Interviewer
Mrs Thatcher, looking back over your life, your personal as well as your political life, can you really say that, are you really a friend of the earth?
Prime Minister
Very much so. When I first came into politics, one of the great problems was how to get clean air, remember the first Clean Air Act in the 1950s, and remember really how successful it has been, we do not have the smogs any more of the kind that we used to have then. [end p1]
And then the real difficulty was how to get cleaner rivers to get some of the fish back into the rivers and you know there are salmon in the Thames and many of the rivers discharging into the North Sea. It was that kind of local kind of environmental work that very much occupied us.
There was no such thing then known as an ozone layer. We in those days thought that the world systems were so stable that whatever man did he could not upset them, they would always go on being the same, there was no greenhouse effect up there somewhere, there was no ozone layer, and somehow we thought that the balance of nature would still keep everything going in the seas.
But you know since then, for example in my lifetime, the population of the world has doubled, that has enormous problems for agriculture, for waste, for technology, for industry. We know recently, comparatively recently - in the last two decades - about the ozone layer, it was a British team that discovered the depletion of it and we still do not fully understand the greenhouse gases or how they are going to operate, but we know that we have to do something. We fully understand that we must not cut down too many tropical forests because they absorb certain very very vital gases.
So it has changed very much from what I would call the more localised pollution, which is very important and still is, the air, the rivers, the bathing beaches, the seas. This is a regional pollution to this global system where we really are, as I put it [end p2] in the Royal Society speech, almost performing an experiment with the systems that are vital to life. And when I realised this, it really came as quite a shock and so I got hold of all of the scientific papers, from America, from here, and thought we just cannot leave this.
That really was how the second, the larger part of it began.
Interviewer
How recent is this concern of yours? Does it hurt you or make you angry that it has been treated as a kind of conversion, like St. Paul's on the road to Damascus?
Prime Minister
Well, it is very silly really, it is very very silly, because as I say they are two totally different things, there is the local pollution, in which we have been interested for a very long time to cut it down and have been interested for years in trying to clean up the litter, clean up the graffiti, that is something which every citizen can do.
You know you notice it immediately when you go to a place that is clean and tidy. That again is a local thing which has endured. The big world systems, our realisation of it, is really comparatively recent. [end p3]
I think it is ironic that one of the very few occasions when I have actually overriden science advice as Prime Minister, because we take scientific advice as to where tax payers' money which is to be spent on research as to what it goes to, and in 1982 I clashed really quite vigorously with them that they did not want to spend very much on Antarctica. I have always been interested in Antarctica, there is some marvellous wildlife there, there is probably a good deal of mineral deposits, you never know quite what is going on in those fantastic, remarkable, icy, they are not wastelands, and they said, the scientists said, that it really was not sufficiently scientifically important to put more money into the Antarctic Survey. I said, well I did not know whether it was scientifically important but I did think it was very very important for Britain. We had lands there, it was a fascinating place, we wanted to know more about the seas there, where the cold sea met the warmer north, the wildlife, the mineral deposits, and I did actually override them and say: “The Antarctic Survey must have more money” and it was they who discovered the depletion of the ozone layer.
Interviewer
But should we not have woken up to these things beforehand? You yourself are a scientist. Should not you as both a scientist and a politician have been more aware of these things beforehand? [end p4]
Prime Minister
You could not have woken up to it before they happened to discover that there was depletion of the ozone layer over the Antarctic and then I think that we did not really believe for a time that certain gases, the halogen gases, would have quite such an effect upon that. Then we found out more, it also had an effect on the greenhouse effect.
There has been a lot of work done during the last decade, a tremendous amount, a tremendous number of scientific papers, but it has become, and there is also a certain amount we get from satellites too, we have learned a great deal about the currents, about the heat currents, a great deal about the currents in the sea, and we have spent a great deal of money on it and a lot more research needs to be done.
Interviewer
Some people, your critics, are sceptical of this concentration on the environment because of the criticism that has been levelled against this government while you have been in power on the European sphere, of Britain being the “dirty man of Europe”. They say that this indicates that we are not that concerned …
Prime Minister
One moment, what do they mean, what do they mean? I have seen that phrase, it was uttered by one person. [end p5]
Now, when it comes to throwing litter down in streets, I am the first, I come back from The Hague, I come back from Frankfurt, and say: “Look, how can we persuade people not to throw litter out of car windows, how can we persuade them if they go on a picnic to take the litter back with them?”
