who've been doing well, you've got to encourage people who are doing well on the back benches that there'll be a place for them, and that you must do. It also gives the Government a new momentum, a new dynamic, it reaffirms the direction in which we're going. And then you know there is another factor, almost every interview I do people say, and when are you going to reshuffle? And that induces a great uncertainty in people's minds, so you'd better get it over and done, and the time to do it is during a Parliamentary recess. I felt I couldn't leave it much longer, so now it's done, the future is reaffirmed and we'll go full steam ahead again.
Judith Chalmers
You said you wanted to encourage people who want, you know, would like promotion, what about the people who you perhaps can't tolerate because of their strong criticism of your Cabinet? I mean both Mr. Pym and St. John Stevas have been outspoken about cuts in public expenditure haven't they?
Prime Minister
If I couldn't have tolerated them they wouldn't have been in my Cabinet in the first place, because we could never have [end p1] got on. Cabinet Government consists in discussing, and in deciding jointly in which direction you should go. Every Prime Minister has to tolerate criticism. If you put yourself in the front line you must expect to be shot at, and after all Mr. Francis Pym is one of the most able people we have, and I'm very sorry to have lost Mr Norman St John Stevas. Mr. Francis Pym could do most jobs, it was marvellous to have him in defence, it'll be wonderful also to have him as Leader of the House. The other thing which I should perhaps say is you want to give some people wider experience than just one department, that anears [sic] to their benefit, and to the whole of the Government as well.
Judith Chalmers
There was something too in the Financial Times which said, ‘A warning shot across the boughs of the so-called wets in the Cabinet’. That's an awful word, wets, I hate it, but it is used rather a lot.
Prime Minister
I thought it was rather a comment. I had to do a reshuffle, I had to promote some people, I had to give some people wider experience, I did it quietly, without fuss, efficiently in the normal incidents of the days work, during a recess.
Judith Chalmers
I understand that what angers you rather a lot, disloyalty and leaks of information. I mean you've shown how displeased you've been with that. That has happened quite a bit in the Government so far hasn't it?
Prime Minister
Leaks there have been, yes. This shouldn't happen, because it makes, it doesn't make for efficient Cabinet Government If you feel that anything you say might be repeated outside, it should not happen, it shouldn't happen in any Government. I hope it will happen less and less, I think people are very much aware of the damage that it's done. Disloyalty, it's not a question of being loyal or disloyal to a Prime Minister, Cabinet Government consists in coming to a decision by discussion. What you should never do is say, all right, I'll go along with it inside Cabinet, provided outside I can say I don't agree. That is not Cabinet Government, and it will weaken any Government. We've had one or two problems, I hope we're through those.
Judith Chalmers
You seem on the other hand to enjoy battling, you seem to thrive on it and Barbara Castle wrote in her diaries that power is the best cosmetic for women politicians. Do you agree with that? [end p2]
Prime Minister
Well I like battling. I like battling. The trouble is if you're not careful, I'm not sure it's a good cosmetic, the battles can show in your face, but I like battling, yes I do enjoy question time, because then I'm facing, absolutely on my own the whole of the opposition, and of course questions from our own side too. Everyone can see that no-one there can help you, you've got to know your stuff, only you can find the answer, and that I do love. And if there's a row I never mind it, because I can cope, not that I particularly think that Parliament should be run by a row a day, or a scare a day, and I don't think the British people like it either, but if there's a real battle, yes I'm right in the middle of it.
Judith Chalmers
At the beginning of the day, you know sometimes I wake up and I think now, am I going to enjoy today or am I going to dread it, so you say, oh good, or oh God. What do you say most mornings?
Prime Minister
I look forward to every day, every day has new opportunities. Of course there are some days when I'm just a little bit fearful. It might be that you have a tremendously big speech in the House of Commons, or a big speech which is going to be televised, and somehow and I think you must know it, the moment those television cameras move in, something changes. You're not just quite as natural as you were before, and I think that is just about the worst worry I have, the big speeches. The things when you haven't got to issue a press release and read something out I much prefer. I'm much better really at just talking, and just getting up and making an informal speech than I am at issuing the press releases and then reading through them, and you know, if you don't read every word out they find some significance in what you haven't said.
