PRIME MINISTER
Engagements
Q1. Mr. Ward
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 24 February.
The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today, including one with Signor Fanfani, the Prime Minister of Italy. This evening I shall be giving a dinner in his honour at 10 Downing Street.
Mr. Ward
I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does she agree that most of the hardships inflicted on the public during the recent water strike resulted from the trade union leaders concerned using their monopoly supply position and a closed shop to break agreements that they had freely entered into? Does this not show the need for a withdrawal of trade union immunities where essential services are concerned and for binding arbitration?
[column 1050]The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend about the abuse of monopoly power. It seems sometimes to be used to give the producer what he wants rather than the consumer what he or she needs or wants. There was an agreement between the water workers and the employers about binding arbitration. That agreement was broken. Another agreement was made, when they first went to ACAS, with the mediator. That agreement, too, was broken. So there can be agreements that are broken. We are looking at the consequences of this for future legislation and the need for a statutory duty to continue the supply of essential services.
Mr. Foot
Does the right hon. Lady not agree that much the clearest lesson to be drawn from the water strike is how damaging it is for the Government to accept the advice of the Secretary of State for Employment? Does she not understand that if she had consulted my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) she would not have come to the Dispatch Box with the false figures that she has provided today and my right hon. Friend might have saved her from a great deal of embarrassment?
The Prime Minister
I have not mentioned any figures so far today, none at all. What the water strike has shown is that there are people who are prepared for their own personal advantage——
Mr. William Hamilton
The right hon. Lady.
The Prime Minister
—to attempt to withhold essential commodities and services from old and young alike, and that people who attempt to do that will be supported by the Opposition.
Mr. Foot
The right hon. Lady has it wrong again. If she really wants to stop strikes, why does she not compare her record in that matter with that of the Labour Government? She will then discover that the number of working days lost under her Administration has been 40 per cent. higher than it was under the Labour Administration. That is because she accepts the advice of her Secretary of State for Employment.
The Prime Minister
Nonsense. Did the right hon. Gentleman condemn the water strike, or was he on the side of the strikers?
Mr. Foot
Of course I did not condemn the strike, because the strikers have a right to justice under this Government. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear” .]
The Prime Minister
Do not the consumers, the pensioners and the family have a right to justice, and why did the right hon. Gentleman prefer to—[Interruption.]—
Mr. Speaker
Order. I cannot hear what the Prime Minister is saying.
Mr. William Hamilton
The Prime Minister is asking questions.
Mr. Speaker
Order. If the House knew the correspondence that I received after last week's exhibition, it would ensure that every one has a right to be heard here.
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman, true to his typical beliefs, preferred to be the strikers' friend against the consumer, and was prepared to see old-age pensioners and mothers with young children go to [column 1051]standpipes rather than urge the trade unions to honour a clause in their original agreement. As a result, the consumer lost, the strikers lost—
Mr. Canavan
The right hon. Lady lost.
The Prime Minister
We now have the new socialism, the new caring society, in which the trade unions care for themselves but not for those whom they serve.
Mr. Roy Jenkins
Does— [Interruption.] No doubt there will be even more noise next week when the Labour party has had time to get over the humiliation of Bermondsey and the Conservative has lost his deposit. In the meantime, will the Prime Minister, instead of merely exchanging insults with the Leader of the Opposition, tell us what lessons she learnt from the water strike? Does not the lack of a coherent incomes policy in the public sector give the worst of both worlds—great inconvenience to the public and a vacillating approach to the level of settlements?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the lessons of history. If one can break an agreement of the kind that the water workers broke in breaking the original NJIC agreement, one can also break, as we know, a statutory incomes policy. Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that?
Brookmans Park
Q2. Mr. Murphy
asked the Prime Minister if she has any plans to visit Brookmans park.
The Prime Minister
I have at present no plans to do so.