Yes, in that respect we are, and I wish some of the people who uttered these phrases would get down to cleaning it up because this is something which everyone can do.
Interviewer
I think their concerns are more about things like acid rain, about the emissions from car exhausts, about European initiatives that we appear to have blocked?
Prime Minister
Right, acid rain, emissions from car exhausts, European initiatives. Let us start about acid rain. Our coal is full of sulphur. Germany also has a lot of brown coal. Now the quickest way to diminish acid rain would be to say: “Right, we will not use any British coal, we will use coal from overseas which has no sulphur”. Now I hardly think that would have been acceptable either to the people of Britain, let alone to the mining areas, or to some of those European Commissioners who are critical. [end p6]
So we did not go about it that way. We said: “We will try to extract the sulphur”. You have got sulphur, you have got nitric oxide also to extract and so we are spending a fortune, well over a billion in the first instance and then another £600 million after that, to try to take the sulphur out.
Do not think that just deals with it. Do you know what we have to do to take the sulphur out? Hue and quarry great chunks of limestone from beautiful areas - take it up by lorries, take it up by electrified railway lines to the power stations, line the flues with it, it then absorbs the limestone, will absorb the SO2, and what will we finish up with? Masses and masses of gypsum which we do not know what to do with.
So yes we will diminish the acid rain but we will have another problem. That is because we have more sulphur dioxide in. Now there is also nitrous and nitric oxide and we are having a campaign to get rid of that. We have nothing like the problem that they have in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Norway, in Sweden, in Denmark, in Finland. We are much better on that than they are.
Now I think that what you have got is a lot of people with a political view trying to undermine what we are doing for political reasons. But I will stand up to them on any of this, either on sulphur dioxide or on nitric oxide. [end p7]
Now what was the next one - rivers and the North Sea? No, it was vehicle emissions, vehicle emissions. Now what they want to do is put the three-way catalyst on all exhausts to cars. Now to some extent we were resistant to that on all cars and I will tell you why, a very good environmental reason. When you put that three-way catalyst on an exhaust certainly you reduce some of the exhaust gases but at what cost? You make the engine less efficient and you have to spend 10 percent more fuel through that engine for the same distance, because you put the three-way catalyst on.
Interviewer
But is that not worth it?
Prime Minister
Please let me finish. What to put more up into the greenhouse effect?
Interviewer
Well, the Americans have been doing this for some considerable time and cut their vehicle emissions. [end p8]
Prime Minister
Yes indeed, but they did not know, they did not know the extent to which you need to use more fuel in the engine. We have gone about it a different way and if one might respectfully say so, a much better way. We have a lean-burn engine which will be ready this year. A lean-burn engine will both cut down the amount of fuel that is needed and cut the emissions. You get a combination of a lean-burn engine which is much more fuel-efficient and then a catalyst which does not have so much work to do. That is the way which we have gone, and it is the better way.
Now what is the next one? Rivers? The North Sea - we had a North Sea Conference here. We got the scientists to do a quality status report upon the North Sea. They said that the North Sea, the quality of the North Sea was fair to good. The real difficulty in the North Sea is where the great rivers of Europe all come together and discharge into the south-east part of the North Sea, into the German Bight, that is the corner, so your tides do not flush it out as much as they do around our coast. Eighty percent is there, it is in the Rhine, it is in the Weser, it is in the Elbe, only 20 percent comes from us. Our rivers are much cleaner, not all, we have still got some more work to do. We are doing it. [end p9]
Interviewer
I would like to get on to that a little later on. But talking about those other initiatives that we have resisted in Europe …
Prime Minister
One moment, we led the way on getting lead out of petrol and we led the way on lean-burn engines.
Interviewer
But we have been following in many ways on other things. There may be individual reasons for them but taken together do they not add up to what indeed our own European Commissioner, our own out-going European Commissioner, Stanley Clinton-Davis, said was the worst environmental record in Europe? Does it not add up to that?
Prime Minister
No it most certainly does not. That is nonsense. As I have indicated, if I said to Stanley Clinton-Davis, who was formerly a Labour Member of Parliament: “Right, you want sulphur dioxide, acid rain, out of coal-fired power stations. Right, we will import all our coal”. Do you think he would have been pleased? He would have been in real difficulty, and so should we. [end p10]
Now let me tell you, he belonged to the Labour Party. We had a Water Directive agreed in Europe in 1975 on beaches, on the condition of beaches, 1975, a long time ago. For four years the Labour Party did nothing about that. In 1979, when we came in, we sent out the first guidelines in conjunction with Europe, July 1979 after four years of nothing, a lot of talk but no action, we sent out the guidelines to identify the beaches. Eventually we identified 380. Two-thirds of those are now clean.
