Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for Scottish Daily Express

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: No.10 Downing Street
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express
Editorial comments:

1130-1215.

Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 6717
Themes: Industry, General Elections, Energy, Autobiographical comments, Labour Party & socialism, Economic policy - theory and process, Taxation, Privatized & state industries, Community charge (“poll tax”), Parliament, Health policy, Social security & welfare, Religion & morality, Trade unions, Union of UK nations, Education, Conservatism, Pay

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

After your third election victory, the gilt must have been taken off the gingerbread a bit by the results from Scotland, where you lost half your MPs.

How do you see the way back in Scotland for the Conservatives?

Prime Minister

Just exactly the same way as we have done really in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Scotland is not really very different in what makes the economy grow. Indeed, from country to country, what makes an economy grow, what brings you prosperity, what brings you jobs, what brings you confidence, therefore, is really through your own efforts building up the enterprise of a country. I mean, Scotland used to excel at that. This is the great puzzlement. Scotland not only built up its own economy, but that of half the rest of the world as well. [end p1]

So there is the economic formula. After all, it was economic formula of Adam Smith, and it is very very strange that Scotland has been the last, in a way, to appreciate that, but it is appreciating it now so that aspect, that it is the enterprise of individuals building up their companies against a background - a framework which Government provides which enables them to do that - which builds up the success, which builds up the confidence, which builds up the pride in the future.

Pride comes from the past, it comes from being Scots, but you have also got to feel that you have got confidence and pride in the future. That comes from this fantastic enterprise. You have had so many people. They have done it the world over.

And also, I think I have never been better pleased that on one visit I did about eighteen months ago to open the Napier College in Edinburgh. They are doing absolutely everything there. They get industry and young people together, and there I felt reassured about the future.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

But you must be concerned about the fact that you did lose half your MPs up there? [end p2]

Prime Minister

Yes. In fact, the reduction in MPs was much much greater than the reduction in the vote. The vote came down, I think, from about 28 percent to about 24 percent. The reduction in MPs, of course, was very much greater, because it depended upon how the Opposition vote split.

Yes, but what it really made me think was that we have not given enough attention to our policies in Scotland as we must.

Also, if I might say, one of the best examples of what I have said was the speed and success with which North Sea oil was brought out of the ground into production - into maximum production - on a new technology, as far as getting it from below the sea-bed at that depth was concerned, and it was a private enterprise operation. It was extremely bad luck that the last election came after this fantastic drop in the price of oil, which particularly affected those regions which had come to accept very very high prosperity - indeed, one of the most prosperous parts of the whole of the United Kingdom.

So one had a number of things to cope with.

There was the unemployment position in Scotland, which took longer to react to increasing prosperity, to an increasing output, than the rest of England - it has reacted now - and that, coupled with Scotland's really shining star of the enterprise and the future, just did not fail but had to cope with unexpected events at that time. [end p3]

There is a third thing. The third thing also applies to the north-east.

Where you have parts of the country that depended quite heavily either on the public sector - which Scotland does - plus on big, heavy industries, it was always more difficult to get the new flourishing industries going to a sufficient extent. Scotland did get the electronics going. She does have a lot of small businesses, but I have noticed several times where people have been used to going to a job that is provided for them in something that has grown big because it was in coal, it was in steel, it was in shipbuilding, it was in heavy engineering, and when you seem to have a larger proportion of people employed in that kind of work plus public sector, you have not quite got all the bubbling-up that you have got - the constant renewal, the constant new growth - that you get from a much larger number of new small business. A lot of small businesses are concerned with supplying big businesses. You also have to have a number of others that start on their own.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

So we do not need particular policies tailored for Scotland? The ones that you have for the UK will bring the same kind of prosperity, will they? [end p4]

Prime Minister

Adam Smith did very well by England and Wales. He started off by doing very well by Scotland; Scotland forgot him - and David Hume as well. Scotland forgot Adam Smith.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

You are reintroducing him, yes?

Prime Minister

The renaissance of Adam Smith, the rebirth of Adam Smith!

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

You are no doubt aware, Prime Minister, that there are frequent accusations in Scotland, especially in some sections of the media, that you come across to the Scots as being uncaring and so on.

Is that an irritant to you?