Judith Chalmers
We were all saying before we went on the air weren't we? The moment the television cameras began to go like that. We were all feeling apprehensive actually.
Prime Minister
We were all saying before we went on the air weren't we? The moment the television cameras began to go like that. We were all feeling apprehensive actually.
Prime Minister
Well I don't think you do.
Judith Chalmers
Oh yes I do. One last thing before we go and look at some vox-pops Mrs. Thatcher. A person who has such strongly held views obviously is open to strong criticism, we've already broached the subject already a little earlier on, but you do listen, which is what you said, you do listen to people's criticism of you. [end p3]
Prime Minister
Of course I do, I mean I have to and some of it may well be very valid, or it may be that we're not putting the full facts over, so they don't see the reason for the decision, of course some of the criticism maybe right, and if it is then you've got to change.
Judith Chalmers
Yes, good. Well at that moment it brings us neatly to the next part of the programme. Before our studio guests put their questions to you let's hear what women were saying yesterday in the streets outside our studios:-
[Film clip]I would be delighted to ask Maggie Thatcher a question. As a teacher I'm very, very concerned about what is happening within schools at the present time, and my one question would be simply this. What is this Government that says education is an investment for the future, for a technological future. What is this Government going to do about the kids who are now in schools who are not going to get their adequate education now, and certainly in the future? What is Maggie and her Government going to do about that?
Well I do admire Mrs. Thatcher but I'd like to know as a manageress of a boutique is she fully aware of the problems of the small businesses. When is she going to do something about it?
I'd like to ask her if there's any moral justification in spending billions of pounds on weapons of destruction when she's cutting areas of needs such as health, Social services, and education.
Well I'm seventeen and unemployed and I was wondering what Mrs. Thatcher would do for people like us?
Well the other day Mrs. Thatcher had the gall to compare herself to a nurse, but could she actually make ends meet on the same pay that I get, that's what I'd like to know?
I'm a pensioner myself, I'm seventy-two, and the question I'd like very much have her answer, is when is she going to stop taking money away from the pensioners and pay them a decent and adequate pension that they can live on, because nobody can live on the pension I'm given, twenty-nine pounds a week, twenty-nine pounds, seventy-one pence, and there are many, many thousands of pensioners who are frightened to death this winter to put the heating on because the cost of [end p4] electricity bills, the cost of everything's gone up, and the pension they're getting is inadequate, and has been cut over this last year, that's the question I'd very much like answered, and I'm sure a great many pensioners will be with me in asking that question.
End of film clipJudith Chalmers
Mrs. Thatcher can I put that question from the last lady—the pensioner-to you first? She does find it difficult to manage. I think that also a lot of people are saying that in fact they're from November not going to be linked to inflation the pensions, so can you answer those points?
Prime Minister
Shall I deal with the last one first? That's not quite right. Over the whole period of a Parliament they will be linked to inflation, what happened this year was we increased the pension actually slightly more than the rate of inflation, so if we over link the price in one year we adjust in the following year, but over the whole lifetime of a Parliament they will be linked to the increase in prices. I did note very carefully what the pensioner said. Our problem is this. Everything Governments provide really have to come from the working population who have to pay for education and for pensions and for an increasing number of pensions. And of course it has to come out of contributions. If our questionner is not being able to manage and I will be the first to understand her problems, then she must go and get extra pension from Social Security, she can. She noted particularly the fuel costs, I agree they are heavy, that's why we did provide an extra almost two hundred million pounds this year to try to help those worst in need. Whether pensioners or young families with their extra fuel costs, so in fact this year pensions have gone up slightly more than the cost of living. We have provided the extra fuel, but all the time the limiting factor is, it isn't Governments who provide the money, we have to get it from the working population, and they don't like spending too much out of their wage packet, either on income tax or on value added tax, or on contributions, and that's the limiting factor.
Judith Chalmers
A very good, full answer for the pensioner. Now the nurse, you did say the other day, you were comparing yourself with a nurse. I think I'm right in saying that take-home pay of that nurse was three hundred and fifteen pounds a month, could you manage on that, said the nurse? [end p5]
Prime Minister
We all had to start, and we all had to start on very small wages, salaries and we all had to learn to live on them. Again every extra thing we put into the National Health Service we have to decide where it will go. I think most people would say the most important thing in the service are the doctors and the nurses, and getting their services to the patients. We negotiate each year in fact the pay increase to nurses, we honoured the Clegg Award in every single way, not only that we did more, we provided extra money so that their hours could come down, so I think we did everything that was asked of us and a bit more because we felt so highly about nurses and felt they should have a decent living.