We are pouring in money, pouring is perhaps the right word, both to have in fact much better water, although all of our water is of drinking quality, over a billion, £1.4 billion next year. Every time I do this and say: “Of course if you put more money in higher costs you have got to have higher costs for water”. They just complain bitterly. No appreciation that we are pouring money in, tax-payers' money, and there will have to be a return on prices to clean up the beaches, clean up the rivers and to get better water, and then half of them will go on holiday to Europe where the beaches are not so good.
Interviewer
Can I move you on to the Ozone Conference that you have called here in London this weekend? What are you hoping to get out of it? What are you hoping to achieve? [end p11]
Prime Minister
I would like to say the discovery of the depletion of the ozone layer was a British discovery, the British Antarctic Survey, they came into the next room and gave me a marvellous account of everything they are doing just a few weeks ago, fascinating, marvellous people, and we agreed at Montreal a conference there under the auspices of the United Nations, that we would cut these halogen gases that are the aerosol gases and the refrigeration gases by 50 percent within ten years. We have already got down to 50 percent and this year, by the end of this year, we will have cut them by 60 percent.
But the scientific evidence recently coming in was that that is too slow and so we called under United Nations auspices a conference to cut them, to try to get agreement to cut them by 85 percent within the next decade.
Now we have got 110 countries coming, represented by 600 people, and I believe that we shall get that target. It is going to take a time. The aerosols are the easier thing to deal with because you can go to these pump action things that I think are much better and were much cheaper anyway. But the difficulty is some of the refrigeration and some of the engineering things because those particular gases were very safe to work with, they are very safe in factories, they are very stable and it is their very stability that ironically makes them both safe to work with but also makes them endure until they get up to that particular layer. [end p12]
There is a great deal of research going on on substitutes but again you cannot just say to everyone: “You have got to get rid of your present fridge”.
Interviewer
So what are you going to say to them?
Prime Minister
We are going to say that there will be new chemicals in order to do the extraction of the heat from the fridge and we shall have a rule that all new fridges must have the new solvents in them, the new chemicals, and not the old ones.
I think you will find that the turnover of fridges will be much much better in catering and in retail shops and so on and we shall have to have regulations about temperatures for different reasons and then we also have to look at some of the engineering.
But we have an extensive programme in which the private sector is playing a very big part. ICI, I do not know whether you saw the other day, ICI spend a fantastic sum on research - £565 million a year on research, of which £100,000 million [sic] is on these environmentally important gases. So we shall get it down I think by 85 percent in those countries. But it is the other countries you see. [end p13]
Interviewer
The industrialised countries might well do this but what about the developing world who are saying: “Well when you had your industrial revolution you polluted the world, now you are turning round when we are developing and saying that we cannot”. What about the Chinese who as I understand it have a programme to give every family a fridge. What is going to happen to the ozone layer when these countries do these things?
Prime Minister
The Chinese are coming and I think the Chinese and some of the developed countries are saying: “Look, we do not need to make the mistakes that you made”. And that is life, is it not? You try not to make the mistakes which your forebears made and they will have the benefit of all of this research and I am sure that they will strain as far as refrigerators and aerosols are concerned to put that into action. That would be tremendous great benefit.
I think the real difficulty with the developing world, of course they want to get their standard of living up, of course they want to get out of poverty, that is why we have the concept under Mrs Brundtland of sustainable development with which we firmly agree. [end p14]
I think the more difficult thing with them is that some of them have large deposits of coal and of course they put coal into their power stations. That is not only acid rain that is the amount of carbon dioxide that comes out and it does give us a problem. Do we give aid to build big coal-fired power stations in the third world? That is a problem, is it not? Or do we say …
Interviewer
So are you going to tailor our aid programme, do you think Mrs Thatcher?