Prime Minister

Well, it is just so much not right. Is it an irritant? I think, an image that a lot of people have tried to build up. Sometimes, they find it very difficult to sustain.

Is it an irritant? I think I am so much more concerned not with my own image but really at getting things done by the way which I believe to be right and by the way which has been proven to be right, because the fact is there is much more confidence in the [end p5] United Kingdom as a whole, both at home and overseas, so it has been proven to be right and it has been the model that has been copied by many other people and I have always said to people: “Look! You talk about image; you talk about presentation; you simply must not think of politics as mainly presentation, mainly image. First, get the policies right. There is no substitute for that, and then think about how to put them across!” and I do try to put them across and, again, we have not done so badly.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

No, no, although some people would argue that because you have such a strong hold in the south of England in particular, that really, it does not matter if you increase your number of MPs in Scotland.

Prime Minister

Oh yes it does! Oh yes it does!

Now, the Labour Party is very much a geographical party. It has very little, apart from a few seats in London, very little in the whole of the south-east, not a lot in East Anglia. There are whole areas of the country where Labour has very very small representation. Now, we have bigger representation all over than Labour has in the south-east. [end p6]

Yes, it does matter to me. It matters to me very much indeed and I want those seats back and I want more and I want them on merit, I want them on performance. I believe we should get them on merit.

I tell you what is a strange thing that sometimes happened in Scotland:

People are taking the new prosperity for granted - and do not forget, as John Major pointed out in that very very able speech the other day, the average earnings of men and women in Scotland are highest in the United Kingdom after the south-east. I sometimes think that people take this prosperity for granted and think that it will go on in any case. It will not!

It has come because we got the whole background right, took off a lot of the controls, got the financial policies sound - and that should appeal to Scotland. As well as Adam Smith, we got his economics right, the financial policies sound.

As I have always said, financial policies consist of three things: getting inflation down so people have confidence in their savings and confidence in new investment; running the country in a very similar way to the way in which you have to budget either at home or in business - you have got a limited budget, you have got to use it well, so you have got to keep your public expenditure under control; everyone has to live within their means; and thirdly, you [end p7] simply must see that your taxation system gives incentives and keeps the greatest wealth-creators here, whether it is in manufacturing industry, whether it is in finance, whether it is in the service sector, whether it is in the world of entertainment, the world of sports, the world of the arts, the world of racing - keep the best here and wanting to come here, because they tend to pull the rest of us up the whole time.

So you have got those three things and I sometimes think, you know, Scotland was just coming into this prosperity as we were coming up to the election - and even more you see it now. Edinburgh's financial centre is excellent and some of the very very best organisations, insurance companies, investment funds, etc. are there - terrific.

Glasgow. As I was saying just a moment ago, all of a sudden I looked around on one visit to Glasgow - not the last one - and I said: “It is working!” Everything we had been doing for six years at that time was coming true. The buildings are transformed, the railway station is transformed, the hotel is transformed, everything. It has got all of the things which the old builders of cities bad. You not only had to build the houses, the public buildings; you had to have art galleries, you had to have operas, you had to have orchestras, you had to have the arts - and I looked around: “It is coming!” Perhaps they have not fully realised it yet. There is all this new construction going on. Excellent shops. Marvellous. However, it is coming. [end p8]

And Edinburgh. Just before the election, I saw “Crisis in Edinburgh.” I thought: “Heavens, what now?”

What was the crisis? There was such a boom in the service sector, in the financial sector, there was not a scrap of office accommodation to be had. That was the crisis - the crisis of success.

Yes, we still have problems. We have problems with coal mines. You cannot keep them going on for ever - they have to be efficient.

Shipbuilding and steel, but I hope we have given commitments in steel. You have to close some steel things down, but we were able to give commitment in steel with Ravenscraig, which pleased me personally as well as being Prime Minister enormously, because I have said to some of your colleagues I never forgot what Ravenscraig did when we had the Coal Strike on. I never forgot it. That pleased me enormously.

But it is coming now, and I think had we had the election actually this time this year - nearly a year later - the results became even more apparent in Scotland in these last months.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

And you think that would have translated itself into votes? [end p9]

Prime Minister

Yes, I do. I think it might have taken us from the twenty-four to twenty-eight, which was critical.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Yes, quite.