Judith Chalmers
Mrs. Thatcher you're doing the questionners proud, but I'm afraid we're going to have to speed the answers up, just to be brief …
Prime Minister
All right we'll speed it up.
Judith Chalmers
… I know it's difficult. The unemployed teenager, she's crying for help too, she came from Scotland and has been in London a month and a half trying to find a job.
Prime Minister
Well she, is she, if she doesn't soon find a job she should soon tie up with what's called the Youth Opportunities Programme, and there we have undertaken to find a job for everyone under that programme, and we've increased the number of places so I hope she'll go along soon to that, because we've put specially increased amounts of money into that, and many companies are co-operating magnificently.
Judith Chalmers
The pacifist who was talking about spending billions of pounds on weapons of destruction when you're cutting other areas of need. What will Mr. Nott be doing with that with defence …?
Prime Minister
You know there will be no future life in this country as we know it unless we're prepared to defend ourselves. In fact on defence expenditure in our first year, defence expenditure actually put up by three per cent in real terms, that's after taking inflation into account, this year it will be by about at least two and a half per cent and next it will have increased, so we are in fact seeing that this nation is well and truly defended. [end p6]
Judith Chalmers
I'm going to leave out the question about the business woman because we have a lady here who runs her own business so I'd like to just briefly talk about the teacher who talked about the education cuts, saying that in fact children weren't going to get the same adequate education in the future.
Prime Minister
Well you know I wondered if I could almost turn the question back to her, because the facts of the matter are that even after any economies that have been made there are more teachers to pupils, the proportion, than there were when we took office. That ratio has not deteriorated in any way, and even after the economies the actual amount spent per pupil on the education per pupil is slightly increased, so if you've got more teachers and expenditure per pupil I think one is entitled to turn round and say, well isn't the real point, are we getting real value for money? Not do we want more teachers, do we want them better trained, do we want more appropriate teachers? Something is not quite right, when the money is there and the teachers are there, but some of us feel that we're not getting the best out of our children and we should be.
Judith Chalmers
Now let us move, you've been sitting waiting patiently all your ladies in front of you here, waiting to ask you a question. Let's go first of all to you Jane Reed, because you are a magazine publisher with IPC, so your question to the Prime Minister please.
Jane Reed
Good afternoon.
Prime Minister
Good afternoon.
Jane Reed
Some of your senior colleagues have expressed, I think, in public or seem to be expressing some doubts about the value of wives working outside the home. Surely you can't actually agree with this?
Prime Minister
I think what some of us are very concerned about, and we come across with some women or young wives almost feeling guilty if they don't have a job as well as running the home. That must never be. One of the most important jobs in life, if you have a family and you know you're responsible for bringing them in the world, they depend upon you, is bringing them up to the best possible start in life, and I would say to any woman, if she wants to stay at home, and put absolutely top bringing up her children, and after all I didn't come into Parliament until my children were six, right, that is a very important job you can do, please [end p7] don't be deflected. Other people will want to do both things, I think then it's absolutely vital for them to have a grandma, an aunt, a friend or some help so that someone's always there when the children come home. But you know, people have to make their own decisions, they have to adapt their own lives and talk about it within their own families, but the important thing is, they must see that provision is made for their children, they're responsible for them, all the time, and that's the most important thing of all.
Jane Reed
Yes, if—if women do drop out of the job market if you like, for the duration of their children's youth, or well at least maybe that's going to be six years in your case because you had a nanny, but for some people it might be longer, it is very difficult to get back into the job market and becoming increasingly difficult because of course women are tending to be the first people whose jobs are dropping off at the moment, particularly, maybe they won't in the future. Is there anything you can say to encourage women, particularly to think that if they do dedicate their lives totally to their children, and well supposing that they can actually afford to, that re-entry into the professions will be easier for them?