Prime Minister
Well, we are starting to tailor our aid programme already. We are giving very considerable help on research into forestry and into the planting of tropical forests and into the preservation of tropical forests, very considerable aid. We are looking very critically at some of the World Bank programmes for the Third World because we know much more now than we used to about interfering with the environment. You know there is a great big programme for dams in the Amazon basin and recently we have come to know some of the damage that a big dam can do to natural life and also if you have to cut down a tropical forest so we are looking at that much more carefully. [end p15]
So yes we are giving help. To Bangladesh which has had as you know the very great big floods we give, the British tax-payer, £50 million a year and when President Ershad was here recently I said: “Look this is quite absurd. You are getting floods year after year. Really we want the silt out of your rivers put back on to the hills, into the country behind you, into Nepal and India, and planted with trees again. Can we not get a programme going for that, it is much much more sensible?”
Then we have again to be very diplomatic because you have to be careful not to interfere with the affairs of another region so all we can do is say: “Come along to the United Nations Conferences, of which this will be one, and if you will accept our help we are very anxious to give it.” They obviously want to use the rivers in some of them, they want to cut down their trees and do farming but cutting down trees will have the single most damaging effect of all because it actually fixes the carbon dioxide faster than anything else. That and the life-chain of fish and plankton in the sea.
Interviewer
There are those who say that your concentration on the damage to the ozone layer is really an excuse for promoting the faster development of nuclear energy. Is that an accusation that has weight? [end p16]
Prime Minister
The ozone layer? That really is more the greenhouse effect, because the fact is that if you develop your nuclear power you are not putting up carbon dioxide into that, you are not interfering with the fundamental systems of the earth. Now that I would have thought was extremely important. Most of the radiation you get of course is from natural sources, about 80 percent of it comes from natural sources, either from the cosmic atmosphere, from the granite or from the things around us. A lot more comes from the medical use, very very little from nuclear power.
But yes I would prefer more nuclear power because it is not fundamentally interfering with the world's eco-systems. We have to remember the world came into existence with colossal nuclear power effects, as you know, and we know how to deal with nuclear wastes or the technology is there and I think that it is something that everyone should take into account and we do try renewable sources of energy as well.
But we shall have to do though with coal and oil and gas. Gas actually does not put out quite as much carbon dioxide as the coal and oil.
Interviewer
But are you saying that because of the dangers to the global environment, not just the ozone layer but the greenhouse effect, global warming, that we ought to be concentrating much more on nuclear energy and do you think people are persuaded by that argument? [end p17]
Prime Minister
Yes, indeed I think many scientists are persuaded.
Interviewer
Scientists are, but are many people?
Prime Minister
In that case we must point it out. When you burn oil, when you burn coal, when you burn gas, you get a whole lot of carbon dioxide. You cannot avoid that. It goes up, quite a bit of it goes straight up into the world's atmosphere, it stays there, it is now we believe having a greenhouse effect which is leading to global warming and that is serious.
If we want to avoid that, then one way of reducing the amount that goes up is of course to substitute nuclear power for coal-fired power. France is way ahead, 60 percent of her electricity comes from nuclear and therefore she is way ahead of us in that respect and that is one thing. The other things which will absorb the carbon dioxide are the tropical forests and woodlands and conifers and of course some of the fish in the sea.
Interviewer
But on the subject of nuclear energy, let us leave aside the environmentalists' arguments because this whole thing rather neatly skewers some of the environmentalists' arguments … [end p18]
Prime Minister
Oh no it does not, well it says …
Interviewer
Well environmentalists are not basically keen on nuclear energy, on the other hand they are concerned about global warming, but more to the point is if you are going to expand nuclear energy, how are you going to do it? You have been in power for ten years and, from memory, perhaps only one nuclear power station has been completed in that time. How many more nuclear power stations do we need and how are you going to do it?
Prime Minister
We have two big ones coming on but you are quite right, there was over-ordering of power stations in the period before we came into office and we have not needed to build new ones. We are now starting as you know from Sizewell a new programme, because we soon have to replace the magnox stations, the first thing we have to do is to build to replace the nuclear energy stations so that we still get the same proportion of our energy from nuclear, as we do now, and that will mean about four nuclear power stations between now and the end of the century and of course we have to get planning permission for them and we are already on that programme. [end p19]
Because we cannot go much faster than that, we have this big programme to take out sulphur dioxide and nitric oxide from the coal-fired power stations, it would also help if we planned to have more dual-firing or have more smaller power stations and that would be so when you can in fact privatise them which actually would use gas. Because although gas produces carbon dioxide it does not have the same quantitative effect as oil and coal.
