Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [426]
Alan Walters had been urging from the previous autumn that all the nuclear power stations should be removed from the privatization. As so often, he turned out to be right. It was never a matter of safety, which could perfectly well have been ensured in the private sector, but rather of cost. The figures for decommissioning the other power stations started to look uncertain and then to escalate, just as those for Magnox had done. John Wakeham recommended and I agreed that all nuclear power in England and Wales should be retained in state control. One consequence of this was that Walter Marshall, who naturally wanted to retain the nuclear provinces in his empire, decided to resign, about which I was very sad. But the other consequence was that privatization could now proceed, as it did, with great success, to the benefit of customers, shareholders and the Exchequer.
The result of Cecil Parkinson’s ingenious reorganization of that industry on competitive lines is that Britain now has perhaps the most efficient electricity supply industry in the world. And as a result of the transparency required by privatization we also became the first country in the world to investigate the full costs of nuclear power — and then to make proper financial provision for them.
PLANS FOR FURTHER PRIVATIZATION
I have already mentioned the impact electricity privatization would have on the coal industry. Clearly, a privately owned electricity industry would be much more demanding in the commercial terms it expected from the NCB than would a state-owned monopoly. But in any case I always wanted to have the coal industry return to the private sector. In November 1990, not long before I left Downing Street, John Wakeham and I discussed the prospects for coal privatization, though not the detailed means. I felt that a combination of trade sales to companies with mining interests with special terms for the miners to buy shares would probably be the best way forward. How many of the pits had a long-term commercial future was unclear. We were still mining too much high-cost, deep-mined coal — a situation which had come about because of the protected and monopolistic market the nationalized coal industry had enjoyed. So there would have to be closures.
But — both when Cecil was Energy Secretary and when John succeeded him — I never had regard to the commercial aspects alone. The memories of the year-long coal strike were unforgettably etched on my mind. I kept in touch with Roy Lynk, the Nottinghamshire leader of the UDM, who knew that he could speak to me, if and when he needed, and I made sure that both Cecil and John understood my feelings about the need to protect the interests of his members. First, I felt a strong sense of obligation and loyalty to the Nottinghamshire miners who had stayed at work in spite of all the violence the militants threw at them. And, second, I also knew we might have to face another strike. Where would we be if we had closed the pits at which moderate miners would have gone on working, and kept more profitable but more left-wing pits open?
I also refused to allow the NCB to sidestep the agreed procedure of referring closures to the independent colliery review body, which had been set up as part of the settlement of the miners’ strike. I had learned from hard experience that you must never allow yourself to be manoeuvred into taking drastic action on pit closures when a steady, low-key approach will secure what is needed over a somewhat longer period. In dealing with the coal industry you must have the mentality of a general as much as that of an accountant. And the generalship must often be Fabian rather than Napoleonic.
The other privatization project which I was considering at this time was that of British Rail. BR’s subsidiaries had already been sold. It was the main businesses we had now to consider. Cecil Parkinson and I considered how to proceed in October 1990. Cecil was keen to privatize the separate rail businesses — like Inter-City, Freight, Network