Mr. Murphy
On behalf of my constituents may I ask my right hon. Friend to comment on the former Labour Government's advertising campaign on defence, which said:
“While we work for a lasting peace, we have to have nuclear weapons?”
The Prime Minister
Yes. I remember words to that effect in the great advertising campaign that was inaugurated and carried through by the Labour Government of 1969, in support of Polaris missiles, of which some of the members of that Government did not approve. Words to that effect were used in that advertisement and, if I might say so, while we have the threat that we have from the Soviet Union, those words are as true today as they were then.
Mr. Weetch
In view of the nauseating publicity, especially in the tabloid newspapers, about the private life of the Royal family, and, indeed, about others, does the Prime Minister agree that it is high time that we had a Right to Privacy Act—[Interruption.]——
Mr. Speaker
Order. Has the hon. Gentleman read question No. 2, which relates to Brookmans park?
Mr. Weetch
—which could be extended to the people in Brookmans park? Does the Prime Minister agree that it is high time that we had a Right to Privacy Act, so that the families of many people could be protected from the predators of the media?
The Prime Minister
I believe that that was dealt with in a private Member's suggestion in the House last week, [column 1052]and the House voted on that measure. I have nothing to say about what the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his question. I understand that the matter is sub judice.
Engagements
Q3. Mr. Dykes
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 24 February.
The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
Mr. Dykes
If my right hon. Friend has time today to consider the future of the National Health Service, a matter which all Governments must consider all the time, will she agree that it is absurd for people in the Labour party to suggest, for instance, that limited privatisation of certain maintenance and contract cleaning activities in the NHS would be a serious attack on the basis of the NHS? As the chairman of the trade association has suggested that £40 million could be saved if those activities were privatised, would it not be a good idea to provide more resources for genuine patient care?
The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend that a great deal of money could be saved by putting some services such as cleaning out to contract and that the money thereby saved would be much better used in patient care. If money were saved it would go to patient care.
Mr. Grimond
If the Prime Minister today is considering further possible wage claims, will she discuss with the leaders of industry how they expect workers to take very small increases when very large increases and large golden handshakes are constantly given to directors, regardless of the success of the companies, and when, even in the nationalised industries, increases at the top have been far bigger than at the bottom? If Victorian virtues are to return to this country, should they not start at the top?
The Prime Minister
If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the top in politics, what he says is indeed true.
Mr. Lennox-Boyd
In considering the National Health Service, will my right hon. Friend remind the House that during this Parliament expenditure on patient services has been increased by 6 per cent., after allowing for inflation, which is indeed poor evidence of an intention to dismantle the welfare state?
The Prime Minister
Yes. There has been an increase in expenditure on patient services, and that is reflected in the increasing numbers of doctors, nurses, and professions ancillary to medicine in the NHS under this Government, over and above what happened under the Labour Government. So it is we who should boast about our record in the NHS, not they.
Mr. Stoddart
Will the right hon. Lady call in the Secretary of State for Defence this afternoon, reprimand him for his Goebbels-type party political broadcast yesterday, and remind him that this Government left us nearly defenceless against the Argentine attack by running down the Navy and proposing to sell Invincible? Will she bear mind that at the time of the Russian invasion of Hungary we did nothing because we were invading Egypt? Will the right hon. Lady also remind the right hon. [column 1053]Gentleman that this Government are committed to the non-proliferation treaty? Does her policy, which says that nuclear weapons will stop war in Europe, extend to all other countries?
The Prime Minister
The answer to the hon. Gentleman is no, Sir. The Falklands war was fought with an excellent Navy and was won gloriously. It is a blot on the whole of the Western world that we stood by and [column 1054]allowed the invasion of Hungary. [Interruption.] With all due respect, the whole of the Western world was not fighting somewhere else and it is a blot on the United Nations and on the Western world. Has the hon. Gentleman forgotten what happened recently in Afghanistan? Why does he not condemn that? The truth is that my right hon. Friend's party political broadcast last night was excellent and it clearly drove home very hard indeed.