Conservative Manifesto, 1979
FOREWORD by The Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher
1. OUR FIVE TASKS
2. RESTORING THE BALANCE
- The control of inflation
- Better value for money
- Trade union reform
- 1. Picketing
- 2. The closed shop
- 3. Wider participation
- Too many strikes
- Responsible pay bargaining
- Cutting income tax
- A property-owning democracy
- Industry, commerce and jobs
- Nationalisation
- Fair trade
- Small businesses
- Energy
- Agriculture
- Fishing
- Animal welfare
- The fight against crime
- Deterring the criminal
- Immigration and race relations
- The supremacy of Parliament
- Northern Ireland
- Homes of our own
- The sale of council houses
- Reviving the private rented sector
- Protecting the environment
- Standards in education
- Parents' rights and responsibilities
- The arts
- Health and welfare
- Making sense of social security
- The elderly and the disabled
- Improving our defences
- The European Community
- Africa and the Middle East
- Rhodesia
- Trade, aid and the Commonwealth
FOR ME, THE HEART OF POLITICS is not political theory, it is people and how they want to live their lives.
No one who has lived in this country during the last five years can fail to be aware of how the balance of our society has been increasingly tilted in favour of the State at the expense of individual freedom.
This election may be the last chance we have to reverse that process, to restore the balance of power in favour of the people. It is therefore the most crucial election since the war.
Together with the threat to freedom there has been a feeling of helplessness, that we are a once great nation that has somehow fallen behind and that it is too late now to turn things round.
I don't accept that. 1 believe we not only can, we must. This manifesto points the way.
It contains no magic formula or lavish promises. It is not a recipe for an easy or a perfect life. But it sets out a broad framework for the recovery of our country, based not on dogma, but On reason, on common sense, above all on the liberty of the people under the law.
The things we have in common as a nation far outnumber those that set us apart. P> It is in that spirit that I commend to you this manifesto.
Margaret Thatcher
1. Our five tasks
THIS ELECTION is about the future of Britain - a great country which seems to have lost its way. It is a country rich in natural resources, in coal, oil, gas and fertile farmlands. It is rich, too, in human resources, with professional and managerial skills of the highest calibre, with great industries and firms whose workers can be the equal of any in the world We are the inheritors of a long tradition of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.
Yet today, this country is faced with its most serious problems since the Second World War. What has happened to our country, to the values we used to share, to the success and prosperity we once took for granted?
During the industrial strife of last winter, confidence, self-respect, common sense, and even our sense of common humanity were shaken. At times this society seemed on the brink of disintegration.
Some of the reasons for our difficulties today are complex and go back many years. Others are more simple and more recent. We do not lay all the blame on the Labour Party: but Labour have been in power for most of the last fifteen years and cannot escape the major responsibility.
They have made things worse in three ways. First, by practising the politics of envy and by actively discouraging the creation of wealth, they have set one group against another in an often bitter struggle to gain a larger share of a weak economy.
Second, by enlarging the role of the State and diminishing the role of the individual, they have crippled the enterprise and effort on which a prosperous country with improving social services depends.
Third, by heaping privilege without responsibility on the trade unions, Labour have given a minority of extremists the power to abuse individual liberties and to thwart Britain's chances of success. One result is that the trade union movement, which sprang from a deep and genuine fellow-feeling for the brotherhood of man, is today more distrusted and feared than ever before.
It is not just that Labour have governed Britain badly. They have reached a dead-end. The very nature of their Party now
prevents them from governing successfully in a free society and mixed economy.
Divided against themselves; devoid of any policies except those which have led to and would worsen our present troubles; bound inescapably by ties of history, political dogma and financial dependence to a single powerful interest group, Labour have demonstrated yet again that they cannot speak and dare not act for the nation as a whole.
Our country's relative decline is not inevitable. We in the Conservative Party think we can reverse it, not because we think we have all the answers but because we think we have the one answer that matters most. We want to work with the grain of human nature, helping people to help themselves - and others. This is the way to restore that self-reliance and self-confidence which are the basis of personal responsibility and national success.
Attempting to do too much, politicians have failed to do those things which should be done. This has damaged the country and the authority of government. We must concentrate on what should be the priorities for any government. They are set out in this manifesto.