Interviewer
The environmentalists, who are both concerned about global warming and about nuclear energy, which they distrust, and many people do too …
Prime Minister
Why do they distrust? I think they are afraid of the nuclear waste …
Interviewer
… well, they are afraid of accidents aren't they, and the sort of Chernobyl effect and so on. They say why are we not concentrating on using the energy we already produce better? I mean here we are, here is a government which believes in market forces, but has yet managed to rope off nuclear energy and electricity privatisation, it is not so subject to market forces under your privatisation plans, but is not considering energy efficiency. [end p20]
Prime Minister
But it is.
Interviewer
These studies that it is possible, where people have very poor insulation generally by European standards, to save as much energy as could be provided by ten Sizewell nuclear stations, at about one-fifth of the cost and yet the government is actually slashing funds to the Energy Efficiency Office which promotes these things. Now isn't there an inconsistency here?
Prime Minister
No, there is no inconsistency at all. Incidentally, you said something about people are afraid of accidents with nuclear, the Chernobyl design would never have got through our Nuclear Inspectorate and in fact we have lost far more lives from coal mining and from oil than we have lost from nuclear. That I am afraid is one of those facts, so just remember that. The coal and the coal-mining are quite dangerous.
Now let us have a look at energy-efficiency. When the price of oil quadrupled, as you know in 1973 and then again in 1979, that was the biggest incentive to energy efficiency that industry has ever had. It set about altering its fuel plant. It set about energy-efficiency because that was reducing its costs. [end p21]
That is one of the reasons why we have not needed to build any more power stations because industry started to look at energy-efficiency on a cost basis. So indeed did many people. If something is worth doing you do not necessarily have to have a grant to do it. Surely we are responsible enough as citizens, if something is worth doing we want to keep down our costs, of course we put in the most energy efficient things in our houses. If fuel is very cheap you will not in fact be anything like so economical in it.
But we did give big insulation grants particularly for old age pensioners and had it done on the community programme. But just because something is worth doing, after all you need nice houses, you need good food, you need cars, you do not have to subsidise things when people have a good income just because it is worth doing. You rely on them as responsible citizens to do it themselves.
Now Cecil Parkinson came in the other day and said: “Now look, we in government really use rather a lot of fuel”, we do in Parliament too, you know, because you have your central heating systems. Mercifully we do not have very much air conditioning which is very very extravagant on fuel. Just let us have a look and see what we can do in our own offices because we cannot tell other people to do unless we are doing it ourselves, so we are looking at that first. [end p22]
But energy efficiency is worth doing for itself and my goodness me industry is doing because of the cost. Now it will be very much better when we have privatised electricity and water for one very good reason, as well as others.
Let me just give two: first, it is Government's job, and no-one else can do it, to set standards, set standards of discharges into rivers so we are setting up for the first time a National Rivers Authority, quite separate from the Water Authorities. Government has to set the standards, the standards for emissions from cars, the standards for discharges into the ocean, the standards for any discharge. You have to have a licence to discharge into a river.
Our job is to set standards and the body that sets the standard should be quite independent of the industry so that any prosecutions can be done by that body and by the appropriate Inspectorate. It is not right to have it in the hands of a nationalised industry and the prosecution so under water privatisation we are setting up the Water Rivers Authority, National Rivers Authority, for the first time carrying out our tasks as government. If it goes privatised, water will be very much better and we will have far more access to private capital. Even in France, which positively believes in nationalisation, they actually keep their water privatised because it is better. [end p23]
And on electricity, again Government will set the standards, they will have the nuclear inspectorate, the other inspectorate, the inspectorate to watch the emissions from power stations. That is our job and we should concentrate on our job, not on running industries.
Interviewer
On the subject of water, there will be many people who will be applauding you this weekend for your concentration on the ozone layer but might be saying: “What about our backyard? You have mentioned these rivers, our rivers are now getting dirtier again.”
Prime Minister
No they are not getting dirtier.
Interviewer
I am sorry, the facts, Mrs Thatcher, are that on balance there has been a net increase in the number of dirty rivers in this country, certainly in the last set of figures and I understand in the figures that will shortly be published that that is the case. [end p24]
Prime Minister
Well I think you are using two sets of figures, one which were taken in 1980 …
Interviewer
1985 figures are the ones that I have.
Prime Minister
… and one which were taken in 1985. May I point out that the stretches of rivers which were monitored in those two surveys were different and in the second survey there were stretches of rivers which were not contained in the first survey.
Interviewer
Are you saying that there is no deterioration in the levels of some of our rivers?
