PRIME MINISTER
Engagements
Q1. Mr. Blair
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 17 July.
The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
Mr. Blair
Does not the Prime Minister now wish that she had consulted the trade unions over GCHQ? Does not her refusal to consult bear the stamp and style of her entire way of Government? When will she learn, quite apart from GCHQ, which is the subject of her statement later, that the British people prefer democrats to autocrats? [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker
Order.
The Prime Minister
I shall be making a statement on GCHQ later, and I should prefer to deal with the matter in detail then. The hon. Gentleman will be able to hear what I have to say.
Mr. Onslow
If an agreement that is extorted under duress can have no legal or moral force, is it not monstrous that the dockers' leaders should be trying to hold the country to ransom to secure the perpetuation of the dock labour scheme?
The Prime Minister
With regard to the dock labour scheme, as my hon. Friend knows, my right hon. Friend Nicholas Ridleythe Secretary of State for Transport has made it clear that the Government have no plans to change or abolish the scheme. My hon. Friend will also be aware that ACAS is meeting the unions this afternoon and that it met the port employers last evening. It is best to let ACAS complete its task of conciliation. If there is very little to this strike I am sure that ACAS will soon find that out.
Q2. Mr. Wilson
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 17 July.
The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Wilson
If the Prime Minister wishes to give up her current addiction to wearing sackcloth and ashes, will she turn her attention to another decision that requires to be made and issue to the House now a complete undertaking that Locate in Scotland, which has the support of all Scottish Members of Parliament including members of her own party, will not be abolished, with the investment and opportunities taken with it, by the Department of Trade and Industry?
[column 166]The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is aware that the matter has been raised more than once in the House. My right hon. Friend George Youngerthe Secretary of State for Scotland will be dealing with it.
Mr. Michael Howard
Has my right hon. Friend had drawn to her attention reports of the disgraceful conduct of those who have roamed the streets of Bolsover to intimidate coal miners who wish to work? Will she condemn this behaviour, in the name of the people of Britain, in contrast to the support given by the Leader of the Opposition to those who condone and encourage it?
The Prime Minister
The mass picketing that has given rise to violence and intimidation is one of the worst features of this strike. I notice that Neil Kinnockthe Leader of the Opposition is reported as having said at the weekend that there is no alternative but to fight—all other roads are shut off. I hope, nevertheless, that he will agree to the NUM negotiations tomorrow.
Mr. Mason
When will the Prime Minister settle the miners' dispute?
The Prime Minister
There are negotiations tomorrow where they should be—between the NUM and the NCB. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will support those negotiations, which will be held round the table between management and work force.
Sir William Clark
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that the NUM, with £32 million of assets, will not give strike pay to striking miners yet gives pay to flying pickets, which are causing so much violence not only in Bolsover but all over the country?
The Prime Minister
I am not responsible for the NUM, but it is an astonishing way for it to treat its loyal members.
Mr. Skinner
Is the Prime Minister aware that Mr. MacGregor and the NUM were so near to agreement that they got out Roget 's “Thesaurus” to find the appropriate words, but that at the moment when agreement seemed imminent Mr. MacGregor was seen to go to a payphone, and when asked whom he had called, given all the telephones available in the suite, he said “I've been phoning my sister in America” ? Is she further aware that Scargill was heard to say to him, “I didn't know your sister's name was Margaret.” ? Can the Prime Minister confirm that she mucked up those negotiations, just as she has mucked them up throughout the dispute?
The Prime Minister
That question was rather below the hon. Gentleman's usual standard. I make it absolutely clear that whomsoever Mr. MacGregor was telephoning—if he was telephoning—it was not me. I have not seen or spoken to him since 3 July.
Q3. Mr. Flannery
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 17 July.
The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Flannery
When will the Prime Minister realise that, now that the Falklands jingoism has worn off, her real policies have come to light and are plunging this country into total chaos? [Interruption.] Furthermore, when will she realise that her draconian anti-trade union laws are quite unworkable and that, as I said some time ago when she was in Fontainebleau, the inexorable march to a [column 167]general strike has begun and that more and more sections of the working people will be on the streets struggling against this appalling Government?
The Prime Minister
It is strikes that are destroying jobs and businesses faster than anything else, and so much so that I believe that the Labour party has become the party that wants unemployment.