Prime Minister
You're quite right, it's easy for a professional woman who's earning quite well to pay for extra help in the house, and that of course does not apply to most women, and therefore they do have to rely on grandmas, aunts, friends, rotas between them or having someone living with the family, and the expense of course is very considerable, unless you rely on friends. I agree that the difficult thing is to keep in touch, particularly if you're a skilled person, you've got to try to do enough each week to keep in touch with what's happening, and that cannot always be so. I would still say that the most important thing of all is to see that your children are properly looked after, and if you can to make arrangements with other women who also want to go out and do a little bit, so that you can keep in touch for a half day a week, or go to something where you can talk about people. If you've been a doctor do some voluntary work, do a little bit a half day a week, you can usually make provision for that, I know the problem, but I beg, I beg, I beg, never put the children second.
Jane Reed
Can I just come back on one thing? [end p8]
Judith Chalmers
If you're very quick Jane.
Jane Reed
Can I just say, I do hope you'll repeat that to the CBI and the TUC because part-time work is just not available.
Prime Minister
Well a tremendous lot, a tremendous lot of women do part-time work, and it's very important that it should continue, I think it's extremely important.
Judith Chalmers
Let's see what Dame Josephine Barnes has to ask you now Prime Minister. A past President of the British Medical Association, in fact the first woman to hold that post.
Dame Josephine Barnes
Yes Mrs. Thatcher. I was very delighted to hear what you said about looking after the doctors and the nurses and the National Health Service, and of course this is fundamental to the whole future. But I think some of us are worried in these days when we know that money is tight and the National Health Service costs an awful lot, and it really is the question I wanted to put you is, what should our priorities be, when you look at, for example, acute and chronic sick, mothers and babies recently in the news, the disabled, physically and mentally handicapped and the old people. Where should we be looking do you think to put what services are available in the forefront as it were of the Health Service?
Prime Minister
It is difficult isn't it, when you want to do absolutely everything, and I remember the Merrison reports saying, look we could spend the whole of the national income on the National Health Service, because there was so much one wants to do, obviously we have to look after our older folk, some of them just cannot possibly help themselves, and we have to look after them, we have to look after the mentally ill, we have to look after the health of the young people, and you just—I agree, you don't know where to stop. We are, I think, in consultation with the profession producing a paper shortly about the main strategy for the future. What we can do in Government is to provide the consultation the discussion, the training and a certain amount of money, and from the taxpayer, and try to get the structure right, then I think we really must see the professions' voice, both doctors and nurses are fully heard in the priorities, because really your decision on that is even more important than ours, but you're quite right, try as you will, you can't do absolutely everything. [end p9]
Dame Josephine Barnes
I think I would like to see the Government do a bit more to help people look after their own health in preventative medicine, as you may know, perhaps I'm very much concerned with, for example, persuading people to come for routine checks for cancer prevention and with health education in general, and one would like to think that perhaps people instead of going to the doctor for their sedatives or tranquilisers, would go out and look after their own health in a much more positive way.
Prime Minister
I agree. I well remember when I was at school I had a head mistress, a wonderful head teacher who insisted that every girl do a domestic science course, you were taught the essentials of good nutrition, not only economy, but balanced nutrition, you were taught hygiene, you were taught health, it didn't matter how brilliant you were at your lessons you all had to do that, and I think that is the first essential, because after all if you look after your nutrition, if you look after hygiene, if you look after health you'll be very much fitter. I think that's extremely important, I agree with you too about the preventative medicine, it would make doctors work so much easier, and of course we could prevent so many of the tragedies and I would like to see that have bigger priority.
Judith Chalmers
I wish we could have money for a mass radiography equivalent for those breast screenings actually.
Prime Minister
Oh and also I wish people would use it, because you know it's voluntary, whether you go to have your X-rays, it's voluntary whether you go to have your tests, mind you a tremendous number of employers are really encouraging women to go, and we are doing very well in picking up early cases from that. I think employers are doing wonders in that sphere and I'm delighted to see it.
Judith Chalmers
Let's see now what Terry Marsland has to ask you Mrs. Thatcher. Terry Marsland is Deputy General Secretary of the Tobacco Worker's Union.