Prime Minister
I am saying that in the other different figures which came in the last three years that it is not correct to say there has been a deterioration, that we are we believe steadily improving the rivers. We have to be stricter on some of the discharges. Let me give you one example. One of the real difficulties we are getting now into rivers is coming from concentrated agriculture and also from organic farming as well, because that is no better than other, a lot of it [end p25] is coming from, quite a bit, not all, from slurry, farming slurry and farming silos.
Now the 1974 Act, for example, said that farmers could discharge that into the rivers if they had good farming practices. Now I have been round farms and the farmers have said to me: “Look, we are already getting into trouble with the Water Authorities” and you can see, you have only got to be in a yard when they have done all the milking and see the slurry that is washed away. Now we are actually having to change that and say: “No, you cannot discharge that” because really it is difficult. So what we are doing is saying: “No, and we will give you a grant in order to put in a treatment plant on the farm so that what you discharge into the rivers is better”.
Now we believe that we are getting the rivers better and will go on getting them better. We are pouring a great deal of money into it through the Statutory Water Authorities. I told you, five years ago we looked at this very carefully. It was just after we had had a very dry summer and I said immediately: “When we have had a very dry summer people will realise the value of water and they will not mind paying more for it because they realise what it is like to be short”.
And we actually put up the amount of capital we are spending in the last five years, now that is since the time of your 1985 survey, we have had some since then though not on identical sets of rivers. [end p26]
We have put in over £1 billion a year, it is now £1.4 billion. We cannot do everything at once but it is getting better.
Interviewer
Should we not be punishing people who pollute rivers? Some of the fines for big industrial concerns who badly damage rivers with their effluent are derisory, a few hundred pounds, for big industrial undertaking. Should there not be much stricter punishment? This is a government that believes in law and order, believes that people ought to be punished if they transgress, should there not be bigger fines?
Prime Minister
In some cases they have in fact been taken before the local Magistrates Court when the fines have been small. They can in fact go and be taken before a Crown Court. But the pollution, the concentration, ICI is a very good case in point as I said, all the research work that they are putting into it, all the research work …
Interviewer
Would you recommend that these people should be taken to a Crown Court? [end p27]
Prime Minister
Yes indeed, and indeed if they pollute they must be because they have to get a licence for the discharges and it is very very important that we have proper chemical treatment plants, very important. The science is known and it must be followed up and if they go on like that then they will risk being taken to the Crown Courts.
Most of them I know are very responsible and are trying to diminish the amount which they put into rivers and are trying to be law-abiding.
Interviewer
But for those who are not responsible, do you think a Crown Court, perhaps jail might not be too much for people who do that?
Prime Minister
Well, they can go to Crown Court where in fact you can have the higher sentences, not only in fine but in custodial sentences. We are just as anxious. But again just let me point out, there are salmon back in rivers where there were none. The Thames is the cleanest metropolitan estuary in the world. You have got salmon back into many of the rivers flowing into the North Sea, from the Forth, the Tyne, the Tees, the Humber and the Thames. You would not get that unless they were getting cleaner. [end p28]
Now the Mersey is a very bad one. We have got £4 billion on cleaning up the Mersey basin. We are having to clean up some of the pollution of years but we are doing it. Our rivers, 90 percent, this is the figure I want to use, 90 percent of our rivers are what is called good or fair. That still leaves 10 percent that are neither good or fair. The average for Europe is 75 percent.
Now again I give you these figures because I can go over many of these things. We are very honest in all our figures, we publish them all, we publish figures about beaches and so sometimes by being totally open and honest you attract more criticism where some other countries perhaps are not quite so open and do not get the criticism. But 90 percent of our rivers are good or fair.
Interviewer
But is it not the case Mrs Thatcher that one-third of our beaches failed to meet the European Bathing Beaches Directive? Now is that not rather shameful?
Prime Minister
Yes. And if you look at some of the countries in Europe they have not even identified which are the bad bathing beaches. [end p29]
Interviewer
But we are not really worried about them are we, we are worried about our own beaches.
Prime Minister
Well yes we are, the Mediterranean is much worse than the North Sea. Yes I am worried about our beaches. Do not forget what I said earlier. That European Directive came in in 1975. By the time we came into power in 1979 the beaches had not even been identified by the previous government, the Labour Government, the one that is saying so much now and did so little then. And they cut the expenditure on water by one-third. Cut it.