Those who look in these pages for lavish promises or detailed commitments on every subject will look in vain. We may be able to do more in the next five years than we indicate here. We believe we can. But the Conservative government's first job will be to rebuild our economy and reunite a divided and disillusioned people.
Our five tasks are:
(i) To restore the health of our economic and social life, by controlling inflation and striking a fair balance between the rights and duties of the trade union movement.
(2) To restore incentives so that hard work pays, success is rewarded and genuine new jobs are created in an expanding economy.
(3) To uphold Parliament and the rule of law.
(4) To support family life, by helping people to become home-owners, raising the standards of their children's education, and concentrating welfare services on the effective support of the old, the sick, the disabled and those who are in real need.
(5) To strengthen Britain's defences and work with our allies to protect our interests in an increasingly threatening world.
This is the strategy of the next Conservative government.
2. Restoring the balance
SOUND MONEY and a fair balance between the rights and obligations of unions, management and the community in which they work are essential to economic recovery. They should provide the stable conditions in which pay bargaining can take place as responsibly in Britain as it does in other countries.
THE CONTROL OF INFLATION
Under Labour prices have risen faster than at any peacetime period in the three centuries in which records have been kept, and inflation is now accelerating again. The pound today is worth less than half its '974 value. On present form it would be halved in value yet again within eight years. Inflation on this scale has come near to destroying our political and social stability.
To master inflation, proper monetary discipline is essential, with publicly stated targets for the rate of growth of the money supply. At the same time, a gradual reduction in the size of the Government's borrowing requirement is also vital. This Government's price controls have done nothing to prevent inflation, as is proved by the doubling of prices since they came to power. All the controls have achieved is a loss of jobs and a reduction in consumer choice.
The State takes too much of the nation's income; its share must be steadily reduced. When it spends and borrows too much, taxes, interest rates, prices and unemployment rise so that in the long run there is less wealth with which to improve Our standard of living and our social services.
BETTER VALUE FOR MONEY
Any future government which sets out honestly to reduce inflation and taxation will have to make substantial economies, and there should be no doubt about our intention to do so. We do not pretend that every saving can be made without change or complaint; but if the Government does not economise the sacrifices required of ordinary people will be all the greater.
Important savings can be made in several ways. We will scrap expensive Socialist programmes, such as the nationalisation of building land. We shall reduce government intervention in industry and particularly that of the National Enterprise Board, whose borrowing powers are planned to reach £4.5 billion. We shall ensure that selective assistance to industry is not wasted, as it was in the case of Labour's assistance to certain oil platform yards, on which over £20 million of public money was spent but no orders received.
The reduction of waste, bureaucracy and over-government will also yield substantial savings. For example, we shall look for economies in the cost (about £1.2 billion) of running our tax and social security systems. By comparison with private industry, local direct labour schemes waste an estimated £400 million a year. Other examples of waste abound, such as the plan to spend £50 million to build another town hall in Southwark.
TRADE UNION REFORM
Free trade unions can only flourish in a free society. A strong and responsible trade union movement could play a big part in our economic recovery. We cannot go on, year after year, tearing ourselves apart in increasingly bitter and calamitous industrial disputes. In bringing about economic recovery, we should all be on the same side. Government and public, management and unions, employers and employees, all have a common interest in raising productivity and profits, thus increasing investment and employment, and improving real living standards for everyone in a high-productivity, high-wage, low-tax economy. Yet at the moment we have the reverse an economy in which the Government has to hold wages down to try to make us competitive with other countries where higher real wages are paid for by higher output.
The crippling industrial disruption which hit Britain last winter had several causes: years with no growth in production; rigid pay control; high marginal rates of taxation; and the extension of trade union power and privileges. Between 1974 and 1976, Labour enacted a 'militants' charter' of trade union legislation. It tilted the balance of power in bargaining throughout industry away from responsible management and towards unions, and sometimes towards unofficial groups of workers acting in defiance of their official union leadership.
We propose three changes which must be made at once. Although the Government refused our offer of support to carry them through the House of Commons last January, our proposals command general assent inside and outside the trade union movement.