Terry Marsland
Mrs. Thatcher, we are at present suffering mass unemployment, in fact it's being projected now that by mid-1982 there will be three million unemployed and you and I know that those recorded figures really don't reflect the true picture. We also have an [end p10] almost standstill in our housing programme, we have about a quarter of a million building and construction workers unemployed. We also have a problem with the selling off of municipal dwellings, which means that many many thousands of homeless families, families living in slum dwellings will in fact never see, have the advantage of a decent home. Given this record, and the present forecast that in 1982 to get the inflation level down to what it was when the Government took office, means that output will fall, and as a consequence we will have further higher unemployment levels, can the Prime Minister claim any achievements on behalf of the electorate, and could she indicate that over the next two and a half years if there are going to be any improvements in the lot of the British people?
Prime Minister
There's so much there …
Judith Chalmers
There's an awful lot there …
Terry Marsland
Well I wish I had more time.
Prime Minister
Can I just take up some of your points. Unemployment is one of the most serious problems, I do indeed readily accept that. Can I say in return we started with a base of one million four hundred thousand unemployed, in fact what I might call the base level of unemployment has steadily gone up in the last twenty years. Though I started with one point four million unemployed, and one of the reasons why that awful base level has gone on steadily mounting is that British industry is not as competitive as some of our other countries, as Germany, as Japan, as Switzerland, some really high standard of living countries, we're not as competitive, we're over-manned, full of restrictive practises, the result has been, not a fall-off in demand, but the result has been, they've got the business and the jobs and we haven't. I'll give you one example. Sale of cars in this country, last year 1.5 million cars, and yet well over half of that went to foreign cars, now you tell me, it wasn't shortage of cars, it was we in this country weren't producing either the models or the price, or the delivery that other people were, so we have to look at the state of our industry, strikes, the thing that happened at the Metro on the rampage was terrible, if we're not going to buy our own goods, how can we expect other people to, so it is partly industry, we have come to the moment of truth on over-manning and restrictive practises. We shan't get right if we run away from that moment of truth, we must face it and get it right. And when we've got it [end p11] right, there is a really big chance ahead for us, an increased productivity, we really shall. The demand is there, we're not filling it, we must. Now can I have a go about housing? I had to answer some questions like this in the House recently. And before I went in I thought there'd be some questions about housing, I just said, would you get me the figures of the number of council houses that have been empty for over a year. They brought me the figures for England, do you know how many there were? A hundred thousand, empty for over a year.
Judith Chalmers
Why was that, I mean how was that … .?
Prime Minister
Well they will say sometimes they're modernising them, there are, there are blocks in which people simply will not go and live, but a hundred thousand empty for over a year that doesn't augur very well for administration. And then also I get very distressed about the number of houses I see boarded up waiting for development schemes, and I often think it would have been better if they'd left people in them, rather than boarding them up, or now some of them won't be used doing just exactly what London is doing, selling them off to young couples who are prepared to do them up in their spare time. And then you give them three years without having to pay any mortgage, but don't think, if I might come to the purchasing point. The people who are going to buy council houses, and who are buying council houses are those who would probably live in them for the rest of their lives anyway. And it seems to me absolutely wrong to say to them, you must go on paying rent, it'll probably be increase in rent for the rest of your life and you can never have the chance to own your own home. Give them a chance to own it, they'd have been there anyway. They'll do their own maintenance, they'll do their own improvements, the next generation will have got used to, I'm going to be a home owner, and it will give them a new independence and a new dignity.
Judith Chalmers
Mrs. Thatcher. I'm going to have to but in and tell you, you're going to kill me, but I'm afraid I must give everybody their initial first go. Anne Burdus, Chairman of McCann Erickson an advertising agency, what sort of size Anne?
Anne
We have about six hundred people and we spend about ninety five million pounds …
Prime Minister
That's a lot, that's big business isn't it? [end p12]
Anne
Well it isn't really. I mean our income is just fifteen million and that really is part of the question I wanted to ask you, because like most businesses of that size I've been doing my plans for 1981, and we found that with careful planning we've been able to contain the salary budget which is a big chunk of our budget, because we are a service industry, and because our work-force are very realistic about what's happening in the economy, they appreciate it, and most of them applaud it. What is horrifying us is the projection of what's going to happen with the costs we can't control. Our rates, our postage, our telephone, our telex, our light, our heating, and so on, and our original projections were about twenty per cent in that area. Now I would really like to know what, whether you feel you're taking enough action to control the escalation of costs in that area, or what additional action you think you could take?