Interviewer
Do you think it is …
Prime Minister
One moment. You have been accusing me. They did nothing for four years except cut expenditure by one-third and so from 1979 we set about both identifying these beaches and a programme and we announced another £1 billion over four years for the beaches and we have done, out of 380 we have cleared 260. And by 1995 they will all be clear because we created through enterprise the prosperity in order to have the money to do this. [end p30]
And some of those who are making a song and dance now are responsible for quite a lot of what we are steadily clearing up. So whether it is rivers, whether it is beaches, whether it is water, setting up new environmental authorities, we are well ahead and there is not another country I believe which is actually doing more over the whole environmental thing. You take the countryside, the scientifically sensitive areas, the Norfolk Broads Bill we had, all of the things that we are doing on conservation of the countryside, if you take the whole thing I think you will find that we are well ahead.
And of course we led Europe on unleaded petrol. We now have four thousand petrol stations serving unleaded petrol. Not enough yet.
Interviewer
But we are not leading Europe on unleaded petrol Mrs Thatcher. The use of unleaded petrol in Britain is much much less than in Germany, France.
Prime Minister
We led it on the Directive. We have four thousand petrol stations. We led in getting the Directive. [end p31]
Interviewer
But unleaded petrol is used a lot more by German motorists than here, where the government indeed has got I think it is about 12p benefit on unleaded petrol. Is that not the sort of thing that Mr Lawson ought to be considering in his Budget?
Prime Minister
Well last year, last year. I say we led in getting the Directive in place. We then had a reduction of unleaded petrol as against leaded petrol. We now have four thousand petrol stations which is more than some countries in Europe have and I think myself that it costs quite a lot to put it in on the petrol stations, yes it does, but I think what will happen is that they will replace two-star petrol by unleaded petrol.
Now, again let me say, there are some cars into which you cannot put unleaded petrol. My car happens to be such a car, we have to wait until the new one, you cannot convert some of them, but by 1990 in this country every new car has to have an engine that will take unleaded petrol.
So again, if you look right across the field, there is not a single sphere in which we have been anything other than active. [end p32]
Interviewer
What worries most people, our post-bag seems to show, the programme's post-bag seems to show, what worries most people is waste disposal, the disposal sites for waste, the Council tips and so on that are close to their houses. They do not feel that they are well sited, they do not think that they are well supervised and even HM Inspectorate of Pollution, which your government has set up, is not strong enough, and local council authorities are not strong enough properly to monitor the tipping. Do you think their worries are unfounded?
Prime Minister
Your local Environmental Pollution Officers should be able to look after that. Her Majesty's Inspectorate, general pollution inspectorate, has about 266 people, of whom only about half are professionals and the rest are administrative. We obviously want some more. It is easier to create the vacancies than it is to find the necessary people to fill it.
But do not forget your local environmental officers should in fact look after this and they are responsible for making prosecutions.
Yes it is a problem. The wealthier our community gets the more waste it creates. This is one of the problems. Some other countries took a lot of their waste to sea in ships and burnt it, incinerated it at sea and then of course discharged the rest into the North Sea. Now we are stopping that. [end p33]
We did not actually. Germany was one of the countries that did and some of the others and obviously it seemed the best way to do things for them but then it has an effect on the North Sea and we are stopping that. I think that stops within the next two years or so.
It is a great problem how to deal with all the waste. You do have to have tips and it is a problem but it is up to the local environmental officers as to how they dispose of it it within certain rules and to see that is properly done. I know that obviously mothers are very concerned if they find some poison has been quite wrongly dumped on one of those tips, probably not by the local authority but by someone else and it is thoroughly reprehensible and should not happen.
But you see you cannot just say: “You are not dealing with it well, etc”. You have got to say, well now look, we have got to have means to dispose of waste, it has got to be a means which in fact will make the waste degrade so we want biodegradable plastics and gradually degrade and more and more we have to dispose of it. It is one of the consequences of a free society. We actually do dispose of our waste in this country.
Interviewer
The other thing that they are particularly concerned about is the disposal of sewage at sea, of sewage sludge. Is it right for a developed country like the United Kingdom at the end of the 20th century to be disposing of something like six million tons of sewage sludge in the waters around our country? [end p34]
Prime Minister
It is treated sewage of course, it is not untreated, it is treated.
Interviewer
We also have a lot of outfalls that take raw sewage into the sea and are still building them.
