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By Root 2712 0

1981 to build up — steadily and unprovocatively — the stocks of coal which would allow the country to endure a coal strike. We were to hear a lot of the word ‘endurance’ over the next few months. To maximize endurance it was vital that coal stocks be in place at the power stations and not at the pit heads, from which miners’ pickets could make movement impossible. But coal stocks were not the only element determining power station endurance. Some Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) power stations were oil fired. Ordinarily they were used only part of the time, to meet peak demand, but if needed they could be run continuously to help meet the ‘base load’ — that element of electricity demand that is more or less constant. ‘Oilburn’ was expensive, but would add significantly to the system’s ability to withstand a strike. An additional advantage was that oil supplies to the power stations were relatively secure. Nuclear-powered stations, providing about 14 per cent of supply, were mostly some distance away from the coal fields and of course their primary fuel supply was also secure. Over the next few years more Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs) would be coming on stream and would steadily reduce our dependence on coal-fired power. We were still building a cross-Channel link which would allow us to buy power from France, though we already had a link in operation between the English and Scottish systems (‘the Scottish interconnector’). We also did our best to encourage industry to hold more stocks.

Danger began to loom in the autumn of 1983. Peter Walker was now Secretary of State for Energy, a job to which I had appointed him after the general election in June. As he had shown at Agriculture in our first Parliament, he was a tough negotiator. He was also a skilled communicator, something which I knew would be important if we were to retain public support in the coal strike which the militants would some day force upon us. Peter regularly telephoned newspaper editors in person to put over our case. This was never my preferred way, but I recognized its effectiveness during the strike. Unfortunately, Peter Walker never really got on with Ian MacGregor, and this sometimes created tensions.

Ian MacGregor took over as Chairman of the NCB on 1 September. He had been an excellent Chairman of the British Steel Corporation, turning the Corporation around after the damaging three-month steel strike in 1980. If Britain’s coal industry was ever to become a successful business rather than a system of outdoor relief, he had the experience and determination to make this happen. Unlike the militant miners’ leaders, Ian MacGregor genuinely wanted to see a thriving coal industry making good use of investment, technology and human resources. Perhaps his greatest quality was courage. Within the NCB itself he often found himself surrounded by people who had made their careers in an atmosphere of appeasement and collaboration with the NUM and who greatly resented the changed atmosphere he brought with him. Yet it transpired that Ian MacGregor was strangely lacking in guile. He was quite used to dealing with financial difficulties and hard bargaining. But he had no experience of dealing with trade union leaders intent on using the process of negotiation to score political points. Time and again he and his colleagues were outmanoeuvred by Arthur Scargill and the NUM leadership. During the strike Peter Walker and I followed with constant anxiety every phase of the battle for public opinion. The NUM leadership used every device to distort the truth and misinform the public and their own members.

On Friday 21 October 1983 an NUM delegate conference voted for a ban on overtime in protest at the Board’s 5.2 per cent pay offer and at prospective pit closures. In itself, with coal stocks as high as they were, an overtime ban was unlikely to have much effect. It probably had an ulterior purpose: to increase tension among the miners and so make them more prepared for a strike when the NUM leadership thought that one could successfully be engineered.