Prime Minister
Quite right. I'm glad you asked the question. You're quite right, private industry, ordinary industry in which the majority of people work, whether it's manufacturing or services or independent television, ordinary industry is having to cut costs because it has to compete with others, and unless you cut costs, someone else does and you don't stay in business, and people really are facing the reality, whether they're management or work-force and they're cutting over-manning and they're saying we won't take increases in salaries, they are. Where the increases are coming, and you mentioned them one after another, are in the monopoly area, almost all of those you mention apart from rates are monopoly, nationalised industries. Electricity, telephones, heat of course, partly electricity, light all monopoly, nationalised industries, electricity depending upon coal, nationalised coal, seventy per cent of your electricity comes from coal, they all have a monopoly, they are nationalised, they are not up against the same competition, and I am trying to bring this out, the nationalised industries were nationalised, not by my Government, frankly I think it's better, you get better value for money if you have more competition. Much better. They were nationalised so that they might serve the nation, not that the prices might go up faster than other prices, but that they might serve the nation. Nationalised industry prices have gone up far, faster than ordinary competitive industry. Thank goodness for the Marks and Spark's, Sainsburys, United Biscuits. All of the, the many manufacturing companies that have to compete, and what we have to do is to say to the nationalised industries you've got to get in that same urgency, that same economy, that same value for money as private industry, because look, don't think you're taking [end p13] it from Government, the increased prices you're taking from, pensioners, nurses, teachers, people who are not getting increased wages, and you have a duty to them to give us good value, economically as they are. Rates? I try to keep public spending down, it is the same thing …
Judith Chalmers
Mrs. Thatcher I've got to take time from you at the moment, which is jolly difficult to do …
Prime Minister
We're competing for time …
Judith Chalmers
Yes we are like crazy.
Prime Minister
All right, come on, over you go. No, but she's right, it's of fantastic importance. … I'm trying to …
Judith Chalmers
Yes, everybody's got so much good stuff to say. Tessa Blackstone is Professor of Education at London University. Tessa.
Tessa Blackstone
Well before I ask my main question Mrs. Thatcher, perhaps I could comment briefly, and if I may rather critically. You said Prime Ministers are used to criticism and have to tolerate it. On something that you said earlier. You said you were extremely sympathetic about the pensioner on twenty-nine pounds a week. Yet your Government has, or you have presided over a policy which I think is not going to improve a lot of pensioners. That is that instead of index linking pensions either to prices or to wages and salaries whichever is the higher, which was an inbuilt mechanism to improve the lot of pensioners, you've abandoned that, and are in fact now only index linking to prices. But let me move on to …
Prime Minister
Can I come in, well now I would like to deal with that. I would like to—quite right, yes. And yet the Social Security budget the amount spent this year is bigger than ever before and that's after taking inflation into account.
Tessa Blackstone
That's partly because of the enormous numbers of unemployed people, the result of Government economic policies. [end p14]
Prime Minister
I'm sorry. The retirement pension budget is bigger than ever before. Now just let me try to deal with it. I am here to try to answer questions. Of the £14 billion on the Social Security budget this year, only £1.1 billion went to unemployment. Not as much as to sickness benefit, and of course by far the biggest amount goes to retirement pensions. In spite of what you said, and I accept what you said, the amount spent on the whole Social Security, National Insurance is bigger than ever before, because we have bigger pensions, and more pensioners.
Tessa Blackstone
We have more pensioners who are living longer, it isn't simply that …
Prime Minister
Indeed, I don't, I don't, I don't deny that, but Professor Blackstone I have to get the money from the working population, it's on a pay as you go scheme, we've just heard that someone is complaining and quite rightly about the enormously increased overheads, that business has to bear. Some employers' contributions, some employees, if I might very respectfully say so, it's very easy to plead more money for someone else …
Tessa Blackstone
Of course it is, but I think it's also right to say …
Prime Minister
I have to try to pursue policies which will create that wealth …
Tessa Blackstone
… that the more humane members of the working population would like to see our pensioners' position improve and like to see it reach that of pensioners of most European countries which it's certainly not at the moment …
Prime Minister
Good. I would be delighted.