Prime Minister, you have said often enough that the Scots get more public spending per head than any other part of the UK. Do you get rather angry with them for being disgruntled all the time and always complaining?

Prime Minister

No. There is no point in getting angry with people.

There are two ways of approaching life, whether in England or in Scotland: one is by looking on the bright side and being conscious of your achievements, being conscious of things steadily improving, seeing hope in that, and knowing that freedom - which we all enjoy - means that you accept responsibilities as a citizen, you accept the responsibility that you look to yourself for keeping yourself and your family and carrying our responsibilities first and you are prepared to discharge those responsibilities, and then you look and see what is happening and you look, not falsely, on the bright side, but you approach things, and the day when you come down cheerful and start your work is a very much better day than the other side, a day when you come down feeling “Oh!”, look at [end p10] everything that has gone wrong - small things usually - and you come down and you grumble about your work and you grumble about things going wrong and you know it is precisely the same work, it is precisely the same circumstances - it is your own attitude: do you look at your glass as half-full or half-empty? And if it is half-full, is it gradually going up and are you miserable that someone else has got more than you have or do you say: “Right! Come on! We will work at this so we can do better!”? You must have pride in yourself, your own capability, your own achievements.

I am not talking about being chock-full of self-confidence. I am talking about not underestimating yourself and knowing that if you really get down to it you can cope.

Some people approach it in one way. Here you hear me often saying: “Come on, cheer up! We have a lot to be thankful for!” And, my goodness, when some terrible tragedy hits or you go to see a person who really has enormous impediments, problems, difficulties, someone who is disabled and you find they are far more cheerful than someone who has everything, it puts it into perspective. Or you have a terrible tragedy, like some of the things that happened in Northern Ireland - a really terrible tragedy - and you think: “My goodness me! Yesterday, we were worried about little things, niggly little things!” Do not let niggly little things get you down! Get on top of them and keep life in perspective. I just do not know. If you are disgruntled, you just have to get gruntled again! [end p11]

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

One of the things they are disgruntled about, of course, is the Community Charge, which you are introducing a year earlier in Scotland and there have been suggestions that up to twenty percent of people might disenfranchise themselves in a bid to try and avoid this. Is this something that would concern you?

Prime Minister

It would concern me very much for an absolutely fundamental reason.

Community Charge is about making contributions to paying to the cost of local government. It is not paying for the whole cost of local government. In Scotland, six out of every seven pounds that local government spends is paid for by the tax-payer on the progressive tax basis or by business.

Now this is why I started as I did. If you are a citizen, you have a duty to make your reasonable payments, a reasonable contribution, to the cost of local government, from which we all benefit, and you do not try to get out of your responsibilities. “Freedom incurs responsibility” - said George Bernard Shaw - “that is why many men fear it!”

Now! You expect to benefit from these things. You do not put it all on your neighbour, of course you do not. You say: “I am responsible for making some payments to the cost of local government!” [end p12]

The system we have had has been grossly unfair, as we discovered when we had a rating revaluation, and believe you me we should have done much worse in Scotland if we had not gone to Community Charge.

The full payments from Community Charge in Scotland will only meet about one pound out of every seven that local government spends.

Some people have not made any contribution to local government through the rates and that is where we are widening the numbers of people who are expected to pay. That is a bounden duty, and it is much much fairer.

Let me give you the figures for the whole of the country. I gave them in the House yesterday. But the ability to pay is taken care of by saying that people with the smaller incomes pay less. They get up to eighty percent rebate and then, right, if they are on income support - the new income support which used to be supplementary benefit - not only do they get up to eighty percent rebate but the last twenty percent they are given something - an average amount - in their income support to pay for it. I think that is important, because they have the money and they have the pride and respectability and responsibility of making that payment to the local authority. [end p13]

You must not do so much for people that you take away the responsibility for them, but if they are poor then you enable them to have the money to exercise their responsibilities themselves.

We increased the numbers of people who will get relief from Community Charge, so we take it over the country as a whole and nine million people will not now be paying the Community Charge in full - they will be getting rebates from it. That is the ability to pay.

And then, when you think that in Scotland the other six-sevenths comes out either from business or from the tax-payer, you find that the richest ten percent of households - the top ten percent of households - will pay fifteen times as much to local government expenditure as the lowest ten percent of households.