I. PICKETING
Workers involved in a dispute have a right to try peacefully to persuade others to support them by picketing, but we believe that right should be limited to those in dispute picketing at their own place of work. In the last few years some of the picketing we have witnessed has gone much too far. Violence, intimidation and obstruction cannot be tolerated. We shall ensure that the protection of the law is available to those not concerned in the dispute but who at present can suffer severely from secondary action (picketing, blacking and blockading). This means an immediate review of the existing law on immunities in the light of recent decisions, followed by such amendment as may be appropriate of the 1976 legislation in this field. We shall also make any further changes that are necessary so that a citizen's right to work and go about his or her lawful business free from intimidation or obstruction is guaranteed.
2. THE CLOSED SHOP
Labour's strengthening of the closed shop has made picketing a more objectionable weapon. In some disputes, pickets have threatened other workers with the withdrawal of their union cards if they refuse to co-operate. No union card can mean no job. So the law must be changed. People arbitrarily excluded or expelled from any union must be given the right of appeal to a court of law. Existing employees and those with personal conviction must be adequately protected, and if they lose their jobs as a result of a closed shop they must be entitled to ample compensation.
In addition, all agreements for a closed shop must be drawn up in line with the best practice followed at present and only if an overwhelming majority of the workers involved vote for it by secret ballot. We shall therefore propose a statutory code under Section 6 of the 1975 Employment Protection Act. We will not permit a closed shop in the non-industrial civil service and will resist further moves towards it in the newspaper industry. We are also committed to an enquiry into the activities of the SLADE union, which have done so much to bring trade unionism into disrepute.
3. WIDER PARTICIPATION
Too often trade unions are dominated by a handful of extremists who do not reflect the common-sense views of most union members.
Wider use of secret ballots for decision-making throughout the trade union movement should be given every encouragement. We will therefore provide public funds for postal ballots for union elections and other important issues. Every trade unionist should be free to record his decisions as every voter has done for a hundred years in parliamentary elections, without others watching and taking note.
We welcome closer involvement of workers, whether trade unionists or not, in the decisions that affect them at their place of work. It would be wrong to impose by law a system of participation in every company. It would be equally wrong to use the pretext of encouraging genuine worker involvement in order simply to increase union power or facilitate union control of pension funds.
TOO MANY STRIKES
Further changes may be needed to encourage people to behave responsibly and keep the bargains they make at work. Many deficiencies of British industrial relations are without foreign parallel. Strikes are too often a weapon of first rather than last resort. One cause is the financial treatment of strikers and their families. In reviewing the position, therefore, we shall ensure that unions bear their fair share of the cost of supporting those of their members who are on strike.
Labour claim that industrial relations in Britain cannot be improved by changing the law. We disagree. If the law can be used to confer privileges, it can and should also be used to establish obligations. We cannot allow a repetition of the behaviour that we saw outside too many of our factories and hospitals last winter.
RESPONSIBLE PAY BARGAINING
Labour's approach to industrial relations and their disastrous economic policies have made realistic and responsible pay bargaining almost impossible. After encouraging the 'social contract' chaos of 1974-5, they tried to impose responsibility by the prolonged and rigid control of incomes. This policy collapsed last winter as we warned that it would. The Labour government then came full circle with the announcement of yet another 'social contract' with the unions. For five years now, the road to ruin has been paved with such exchanges of promises between the Labour government and the unions.
To restore responsible pay bargaining, we must all start by recognising that Britain is a low-paid country because we have steadily become less efficient, less productive, less reliable and less competitive. Under this Government, we have more than doubled our pay but actually produced less in manufacturing industry. It will do yet further harm to go on printing money to pay ourselves more without first earning more. That would lead to even higher prices, fewer jobs and falling living standards.
The return to responsibility will not be easy. It requires that people keep more of what they earn; that effort and skill earn larger rewards; and that the State leaves more resources for industry. There should also be more open and informed discussion of the Government's economic objectives (as happens, for example, in Germany and other countries) so that there is wider understanding of the consequences of unrealistic bargaining and industrial action.
Pay bargaining in the private sector should be left to the companies and workers concerned. At the end of the day, no one should or can protect them from the results of the agreements they make.