Prime Minister
Well, it should be treated sewage that goes out, treated, all of it. I think you will find that it is treated sewage in this country and obviously even the treated sewage it is not really getting far enough out and that is why we still have one-third of the beaches that are still not as clean as we would wish and that is why I indicated we have a programme which should be complete by 1995, £1.4 billion for that particular means to get it all clean.
So we are steadily and systematically doing it. Yet again, but you know, you are expecting us to deal with the problems that have been accumulating in a country of 55 million people with a steadily higher standard of living, you are expecting us to have dealt with it all in ten years. We could not deal with it all in ten years. [end p35]
We are a richer country now, a much richer country than we were ten years ago and correspondingly we are spending a good deal more on it and we are systematically dealing with it as fast as we can go and if by any possible chance I were here in 1995 and you did me the honour of interviewing me again I think you would not be able to put some of those questions because again I would be able to say to you: “We set about in the 1950s in cleaning the air and starting a clean-up of the rivers and since then we have done so much and in the last decade we have done even more and in the next five years I think we shall have got rid of most of these problems”.
Interviewer
Finally Mrs Thatcher if, and when, you finish being Prime Minister, would you want to be remembered as somebody who had helped to save the world in this environmental sense?
Prime Minister
Enormously so, enormously so. My whole sort of political philosophy is that what you inherited from your forefathers, it is your duty to add to it, to give to next generations. I belong to a conservative party, conserving. So much of the landscape that we conserve is a farming landscape. We should not have had the world population if we had not had more intensive farming. [end p36]
The problems science has created science in fact can solve and we are setting about it. We are a little bit lucky in that my Minister at the Department of Environment, Nick Ridley, is both [sic] an extremely sensitive person. As you know, he is the grandson of the great Lutyens, the great architect, he is very sensitive about architecture, he himself is a very good artist and is also a civil engineer.
I come up with the chemistry qualifications, so we are both very keen on first finding the facts. There is an awful lot of talk without finding the facts. First find the facts, get the scientific advice and then put it into operation. As I say, it is not lucky, we have had the right policies to create the resources systematically to do it and I believe we should hand on this planet, which is why I am interested in the world systems, and this country, and the North Sea and our landscape, in better condition than we found it, better and a safer place, a more pleasant place to live in, not only by getting the chemistry right but also by getting rid of the litter in the streets, the graffiti and of course the other element of the environment is crime. All of them require the total support of each and every citizen and I do not think you will find a government in history that has done more.
I think you will find we are in tradition, it was Disraeli who started it with starting to get the water supply and drainage right in the newly industrialised cities and was ridiculed by his opponents, but he was right. [end p37]
Interviewer
So do you think Thatcherism, the word Thatcherism, the political philosophy of Thatcherism, will be remembered for its caring of the environment or for the material, economic successes that it seems to be noted for now?
Prime Minister
No it is not only the material statistics, look isn't part of our job to try to get people out of poverty by giving them opportunity to better themselves? Is that not really what we are here for? Is it not a bit hard, when you have given them the opportunity and they have responded to it to accuse them of materialism, especially when at the same time you need to spend more money on cleaning up the rivers and the environment? It does not add up what you are saying.
Everyone has some talents and abilities. My whole thesis has been, practice has been, to give them a chance to develop their enterprise, develop their talents, their abilities, their own sense of responsibility, if you are prepared to be responsible for your own families you are the sort of person who is prepared to be responsible for the community.
You can only get rid of the environmental problems by in fact creating the wealth and allocating some to deal with. I think people will be prepared to pay more for water and for electricity, to get it environmentally right. [end p38]
I think they will be prepared to clean up, they are, because we have created so much more wealth that without increasing taxation indeed with reducing it we still are able to do these things. When people are earning more, they have turned round and been very generous with it. You have only to look at some of the programmes you have had on BBC, they are giving, they are giving, they are giving, because yes they do want to live in a higher quality of life.
Just as some of the people who built the early cities did not stop at building factories and houses, they also built voluntary hospitals, they also built libraries, they also built art galleries, they also subsidised orchestras and choirs. Because this is the richness and the quality of life. But all of these things do cost, yes, money. These people do not do things for nothing. And it has been created. I have not created it. I have had the policies which have encouraged other people to create it by using the talents and abilities that God gave them. They have done so. And yes, the life is getting better.
We will have also, never forget, in the quality of the environment the crime in our cities which is the responsibility of each individual person. But we have to have the rule of law. It is also a part of the environment, a very important part. But we are tackling it, we are tackling it well and systematically and I hope that people after this will believe that we believe in it passionately.