So that is a reasonable system and you do not try to get out of your responsibilities as a citizen of our country. You rise to them. That is what pride and freedom and liberty and the rule of law means - you rise to them.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Do you think these alleged rebels within your Party that may support Mr. Mates' Amendment would accept that argument? [end p14]

Prime Minister

I think they will, most of them, because they know that Mr. Mates's Amendment, I am afraid, consists of the biggest tax trap ever invented; that the moment you go five pounds or one pound over the actual limit, you come immediately into paying an enormous amount. Let me give you an example.

Supposing we did it as round about this budget the interest rate went down, so the mortgage rate goes down. The mortgage rate gives you, therefore, going down, you are left with a bigger income.

Supposing you are a chief superintendent, a head teacher, a doctor, and that little bit of bigger income took you into the forty percent bracket. You are on twenty-five - an extra two or three pounds would take you over. What does that little bit of reduction in mortgage relief mean? That you and your wife, instead of paying one Community Charge each, so you pay two. An extra five pounds means you pay three Community Charges - one-and-a-half times - so the extra five pounds income might land you into paying an extra £300 or £250. It would be absurd. I mean, when would you know what precisely your income was?

If you go into a top bracket, you have to gross up your building society … there are twelve million building society accounts or even more. You do not know whether the mortgage rate is going to go up or down. You do not know when you are going to get a little bit of interest on the shares you have got - that can take you straight over. It is the biggest tax trap invented, and let me say this: [end p15]

I do not think many people would willingly want to reveal their income to the local authority. They fundamentally would not want to do it. Look at the big bureacracy. And you would have to have relief. You know, you often have to get relief of tax later or your assessment is revised, sometimes upwards, sometimes downwards. You would come into a colossal penalty. Heavens! You have gone over twenty-five percent tax or you have gone over forty percent.

What I think Michael Mateshe was wanting to do was to say: “Look! We want some revision!” and they have had that. I think they realise these difficulties, but some of them did not. I mean, the idea that you go about five pounds over the twenty-five percent and it means an immediately much bigger Community Charge … How would you feel if you went up by about five pounds income and you promptly had to pay one-and-a-half times your electricity bill?

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Does that mean there will be no further concessions then?

Prime Minister

That was a pretty big concession this day. £130 million it is going to cost and someone has to find it and do not forget, money does not come from Government. When you say: “Please, I want more!”, you are not saying “I want the Government to give me more!” [end p16] You are saying: “My neighbour will have to pay more!” Housing benefit; I sometimes say to people: it is not Government that gives you housing benefit. Every two houses have not only to keep themselves and their households completely, they have to contribute towards keeping a third.

We want more and more people to gain their own independence and that is a remarkable objective.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

So no more concessions on the Community Tax?

Prime Minister

No, you have had the concessions.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

We have had them?

Prime Minister

Yes. £130 million the last one. We went from eight million people not being liable to pay the Community Charge - I am talking about England, Scotland and Wales, Great Britain - to nine million relief, and in Scotland - do not tell England - in Scotland the Community Charge contributions pay, as I say, only one pound in [end p17] seven in local authority spending. I was told that in England it is one pound in four. You see, Scotland always gets a much bigger amount from the tax-payer per head, whether it is for local government, a much bigger amount per head on national health service and I think one of the problems, if I might say so, is that people to have judged things by how much they can get out of the Exchequer. That is not the way. I think the way to judge things is: “Now look! How much wealth can we create for ourselves so that we are some of the people who help to keep others, not have to ask for help from others?” It is an international thing, if I might say so. Under the Labour Government, we had to go to the IMF for help. Under a Conservative Government, we have restored our pride and we say we are the kind of country that should have enough resources - and has - to help others.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

There is a lot of discontent though, is there not, on the back-benches - I am thinking of the Social Security reforms you are bringing in - yesterday over eye, dental treatment, and now next week over the Community Charge?

Is this the tip of the iceberg? [end p18]

Prime Minister

I think I would not put too much weight on it at all.

When you are in Government, there is a natural tendency, I think, for some people to want to say: “Look! Each of us is an individual member and none of us absolutely approves of every single thing!” There is a natural tendency to want to express yourself in some very evident way.