Mr. Sayeed
Can my right hon. Friend suggest any reason for a national dock strike apart from Mr. Connolly 's wish to join the Leader of the Opposition as one of Mr. Scargill 's lackeys?
The Prime Minister
I can see no reason whatever for a national dock strike. There is a well-established disputes procedure under the national docks labour scheme, and it should be used. If it was used, the strike would soon be at an end, provided that Opposition Members want it to end as much as we do. That strike will do immense damage to the ordinary working people of this country.
Dr. Owen
In as much as the docks dispute has much to do with the genuine grievances of dockers, does not the Prime Minister think it wiser to state clearly that the Government have no intention of legislating during the lifetime of this Parliament on the National Dock Labour Board, and that if she wished to do so she would include that in her manifesto and win a mandate for it?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman will have heard what my right hon. Friend Nicholas Ridleythe Secretary of State said yesterday. It is astonishing that the Opposition should claim that the strike is to try to stop something that the Government have no plans to do. If that is all that it is about, ACAS, which is meeting the unions now, will have a very easy job to do to end the strike.
Q5. Mr. Temple-Morris
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 17 July.
The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Temple-Morris
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are serious constitutional aspects about the fact that the Leader of the Opposition appears——
Mr. Speaker
Order. I could not quite hear the hon. Member, but I hope that he was asking a question for which the Prime Minister has ministerial responsibility.
Mr. Temple-Morris
Is my right hon. Friend not extremely worried about the future of the country when a certain person allies himself to the trade union movement? That means the end of Her Majesty's Opposition, because that is what they stand for. Having been Leader of the Opposition, does my right hon. Friend not consider it serious that a person puts himself on that side of the fence and ends his own future with his party and the country?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Some people wish to circumvent the processes of parliamentary democracy and impose their wishes upon the rest.—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister has a right to be heard.
The Prime Minister
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, but I had finished my reply.
[column 168]Mr. Spearing
With reference to circumventing parliamentary democracy, will the Prime Minister go into the Library today and look at the Adjournment debate of 22 October 1971? Does she remember that she refused point blank to obey the law and carry out the instructions of sections 4 and 5 of the Education Act 1944? Does she also recall that her only reason was that the background had changed? By what democratic or moral right does she expect others to obey the law when she does not do so herself?
The Prime Minister
I do not think that I was ever taken to task for refusing to obey the law in the Education Act 1944.
Mr. Spearing
Yes the right hon. Lady was—by me
Mr. Kinnock
When the Prime Minister broke the law by not consulting the unions at GCHQ Cheltenham, did she do so by herself or on the advice of the Attorney-General?
The Prime Minister
Every Prime Minister and every Minister is within the law, must be seen to be within the law and must be subject to the law. I wholly accept that every Minister in taking action does so in the belief that he or she is within the law and acting on the best of advice.
Q6. Mr. Favell
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 17 July.
The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Favell
Will my right hon. Friend take time today to remind Mr. MacGregor, before the resumption of negotiations tomorrow, that many thousands of jobs depend on competitive energy costs, and that, if the coal industry was allowed to be inefficient while other industries were expected to be efficient, there would be widespread anger?
The Prime Minister
It is important to have a cheaper supply of coal, because we derive so much electricity from it. France can offer us electricity from nuclear energy at a lower price than we can generate it from coal. It is important for the whole of industry that we produce cheaper coal for electricity. That means getting rid of uneconomic pits.
Mr. Redmond
Will the Prime Minister join me in condemning Fascist Governments who use the police and the military to suppress trade union activities?
The Prime Minister
I am sorry, but I could not hear precisely what the hon. Gentleman said.
Mr. Speaker
Order. I call Mr. Redmond.
[column 169]Mr. Redmond
Will the Prime Minister join me in condemning Fascist Governments who use jointly the police and the military to suppress trade union activities?
The Prime Minister
In this country the police are always there to uphold the law.
Q7. Mr. Ashley
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 17 July.
[column 170]The Prime Minister
I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Ashley
The Prime Minister is to make a statement at 3.30 pm about what action she proposes to take on GCHQ. Can she now make a statement on what she is doing about the Foreign Secretary?
The Prime Minister
Sir Geoffrey HoweThe Foreign Secretary is doing an excellent job and will continue to do so.