Tessa Blackstone
But can I go on and just ask my question about …
Prime Minister
No, but please let me comment about that, because you cannot … you cannot put a question without giving me a chance to comment on it. I would like us to have a German standard of pensions. We shall have a German standard of pensions when we have a German standard of work. [end p15]
Judith Chalmers
Gillian Peel I'm jumping in there actually. Hold on a second Terry because Gillian Peel must have her go. Lecturer in Political Science at Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford.
Gillian Peel
Do you think that Acts like the Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act have in fact contributed to the elimination of discrimination in our society? And is there anything else that you feel that the Government could do to help to eliminate discrimination, and that you yourself would in fact want to do at this present juncture?
Prime Minister
I think perhaps they were the final thing you could do legally to try to do away with discrimination. I'm absolutely satisfied there is nothing more you can do by changing the law to do away with either sex discrimination or racial discrimination. After all I don't think there's been a great deal of discrimination against women, for years, you've been able to come into Parliament, you've been able to be Ministers, you've been able to do many, many things which not many women have taken the opportunity to do, and I think really to try and get rid of the discrimination, the prejudice now is an ordinary human matter. It would help enormously if more women who have supreme education at universities actually came into public life for example, we've had generation after generation of university trained women, and very few of us have actually come into Parliament. I could do with a lot more, we can't do any more about it by law, only by about people taking advantage of the opportunities, and doing away with the discrimination by virtue of their own performance.
Judith Chalmers
One word you mention there Mrs. Thatcher was training and I know Tessa that you wanted to talk about education, so I will come back to you just…
Tessa Blackstone
Yes, could I just come back on that? When you were Secretary of State for Education you in fact embarked on a very ambitious programme of expansion which included the expansion of higher and further education and also of nursery education. Earlier you were saying how important it was for those women who wanted to do both, both to look after their children and to work to be able to do so, and you mentioned grandmas and aunts, but of course grandmas and aunts are working these days, and they're not always available, and what we really need if professional, and indeed other women are going to make the most of their talents is a much more widespread and universal system of nursery education. Now one of the facets of the cuts in public expenditure that are taking [end p16] place at the moment is that nursery education is not only not being expanded, it's even being cut back in some places. Now were you wrong in 1972 when you put forward these proposals? If you weren't and if you were right, why are they being abandoned now?
Prime Minister
I think you haven't got the full story with respect. You'll remember that I said I thought nursery education and primary education was actually more important to spend money on than increasing amounts spent on higher education. And I started actually to reduce the increasing amounts spent on higher education, because I thought it far more important to get in a very good foundation and start at the beginning, but there are two sides of the equation there you see, it's not just spending more on everything, it's these working people who produce the wealth that have got to keep your goodself, the National Health Service, and us in the public sector, it's these people who have got to keep many of us here, and there's only a certain amount we can put the burden, we can put on them, and therefore within that amount we have to judge priorities. I make no secret of it, I would prefer to put more in nursery education and primary education, I would take you up on one thing, nursery education is not something which enables women to go out to work …
Tessa Blackstone
Of course not, but …
Prime Minister
… Nursery education, if I might respectfully say so, you can achieve within about two and a half hours, either a morning or an afternoon, it is not a means of …
Tessa Blackstone
But it allows many women to work part-time Mrs. Thatcher which was something that you mentioned earlier as being worthwhile.
Prime Minister
Not nursery education, child minding may, but …
Tessa Blackstone
I'm sorry, but it does allow women to work part-time. Some nursery education does in fact last for five or six hours a day, and even where it only last for two and a half to three hours a day …
TALKING TOGETHER [end p17]
Judith Chalmers
Actually Terry I'm afraid I've got to be terribly firm. It's hurting me as much as it's hurting you Mrs. Thatcher. I'm sorry, can I just give a question to Anne Lapping to ask you because otherwise Anne will be missed out?