I am a big disappointed about the attitude taken by some over dental and eye charges, because the poorest do not pay anyway - they are protected. The poorest do not pay, so you are only dealing with people who by definition can afford to pay, and I remember just the evening of the Budget - and do not forget everyone benefited from the Budget, everyone; the tax-free allowances were put up which took a lot of people out of taxation; the basic rate of tax went down and the upper rates of tax went down - I can remember there were some typical families shown on television and there was one family, the lady was smoking, and she said: “Oh well, it will only benefit us by about £10 a month! What is the good of that! It will just disappear! Oh, just disappear!” she said. She was smoking.

What we are asking people to do is to pay the cost of two or three packets of cigarettes to have their eyes tested when most people have got quite a considerable reduction in tax and really, that is what you expect. You expect to take on a bigger [end p19] responsibility for yourself as your income rises. It is just getting a few priorities right, and they say that if you put extra charges on dental charges people will not go. I say: “I am sorry! That just has not been proved to be true!” More and more people say: “Our teeth are important and the teeth of our children!” and it shows - the number of people who have gone for treatment are more. But to say that in a country - and check these figures, Bernard InghamBernard - which spends something like £16 billion a year on alcohol, £7&slash;8 billion on cigarettes, that they cannot afford once or twice a year to have their eyes tested and their teeth done! It is ridiculous!

We take care of the lowest incomes - they do not have to pay the charge - and that, again, is a bit of a change in attitude.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Although the Labour Party did raise in the debate over your reforms on Social Security certain individual cases like the multiple sclerosis woman and so on.

Prime Minister

The multiple sclerosis lady, in fact, as you probably saw, was in terms of today's prices, £20 a week better off than she would have been under the Labour Party in 1979, so even the poorest - she [end p20] was not among the poorest because you know the figures that were given - even those who were losing out - and five million people this month either are better off in cash terms, two million are the same in cash terms, there are under one million who are less well-off … they are usually the people who are way above income support in one way or another or who had more than a certain amount of capital. But even those, even that case, and the single young man who who has £26 a week living at home, even those, were better off than they were under Labour.

So in this Britain which we have created by Government letting people use their own talents and abilities on incentives, have created a standard of living we have never known before, have created as high a standard of social services and health than we have ever known before, and also are able to have a balanced budget and are now repaying debt … it is very good.

Yes, of course, when you are simplifying you will get some people who lose. Most of those people who lose are still a great deal better off than they were under Labour.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

So when we get certain clerics saying that these reforms are wicked and so on, would it be because they do not appreciate the changes that have taken place? [end p21]

Prime Minister

Let me just say this - I have to be careful how I put anything, don't I?

I think they are fortunate in that we are a great deal more charitable to them than they are sometimes to us!

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Could I take you back to Scotland, Mrs. Thatcher?

The Ford debacle in Dundee was …

Prime Minister

It was terrible, wasn't it, but let us face it, the Dundee people wanted Ford. The people who would have got jobs wanted Ford. It was the people who were stopping them - some of the trade unions. I only say “some” because Gavin Laird and Bill Jordan were fantastic. It was their own people at the top of some of their own trade unions who stopped it. We wanted it, I believe the people of Dundee wanted it.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Do you think this is going to affect inward investment, particularly to Scotland?

Prime Minister

I think it depends how we pull out of this. I think if we make it clear that this was a great shock and it is a lesson we [end p22] have learned and it is as well that that is over and it is a lesson we have learned and it has been learned, it will be all right.

The tragedy was that that self-same union that would not have a single union agreement has itself made single-union agreements in Wales as a condition of extra investment and I am a great Ford fan.

Ford has done a very great deal for Great Britain. It has been here a long time; produces excellent cars, produces a lot of jobs and let me say this, makes a profit. We tax that profit and so they are not only providing jobs and a standard of living for people, they are also providing very good contributions to our social security and health service. We owe a lot to Ford and to respond to what they have done for Great Britain in that way was appalling. There are not many car companies who have been making a profit over these years. Ford have been extremely well run and has been one of them and I say we have learned that lesson.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

So you do not think the Japanese and Americans perceive Britain as getting back to the bad old days?