Different considerations apply to some extent to the public sector, of whose seven million workers the Government directly employs only a minority. In the great public corporations, pay bargaining should be governed, as in private ones, by what each can afford. There can be no question of subsidising excessive pay deals.
Pay bargaining in central and local government, and other services such as health and education, must take place within the limits of what the taxpayer and ratepayer can afford. It is conducted under a variety of arrangements, some of long standing, such as pay research. In consultation with the unions, we will reconcile these with the cash limits used to control public spending, and seek to conclude no-strike agreements in a few essential services. Bargaining must also be put on a sounder economic footing, so that public sector wage settlements take full account of supply and demand md diflerences between regions, manning levels, job security and pension arrangements.
3. A more prosperous country
LABOUR HAVE GONE to great lengths to try to conceal the damage they have done to the economy and to our prospects of economic expansion. Even in the depression of the 19305 the British economy progressed more than it has under this Labour government. Their favourite but totally false excuse is that their appalling record is all due to the oil crisis and the world-wide economic depression. Yet since the oil crisis, despite our coal, and gas and oil from the North Sea, prices and unemployment in Britain have risen by more than in almost any other major industrial country. And output has risen by less. With much poorer energy supplies than Britain, the others have nonetheless done much better because they have not had a Labour government or suffered from Labour's mistakes.
To become more prosperous, Britain must become more productive and the British people must be given more incentive.
CUTTING INCOME TAX
We shall cut income tax at all levels to reward hard work, responsibility and success; tackle the poverty trap; encourage saving and the wider ownership of property; simplify taxes - like VAT; and reduce tax bureaucracy.
It is especially important to cut the absurdly high marginal rates of tax both at the bottom and top of the income scale. It must pay a man or woman significantly more to be in, rather than out of; work. Raising tax thresholds will let the low-paid out of the tax net altogether, and unemployment and short-term sickness benefit must be brought into the computation of annual income.
The top rate of income tax should be cut to the European average and the higher tax bands widened. To encourage saving we will reduce the burden of the investment income surcharge. This will greatly help those pensioners who pay this additional tax on the income from their life-time savings, and who suffer so badly by comparison with members of occupational or inflation-proofed pension schemes.
Growing North Sea oil revenues and reductions in Labour s public spending plans Will not be enough to pay for the income tax cuts the country needs. We must therefore be prepared to switch to some extent from taxes on earnings to taxes on spending. Value Added Tax does not apply, and will not be extended, to necessities like food, fuel, housing and transport. Moreover the levels of State pensions and other benefits take price rises into account.
Labour's extravagance and incompetence have once again imposed a heavy burden on ratepayers this year. But cutting income tax must take priority for the time being over abolition of the domestic rating system.
A PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY
Unlike Labour, we want more people to have the security and satisfaction of owning property Our proposals for encouraging home ownership are contained in Chapter 5.
We reject Labour's plan for a Wealth Tax. We shall deal with the most damaging features of the Capital Transfer and Capital Gains Taxes, and propose a simpler and less oppressive system of capital taxation in the longer term. We will expand and build on existing schemes for encouraging employee share-ownership and our tax policies generally will provide incentive to save and build up capital.
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND JOBS
Lower taxes on earnings and savings will encourage economic growth.
But on their own they will not be enough to secure it.
Profits are the foundation of a free enterprise economy. In Britain
profits are still dangerously low. Price controls can prevent
them from reaching a level adequate for the investment we need.
In order to ensure effective competition and fair pricing policies,
we will review the working of the Monopolies Commission, the Office
of Fair Trading and the Price Commission, with the legislation
which governs their activities.
Too much emphasis has been placed on attempts to preserve existing
jobs. We need to concentrate more on the creation of conditions
in which new, more modern, more secure, better paid jobs come
into existence. This is the best way of helping the unemployed
and those threatened with the loss of their jobs in the future.
Government strategies and plans cannot produce revival, nor can
subsidies. Where it is in the national interest to help a firm
in difficulties, such help must be temporary and tapered.
We all hope that those firms which are at present being helped
by the taxpayer will soon be able to succeed by themselves; but
success or failure lies in their own hands.
Of course, government can help to ease industrial change in those
regions dependent on older, declining industries. We do not propose
sudden, sharp changes in the measures now in force. However, there
is a strong case for relating government assistance to projects
more closely to the number of jobs they create.