Anne Lapping
I make no apology really about coming back to the question of unemployment, which I think is beginning to worry people now even more than inflation. Now you have held up some prospect of hope as the economy begins to expand as we become more competitive, but the last time that unemployment was rising as fast as it is now, though of course the numbers then were smaller, 1974–1975, people said, when the economy expanded there would be jobs for the unemployed, but there weren't, there was the same proportion of jobs were not created again. Now that seems to me to be a pretty dismal prospect for the three million or so unemployed now projected for the end of the year. How can you see the economy expanding? Will it really expand to take up that number of unemployed people?
Prime Minister
You're not going to get the extra jobs I think from the big companies for the simple reason that as the new technology moves in it'll be as much as they can do to keep their existing labour-force even on expansion, so you're really going to get it by small businesses starting up, small business expanding.
Anne Lapping
They have a very high failure rate small businesses.
Prime Minister
They have a very high birth rate too. We keep a Value Added Tax Register, yes there is a failure rate of companies going off, the actual birth rate of companies coming on to that register is as great, at the moment it's slightly exceeds those going off.
Anne Lapping
But they are also on the whole small employers.
Prime Minister
They are smaller, they in fact will expand, the organisations who are there to try to finance new businesses financed more last year, the Industrial and Finance Corporation start up businesses than ever before in their history, their financing all sorts of new operations. Now you ask me in this country, where are the new jobs going to come from? I must say to you, that we're not getting a big enough share of the business that there is here, because many, many people who earn their living here are choosing to reject the products of their fellow workers in favour of imports. Now for that we have to ask ourselves why, [end p18] I already earlier gave the example of cars, why, why, why, why? But don't you see the business is there, but we're not doing it.
Anne Lapping
Yes, but we are talking about a very large rate of industrial expansion needed to provide three million jobs.
Prime Minister
Indeed we are. Indeed and we're not going to get it unless we concentrate on industries being competitive, on their producing goods that British people like and will buy, on them producing on time, on not having strikes which interrupt flow, on people not pricing themselves out of jobs. If you price, if you price yourself out of jobs, if you demand more investment, my goodness me, look at the example of The Times, they poured money into new machinery, but people wouldn't operate it, but the people wouldn't operate it, so in fact for a year they were out of business. Look Japan, Germany are investing in new technology, we are buying the products in this country of that new technology. If we don't keep abreast, if we don't keep ahead, our people will buy their goods, and it won't help us to put up import controls, thirty per cent of our income in this country already goes to exports, there is no substitute for becoming competitive, there is no substitute for using the latest technology, for starting up new businesses …
Terry Marsland
Prime Minister, I really must, I really must …
Prime Minister
… and if people strike themselves out of jobs there's nothing I can do about it.
Terry Marsland
… intervene Judith. The industries which are most effected by high unemployment at this moment in time have nothing to do with the type of situation which you are outlining. If I might finish, because I, I've tried to be very, very patient.
Judith Chalmers
Terry we've got ten seconds on this.
Terry Marsland
All right. Textiles industries, footwear industries.
Prime Minister
Six hundred and ninety thousand people employed.
Terry Marsland
Yes, they are the lowest paid industries in this [end p19] country, and traditionally the lowest paid industries. Nothing to do with strikes records, nothing to do with restrictive …
Prime Minister
No I agree on textiles.
Terry Marsland
These are the areas, the construction industry which has the largest unemployment level, I don't know of any strike record in the construction industry.
Prime Minister
No.
Terry Marsland
I do know it's one of the lowest paid industries in the country.
Prime Minister
Then we go on to textiles. We actually export textiles and we do very well. We also do import a tremendous amount and for that reason we have in fact put quotas on, quotas on many, many countries. Can I put to you this problem? John Nott is at this moment out in Indonesia, we put a quota on exports of their textiles for us. Do you know what's happened? We're now in danger of losing one hundred and fifty million pounds worth of machinery orders, and I have to consider both things.
Terry Marsland
… Pleading with you, …
Judith Chalmers
Mrs. Thatcher and Terry Marsland, I have … . I say I will never do. Prime Minister I'm sorry, I have to do what I said don't any of you do it, talk above anybody else. Now I've just done it to you all. Thank you very, very much for coming to answer these questions today. I, I had one last one so I've cut that too, but thank you all very much indeed. Tomorrow Afternoon Plus will be back with Mary Parkinson and Simon Reed, but for today, goodbye.