Prime Minister

Oh no. I think they see that - and there are one or two other things that have happened - as an aberration. Not as Britain returning to that but just as one or two things that we still have to deal with - not all dealt with yet. [end p23]

This is what some companies that have been here a long time say: Look! When Nissan came in and decided to set up in the north of England, a condition of Nissan coming in and a condition of other companies coming in is “We are going to have one union!” and they got that. The unions agreed - among them the Transport and General Workers Union - and the other companies come along and they said: “Look! We have eleven unions to deal with and eleven different wage claims. It is much more difficult. How in the world do you think we can compete with incoming companies who have got one union?” There is some validity in that, but you see, if you want jobs - that is the most important thing of all - and the single union is just as good to negotiate with, often better, than having unions fighting with one another, trying to establish their differentials, re-establish them, etc. We have learned that lesson, most people have learned it, but some of the foremost people in wanting to bring industries in Scotland into the future were people like Gavin Laird and there are some excellent union leaders like that who say: “We must make the future ours!”

As I started off: we are going to have pride in the future because we are going to make it the sort of future that we can be proud of! [end p24]

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Prime Minister, you have been very firmly against devolution ever since you came to power. This year, at the Scottish Tory Party Conference, there is going to be an hour-and-a-half debate on it and there seems to be a growing feeling within Scottish Conservatives that more and more people are wanting some form of Assembly.

Are you still firmly set against it?

Prime Minister

I do not necessarily believe that is so. I think if you ask certain questions, then you ask them in a way which tends to get a certain answer.

I am fearful. If you had a Scottish Assembly, it would want taxing powers and you would have set your foot on the path which could lead to separatism. I am convinced that would be bad for Scotland, very bad for Scotland, be bad for Great Britain and the United Kingdom as a whole.

It was not an election issue at all.

We already have administrative devolution on a very large scale so that Malcolm Rifkind has powers to an extent that no single Minister in the south has powers and - let me say this - sometimes we have said to Ministers: “Really! How often have you been to Scotland?” and they say: “Well, look! We do not have very much say [end p25] in our Departments about what goes on or responsibility. Our education is done by Malcolm Rifkind as far as all the schools are concerned. Housing is done by Malcolm Rifkind as far as the housing is concerned. A good deal of the law and order is done by Malcolm Rifkind!” and I say: “You must not look at it like that. We are all part of the same government and we all decide together!” and there are now coming up … as a matter of fact, Kenneth Baker has some responsibility in Scotland because of the University Grants Committee which operates throughout, but some of them were thinking: “Well they are not interested in seeing us!” and then Scotland said: “But you do not come!” so we said: “We would like to come!” and so they are coming much much more, but there is a fantastic amount of administrative devolution and you will finish up by being the most overgoverned country in the United Kingdom; you will finish up by paying bigger taxation, with a bigger bureaucracy, instead of having the money going to the Scottish Office to allocate.

Of course, defence is the same over the whole of the United Kingdom and some of the other Departments, but I am not against it. It would be the first step on the path to separatism.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Although you are taking more interest in Scottish education, are you not? There was the Paisley Grammar School. [end p26]

Prime Minister

Well yes. I had a Dorothy GilliesScottish headmistress for which I am eternally grateful. I had both an Gladys WilliamsEnglish headmistress in the first part of my life and a Scottish headmistress - fantastic - I am eternally grateful. I learned Latin from her, I learned standards from her, and I confess that I did not know - indeed I had assumed that every school had what you would call a school board - we call a court of governors - that some other people were involved in running their schools, because education is something that everyone goes through, every single person. It is not something that the producers produce on a take-or-leave-it basis. People pay for it, pay for it through their taxes, pay for it through their rates, business pays for it, people pay for it, they pay for it through the Community Charge, and they have a right to have what they feel it is right to have, and I did not realise that you did not have the same things as I had been used with a Scottish head teacher - a board of governors, so that people were involved, local people were involved, beyond the council, beyond the teachers, and parents were involved, and I was quite surprised.

Obviously, the first stage was to get that involvement and then it is part of our belief that you give people as much freedom within the law as you possibly can and you never say: “Well, if everyone cannot have it, no-one should have it!” You would never get any progress if you did that. Then you say: But all right, [end p27] supposing that a particular school was not really quite satisfied with the bureaucracy and the way things were being run, then it should be able to do, just like a private independent school, opt out of the local authority and have its money coming therefore not from the local authority, but from the Scottish Office, and then it would be a kind of public independent school. They would have to have certain standards - everyone does have to live up to certain standards - but they would have more say and they would have their own budget, just the same budget, could run it in their own way and why should we deny them that?