NATIONALISATION
The British people strongly oppose Labour's plans to nationalise
yet more firms and industries such as building, banking, insurance,
pharmaceuticals and road haulage. More nationalisation would further
impoverish us and further undermine our freedom. We will offer
to sell back to private ownership the recently nationalised aerospace
and shipbuilding concerns, giving their employees the opportunity
to purchase shares.
We aim to sell shares in the National Freight Corporation to the
general public in order to achieve substantial private investment
in it. We will also relax the Traffic Commissioner licensing regulations
to enable new bus and other services to develop-particularly in
rural areas-and we will encourage new private operators.
Even where Labour have not nationalised they interfere too much.
We shall therefore amend the '975 Industry Act and restrict the
powers of the National Enterprise Board solely to the administration
of the Government's temporary shareholdings, to be sold off as
circumstances permit. We want to see those industries that remain
nationalised running more successfully and we will therefore interfere
less with their management and set them a clearer financial discipline
in which to work.
High productivity is the key to the future of industries like
British Rail, where improvements would benefit both the work-force
and passengers who have faced unprecedented fare increases over
the last five years.
FAIR TRADE
Just as we reject nationalisation, so we are opposed to the other
Socialist panacea-import controls. They would restrict consumer
choice, raise prices and invite damaging retaliation against British
goods overseas. We will vigorously oppose all kinds of dumping
and other unfair foreign trade practices that undermine jobs at
home.
We fully support the renegotiated Multi-fibre Arrangement for
textiles and will insist that it is monitored effectively and
speedily. We also believe in a revised 'safeguard' clause under
GATT, to give us a better defence against sudden and massive surges
of imports that destroy jobs.
SMALL BUSINESSES
The creation of new jobs depends to a great extent on the success
of smaller businesses. They have been especially hard hit under
Labour. Our cuts in direct and capital taxation, the simplification
of VAT and our general economic and industrial relations policies
are the key to their future. We shall make planning restraints
less rigid; reduce the number of official forms and make them
simpler; provide safeguards against unfair competition from direct
labour; review the new 714 Certificate system for subcontractors
and review with representatives of the self-employed their National
Insurance and pension position. We shall amend laws such as the
Employment Protection Act where they damage smaller businesses-and
larger ones too-and actually prevent the creation of jobs.
We shall also undertake a thorough review of the enforcement procedures
of Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue, and introduce an
easier regime for small firms in respect of company law and the
disclosure of their affairs.
ENERGY
The development of our energy resources provides a challenge for
both our nationalised industries and the private sector. Nowhere
has private enterprise been more successful in creating jobs and
wealth for the nation than in bringing North Sea oil and gas ashore.
These benefits will be short-lived unless we pursue a vigorous
policy for energy saving. Labour's interference has discouraged
investment and could cost Britain billions of pounds in lost revenue.
We shall undertake a complete review of all the activities of
the British National Oil Corporation as soon as we take office.
We shall ensure that our oil tax and licensing policies encourage
new production.
We believe that a competitive and efficient coal industry has
an important role in meeting energy demand, together with a proper
contribution from nuclear power. All energy developments raise
important environmental issues, and we shall ensure the fullest
public participation in major new decisions.
AGRICULTURE
Our agricultural and food industries are as important and as efficient
as any that we have. They make an immense contribution to our
balance of payments; they provide jobs for millions of people
and they sustain the economy of the countryside. Labour have seriously
undermined the profitability of these industries, without protecting
consumers against rising food prices which have more than doubled
during their term of office. We must ensure that these industries
have the means to keep abreast of those in other countries.
We believe that radical changes in the operation of the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) are necessary. We would, in particular,
aim to devalue the Green Pound within the normal lifetime of a
Parliament to a point which would enable our producers to compete
on level terms with those in the rest of the Community. We will
insist on a freeze in CAP prices for products in structural surplus.
This should be maintained until the surpluses are eliminated.
We could not entertain discriminatory proposals such as those
which the Commission recently put forward for milk production.
The Uplands are an important part of our agriculture. Those who
live and work there should enjoy a reasonable standard of life.