But then, the first step you have a look at is, before we could even consider that, you have got to get the structure in, so we are getting the structure in, because you need the structure in any event to give people more say. Do not think these things come free.

Health does not come free; education does not come free; social security does not come free.

In order to keep the education system of the country going, the average family of four pays in taxes £25 every week to education, £32 every week to the Health Service, £64 every week to Social Security - that is pensions, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, attendance allowance, supplementary benefit, income support, family credit. People pay for it and they have a bigger [end p28] right to a say in it and that is not just appointing representatives in Parliament or to a local authority; it is getting these decisions out from the centre to local authorities, out from local authorities nearer and near to the people. That is the exercise of responsibility. That is true involvement, not another agency of government called “devolution”.

I want the true devolution, which is much more responsibility exercised by citizens themselves - separately over their own income and in groups.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

So you will be looking forward to the time when Scotland has the right structure, hence the full board?

Prime Minister

Yes, and then we can consider, because I think … there are certain people who say: “If we do not want it, no-one shall have it!” That is why you sometimes get teachers protesting. “No, they are not entitled to it!” Of course they are entitled to it. These people not only pay you and they pay me. They pay for it, just in the same way as you pay nurses out of your taxation. [end p29]

People have different ideas as to what they want.

Our job is to have the kind of society that makes provision for the variety, provided every child gets certain standards in education, but you must have variety. We are all equally important, but we are all different.

If they wish to opt out, some schools, we must consider - if we feel that there is a demand for it - letting them have just exactly what we are going to have in England.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

We are coming to near the end of this, Prime Minister.

You have been nine years in power now.

Prime Minister

Nearly, not quite.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Not quite, yes. Nearly nine years. And you have got a long way to go, needless to say.

Do you feel you have achieved everything you hoped to have achieved in nine years? [end p30]

Prime Minister

No. We have got pride back, unemployment is falling. We have got a better standard of living. We have got the best Health Service, the best Social Security Service we have ever had, and we are getting capital and wealth more widely distributed.

People have been talking about a capital property-owning democracy for years. We are bringing it about. It is coming more slowly in Scotland, because you had a bigger proportion of houses in the hands of the local authority, but the next generation, more of them will want their own houses, want the right to have them, and we are giving them that chance.

They will have bigger incomes. They will want to build up their own savings and every privatisation gives them more chance to have not only savings through building societies, bank accounts, national savings certificates, but have savings which go into shares and therefore they can benefit from the prosperity and success of companies.

So as we come up towards the end of the century, the majority of people in our country, and I hope in Scotland, will have something which they can do for future generations, something to leave to their own children and grandchildren as their house comes up for sale, as their savings can be passed on, and therefore they will take perhaps a bigger interest in the future than ever before, and it will seem - though not many of us had expectations from our parents; it was as much as our parents could do to look after us [end p31] when we were young with very basic pensions to keep themselves during retirement. Now, a lot of people - the majority, more and more - are going to have expectations and never have a better start, but I hope that in having expectations they will not just say: “Well, we do not need to work as hard!” They will say: “Look! We have got a chance for bigger opportunities than anyone has ever had before. Let us make use of that!”

We have a fantastic heritage in our country. Scotland has a fantastic heritage. We who have inherited so much, have the greatest duty of all to add to it ourselves so that future generations can inherit not only what we inherited, but what we did as well. We create the inheritance of the future. That is our responsibility. Let us rise to it with pride!

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

Could I just ask you one final question, Prime Minister, which I am interested in. The nurses&' pay review. Will you be making a statement on that shortly?

Prime Minister

We do all of the review bodies together. They are coming in and we shall hope to have a statement out by the end of April, so there is not long, but we do not quite know what they all are yet. But we shall have a statement. [end p32]

We have indicated that we hope they will come in about the same time as they have in previous years so they will be coming in soon and we will try to deal with them as quickly as we did last year. So there should be a statement out by the end of April.

George Birrell, Scottish Daily Express

The suggestion is that you will meet the pay review for the nurses in full.

Prime Minister

Let us see what the pay review bodies say. I do not meet anything - the tax-payer meets it. Government has no money. Government only has what it takes away from people.